The story “The Mister from San Francisco” takes place on a large passenger ship called Atlantis, sailing from America to Europe. An unnamed gentleman from the city of San Francisco, who until the age of 58 “did not live, but only existed,” winning material well-being and position in society, goes with his wife and daughter on a long journey around the world to get all the pleasures that money can buy . But, never realizing his dream, he suddenly dies on the island of Capri. "Atlantis" in Bunin's view is a model of an existing society, where the hold and the upper decks live completely different lives. The passengers at the top are carefree, eating and drinking. They forget about God, about death, about repentance and have fun to the music that sounds in “some kind of sweet, shameless sadness,” they deceive themselves with false love and behind all this they do not see the true meaning of life. And at this time, below, the stokers are working at the hellish furnaces... Using the example of a gentleman from San Francisco, to whom the author did not even give a name, we see how insignificant before death the power and money of a man who lives for himself. He hasn't done anything really important or worthwhile, he's useless to society. His life passes aimlessly, and when he dies, no one will remember that he existed. Late at night, the Atlantis steamer with the body of a gentleman from San Francisco sails back to the New World. “The countless fiery eyes of the ship were barely visible behind the snow to the Devil, who was watching from the rocks of Gibraltar, from the rocky gates of two worlds, the ship leaving into the night and blizzard. The devil was huge, like a cliff, but the ship was also huge, multi-tiered, multi-pipe, created by the pride of the New Man with an old heart.”