Set in Tiflis during the First World War, the narrative centers on Leonid, a young Russian officer wounded on the Caucasian front. While recovering in a hospital, he worries about his fiancée Irina, who has received no word from him for several days. An encounter with an educated Armenian woman, whose own fiancé is also at war, opens a quiet reflection on love, loyalty, fear of loss, and the prejudices that begin to fade through genuine human contact.