Two people, weak, vulnerable, unsettled, fill Anna’s life - her father and her lover. Is she right or wrong in her persistent attempts to tear them out of everyday life? How does altruism develop into tyranny? To impose on your loved ones a course of action that does not correspond to their mental make-up—doesn’t this mean replacing oneself with the Lord God? The novel was first published in Russian in the magazine “Foreign Literature”, 1975, No. 8.