The hero of the novel “Ai-Petri”, having experienced a personal drama, sets off - like many of his predecessors from classical literature - on a journey to “get away from himself” and “find himself”. This is how the “story on the mountain” about love begins. It is love that becomes the real and metaphysical guide of the hero. Two images - a mysterious stranger, beautiful and ugly at the same time (half of her face is disfigured), and her constant companion - a frightening, death-bringing wolfhound - become a symbol of the mental split of the narrator himself and the irresistible connection between love and death.