This novel is the author’s attempt to return to a bygone century. From the height of this century, it seems strange and even fabulous. Our grandmothers lived in it: they fell in love, started a family and believed in a happy future... The little girl Augustine settles with her father in a city with the strange name Lyubim. She once heard that her mother was a lady of “blue blood.” Therefore, she tries her best to comply: she diligently learns everything that is taught to the children of police officer Sychev, in whose house she lives. Will this knowledge be useful to her? After all, the beginning of the twentieth century is an era of turbulent events and the collapse of all the foundations of life.