Nestor Petrovich, the best graduate of the Faculty of History and a promising young scientist, does not even doubt his scientific future. Admission to graduate school is a formality, and the only competitor, a rural teacher, evokes pity in everyone. Who could have thought that this competitor would be his beloved girl, who, moreover, is not inferior in knowledge? The plans will be destroyed one after another, and a career as a teacher in a simple evening school looms on the horizon, where most of the students are much older than Nestor himself.