Zeugen der Zeit

The novel begins with a crime: the enormous coachman Pachom, disheveled, ill-tempered, and hungover, accidentally kills the puppy Muschka with his huge boots. The daughter of the household, Natascha, is inconsolable and loses her faith in goodness: "If someone can kill Muschka, then it means - anything is possible!" Natascha grows up, graduates from high school, attends lectures in philosophy - she is particularly fascinated by the German fashion philosopher of that time, Friedrich Nietzsche - and loses her faith in God. "Natascha Kalymowa grew up in the days of Russian heroism, when it first flared up. But that spring was too short, the frost returned too quickly, and it was the young plants that suffered the most." The young woman from a good family soon dreams of not just debating these ideas.