In a remote village in a distant forest stands a church. Father Aleksiy serves in it, as well as a servant - Demidov - a strange man, physically very strong, not yet old, withdrawn, silent, unsociable. The only person with whom he communicates is Father Aleksiy and his wife Olga. It turns out that Demidov is a former internationalist warrior, he already had to kill more than once. Now he is tormented by an insoluble question for himself: to forgive himself, to forget everything that he saw and experienced in the war, or was it all a terrible sin.—Bazza the Beast