Sophia Ivanovna ten years does not get up from her chair, all day looking out the window, glues paper figurines and listening to Dickens, who reads aloud to her, her only daughter Tanya.The only heiress, Tanya, whom Sophia Ivanovna must to pass all the family jewels, seems resigned to the position of an old maid, and her whole life consists only of the care of the sick mother.