Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky, aka Teenager, tells in his notes about himself and recent events in which he was one of the main participants. He is twenty years old, he just graduated from a gymnasium in Moscow, but he decided to postpone his admission to the university so as not to be distracted from the realization of the cherished idea, which he had been bearing from almost sixth grade.
His idea is to become Rothschild, that is, to save a lot of money, and with money to gain power and solitude. With people, Arkady, according to his admission, is difficult, he is lost, it seems to him that they are laughing at him, he begins to assert himself and becomes too expansive. It was no accident that the idea crept into his soul. Arkady is the late son of the noble nobleman Andrei Petrovich Versilov and his yard, which gives rise to an inferiority complex in him, the teenager, proud and proud. He has a different surname - his formal father, also the yard Versilov, Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, but this is only an additional reason for humiliation - when meeting him, they often ask him again: Prince Dolgoruky?
Before high school, he was brought up in the boarding house of the Frenchman Tushar, where he underwent many humiliations due to his illegitimate birth. All this made him especially impressionable and vulnerable. Once, having come to his half-brother, the legitimate son of Versilov, to receive money sent by his father, he was not accepted, although his brother was at home, the money was transferred through a footman, which caused an uproar in Arcadia. His pride is constantly on the alert and easily snagged, but, kind and enthusiastic by nature, with a friendly and benevolent attitude towards him, he quickly turns from love and dislike to love and adoration.
He arrives in Petersburg at the invitation of his father in order to enter the service. In addition, his mother lives there, the meek and pious Sofya Andreevna, and his sister Liza, and most importantly, his father - Andrei Petrovich Versilov, who belongs to the highest Russian cultural type of “worldwide pain for all.” Versilov professes the idea of spiritual nobility, the highest aristocracy of the spirit, considers the “supreme reconciliation of ideas” and “world citizenship” as the highest Russian cultural thought.
In the heart of the Teenager, he occupies a huge place. Brought up by strangers, Arkady only once saw his father, and he made an indelible impression on him. “Every dream of mine, from childhood, responded to them: it hovered around it, came down to it in the final result. I don’t know if I hated or loved him, but he filled all my future with me, all my calculations for life. ” He thinks a lot about him, trying to understand what kind of person he is, he collects rumors and opinions of different people about him. Versilov for him is an ideal: beauty, intelligence, depth, aristocracy ... And especially - the nobility, which nonetheless is constantly being called into question by Arkady.
Arkady arrives in St. Petersburg wary-aggressive towards Versilov. He wants to crush the slander against him, crush his enemies, but at the same time suspects him of low and dishonorable acts. He wants to know the whole truth about him. He has heard about his piety and passion for Catholicism, something is known about his proposal to Lidia Akhmakova, as well as about the slap in the face of Prince Sergei Sokolsky, to which Versilov did not answer. After some scandalous act, Versilov was expelled from high society, but everything is covered in fog and mystery.
Arkady is identified as secretary to Versilov’s former friend, old Prince Nikolai Ivanovich Sokolsky, who becomes attached to a smart and impetuous young man. However, he soon refuses the place out of pride, especially since the prince’s beautiful daughter Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova, who has been in a long-standing hostile relationship with Versilov, accuses Arkady of espionage.
By chance, two important letters turn out to be in Arkady’s hands: it follows from one that the succession process won by Versilov with the princes Sokolsky may not be reviewed in his favor. The second, written by Katerina Nikolaevna, refers to the dementia of her father, the old prince Sokolsky, and the need to take him into custody. The letter is capable of provoking the wrath of the old prince with dire consequences for his daughter, namely the deprivation of inheritance. This "document", around which the main intrigue spins, is sewn up in Arkady's lining of his frock coat, although to everyone, including Katerina Nikolaevna, he says that the letter was burned by his acquaintance Kraft (he handed it over to Arkady), who soon shot himself.
The first explanation with Versilov leads to a temporary reconciliation, although Arkady’s attitude to his father remains wary. He acts as a demon-tempter, giving Versilov a letter of inheritance, believing that he will withhold it, and justifying it in advance. In addition, in order to defend the honor of his father, he decides to challenge Prince Sergey Sokolsky, who once slapped Versilov, to a duel.
Arkady goes to the acquaintance Vasin to ask to be a second, and there he meets his stepfather, the swindler Stebelkov, from whom he learns about the baby Versilov from Lidia Akhmakova. Immediately in the next room a scandal is played out, also somehow mysteriously connected with Versilov. Soon Arkady will find the continuation of this scandal in his mother’s apartment, where he accidentally comes along with the young girl Olya, who angrily accuses Versilov of baseness and throws the money given to him, and later commits suicide. In the soul of the Teenager is troubled. Versilov appears as a secret corrupter. Indeed, Arkady himself is the fruit of Versilov’s sinful passion for someone else’s wife, which he takes away from his legal husband. Where is the honor? Where is the debt? Where is the nobility? ..
Arkady finally expresses to his father everything that has accumulated in his soul over the years of humiliation, suffering and reflection, and announces his break with Versilov, so that he can proudly retire to his corner and hide there. He does not leave the thought of a duel with Prince Sergey Sokolsky and challenges him, but he expresses his deep remorse and no less deep respect for Versilov himself. They part with great friends. It immediately becomes known that Versilov refused the inheritance in favor of the princes. It turns out that he was not guilty of the suicide of Olya either: the money was given to her completely disinterestedly, as a help, but she, already several times becoming the object of heinous attacks, understood his act wrongly.
Two months pass, Arkady dressed up as a dandy and leads the most secular way of life, taking money from Prince Sergei Sokolsky at the expense of those who are supposed to rely on Versilov. His main hobby is playing roulette. He often plays, but that does not stop him. Versilov from time to time comes to Arkady to talk. The closest and trusting relationship is established between father and son. Friendly relations are established between Arkady and Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakova.
Meanwhile, it becomes known that the legal daughter of Versilov, the half-sister of Arkady Anna Andreevna, intends to marry the old Prince Sokolsky and is extremely concerned about the issue of inheritance. The document defaming the daughter of Prince Akhmakova is important to her, and she is extremely interested in him.
Once Katerina Nikolaevna appoints Arkady a meeting with his aunt Tatyana Pavlovna Prutkova. He flies winged and, catching her alone, is inspired even more by dreaming that he has been assigned a love date. Yes, he suspected her of cunning, of wanting to find out about the document, but now, fascinated by her innocence and cordiality, delightfully composes a hymn to her beauty and chastity. She slightly removes the too flustered young man, although she does not at all try to extinguish the fire that broke out in him.
In a semi-hot state, Arkady plays roulette and wins a lot of money. During a hysterical explanation with Prince Seryozha, who offended Arkady that he turned away from him in the gambling hall, he learns that Sister Lisa is pregnant from the prince. Stunned, Arkady gives him everything he won. Arkady tells Versilov in full detail about a meeting with Akhmakova, and he sends her an angry, insulting letter. Having learned about the letter, Arkady longs to explain himself to Katerina Nikolaevna, but she avoids it. Arkady plays roulette again and wins again, but he is unfairly accused of stealing other people's money and pushed out of the gaming room.
Impressed by the humiliation experienced, he falls asleep in the cold, he dreams of a boarding house where both Tushar and his friend Lambert offended him, he wakes up from someone’s blows and sees ... Lambert. An old friend brings him to his house, gives him a drink of wine, and Arkady in a fit of frankness tells him about the fateful document. From this moment, the villain Lambert begins to weave his vile intrigues, trying to use Arcadia.
In turn, Prince Sergei Sokolsky, an impudent, but weak-character man, is somehow involved in the forgery of shares, which is involved in the swindle Stebelkov, who also weaves his networks around the hero. Not devoid of conscience and honor, the prince goes to the police and confesses everything. Arrested, he, however, commits another vile thing - out of jealousy he brings to Vasin, who owns a seditious manuscript given to him by Lisa and from her already brought to Sokolsky. As a result, Vasin was also arrested.
In the same days, seriously ill Arkady met his legitimate father Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, a handsome and pious old man, who had gathered in wanderings for the construction of the church, and now, due to his illness, he had stayed with his mother Arkady. During their conversations, a wise old man sheds light on his soul.
The arrival of the old prince Sokolsky with Anna Andreevna is supposed, and they intend to place the prince in the same apartment where Arkady lives, in the hope that he will not stand it, seeing the prince in a state of fear and depression, and will show him a letter from Akhmakova. Meanwhile, Makar Ivanovich dies, as a result of which Versilov gets the opportunity to enter into legal marriage with his mother Arkady. But in him a frenzied passion for Akhmakova flares up again, bringing him to insanity. In front of the whole family, he splits an icon, especially dear to Sofia Andreyevna, bequeathed to him by Makar Ivanovich, and leaves. Arkady searches for him and overhears Versilov’s explanation with Akhmakova. He is shocked by the passion of his father, in which love and hate fight. Akhmakova admits that she once loved him, but now she definitely doesn’t love him, and she marries Baron Bjoring because she will be calm for him.
Compassion for his father and wanting to save him, while hating and at the same time jealous of Akhmakova, confused in her own feelings, Arkady runs to Lambert and discusses with him actions against Akhmakova in order to disgrace her. Lambert solders the Teenager and at night with the help of his mistress Alfonsinki steals a document, stitching an empty piece of paper instead.
The next day, the old Prince Sokolsky arrives. Anna Andreyevna is trying in every possible way to influence her brother, but Arkady, repenting after desperate frankness with Lambert, categorically refuses to act against Akhmakova. Meanwhile, Björing bursts into the apartment and takes the prince by force. Defending the honor of Anna Andreevna now, Arkady is trying to fight, but to no avail. He is taken to the site.
Soon he was released, and he learns that Lambert and Versilov lured Katerina Nikolaevna to her aunt Arkady Tatyana Pavlovna. He hurries there and keeps up with the most critical minutes: Lambert, threatening with a document and then with a revolver, extorts money from Akhmakova. At this moment Versilov, who was hiding, runs out, takes away the revolver and stuns Lambert with it. Katerina Nikolaevna faints in horror. Versilov grabs her in his arms and carries it pointlessly in his arms, and then puts his victim on the bed and, suddenly remembering the revolver, wants to shoot first at her, and then at himself. During the struggle with Arkady and the Trishatovs who came to his aid, he tries to commit suicide, but falls not in the heart, but on the shoulder.
After the crisis, Versilov stays with Sofya Andreevna, Akhmakova breaks up with Bjoring, and the Teenager, who has not renounced his idea, is now, however, "in a completely different form", persuaded to go to university. These notes, according to the hero, served as his reeducation - "it is a process of recall and recording."
