Young Nikosha Gogol arrives for summer holidays at his family estate Vasilievka. He is met by his adored mother and sister. They are all trying to please Nikosha, to treat him with something tasty. On a walk in the city, they meet their neighbors - Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna, two old men who tenderly love and touchingly care for each other, and Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich, two soulmates, whose relationship will soon face a serious test. And Gogol is bored in a cramped little world, he dreams of completely different people and relationships.

The young man falls ill and, in a feverish delirium, the heroes of his future works come to him - and Gorodnichiy, And Ivan Ivanovich with Ivan Nikiforovich, and the assessors, and Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasy Ivanovich, and Bashmachkin ... And there arises in his mind MAREVO, the interweaving of reality and fantasy , juicy, bright Ukrainian small local life and phantasmagoria.