Sometimes Fate brings incredible surprises. One afternoon, the young Countess Irina Palagina went around her property, and, succumbing to a fleeting desire and seduced by the hot August rays of the sun, she decided to swim... At the same hour, Pyotr Rakotin left the neighboring property for a walk. How could he have known that in an abandoned pond he would see a wondrous vision - a beautiful mermaid? And he won’t find the strength to turn away and walk away from the pond! And everything would have worked out fine if at that same hour the mermaid’s father, the angry Count Palagin, had not appeared on the ill-fated pond...