For the first time in Russian - a landmark novel by an outstanding British writer, a recognized master of subtle psychologism. Guy Openshaw is dying, and the circle of friends and relatives, the heart of which he was, begins to crack with tension. Too many people depended on Guy - intellectually and emotionally, psychologically, and materially. And so, in a complex multi-figure ballet around a hospitable house on London's Ebury Street, the newly-made beautiful widow Gertrude, her longtime friend Anna, who left the monastery after twenty years of obedience, a noble Polish emigrant nicknamed the Count, a struggling artist Tim Reed, Guy's colleagues in the ministry find themselves involved internal affairs and many others...