A lonely astronaut, in fact our contemporary with all our inherent advantages and disadvantages, returns to the Earth of the future after a relativistic stellar expedition and discovers that all the inhabitants of the Earth have become telepaths; unable to bear the fact that all his thoughts, everything that he does not like about himself, that he is ashamed of in himself, he now cannot hide from anyone, the astronaut leaves people, becoming a forester in a secluded reserve; but the society of telepaths is truly humane (“If we fail to prove to one good person that lies are not necessary for life, we are all worthless,” says one of the heroes of the story), it gradually, unobtrusively helps the alien from the past somehow adapt, and by the end of the story there is hope that the adaptation will be successful.