The heroes of the fairy tale travel through time. Moving from modern St. Petersburg to the lush capital of Catherine the Great's vast empire and back, they face the same moral problems. It doesn’t matter whether the hand is squeezing a sharp blade, drawing an elegant monogram of a madrigal, or simply turning over the pages where it is written, the souls and thoughts of the heroes are pure, and their destinies are connected with Russia. Interesting historical comments are given to the text of the fairy tale.