The main character is an intellectual from Russia, who sees it as his duty to bring an idiot from an mental institution to his house. He can pick someone out, after bribing the boss of the institution, with two bottles of vodka. He chooses Vova, at first sight a silly man, and takes him home. His wife is at first not very happy with this choice. Vova says and does nothing at all. Then he becomes an aggressive man, who terrorises the house and bashes everything to pieces. After she is raped by Vova, the wife gets sexually dependant on the Idiot. Vova isn't interested anymore, when she gets pregnant and doesn't keep the baby. The idiot goes now to the intellectual for his sexual needs. The wife can't take this anymore and forces her man to take a choice: Vova out, or she will go.

Интеллигент-гуманист берет в свою семью идиота. Для него это не столько наказание, сколько новый род жизнедеятельности - своего рода миссия. Но жизнь с идиотом полна неожиданностей. Ни герой-интеллигент, ни его молодая жена, обожающая Пруста, не ожидали, какое обольщение насилием в облике буйнопомешанного их подстерегает...