François Mauriac (1885–1970) is a famous French writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1952 “for the deep spiritual insight and artistic power with which he reflected the drama of human life in his novels.” This volume is the first complete publication of the series from four works about Teresa Desqueiro. This is the novel “Teresa Desqueiro”, its second part “The End of the Night”, which has not been reprinted since the 30s, and the stories connecting them, specially translated for this edition, “Teresa at the Doctor” and “Teresa at the Hotel”. The novel “Teresa at the Hotel” is also included. Road to Nowhere" and the writer's Nobel speech published in Russian for the first time.

The themes of the novel "Teresa Desqueiro" are sin and crime. The author is trying to find the origins of atrocities, and his search leads him to the problems of marriage in bourgeois society, problems of family and morality. Without excusing the heroine of her crime, the author also sympathizes with her, since she became a victim of philistine society. Teresa becomes the wife of a man she hates, a smug bourgeois. Her despair turns to hatred, and hatred leads to crime. It would seem that Teresa had everything a person needs to be happy. So what made her destroy her own well-being?

The novel “The End of the Night” is a continuation of the story of Teresa Desqueiro. This time you see this woman already old, standing on the verge of death. Over and over again she relives her past life - and asks the question: was there at least something bright and happy in the “eternal darkness” that she continues to consider her existence?

“Road to Nowhere” is a novel about money, or more precisely about a society where everything is determined by it, where it rules marriages and love, forces friends to betray each other, and destroys a person’s soul. It is in this novel that Mauriac, through the mouth of the poet Pierre Costado, declares: “We live in a world where the essence of everything is money.” France shortly before the First World War. The old bourgeois prejudices are still strong in provincial high society, snobbery and double morality still reign there. However, the spirit of change is already in the air, which will mercilessly destroy prejudices. Against this background, the dramatic fate of the family of the “old aristocracy” unfolds, the head of which, having squandered the entire family fortune on mistresses, went bankrupt and committed suicide, leaving his wife and children beggars. Who will break without enduring poverty and shame? Who will grit his teeth and survive difficult times to emerge as a completely new type of businessman - tenacious, cynical and ruthless? And who will find the strength to try to find a different, own path in life?