Like a flock of ravens "on piles of smoldering bones", a gang of robbers flies to the Volga. Here are people of different "tribes, dialects, conditions" - fugitives from the Don, long-haired outcast Jews, inhabitants of the steppes, gypsies, Finns.

Danger, blood, debauchery, deceit -
The essence of the bonds of a terrible family.

It is late night. Moonlight illuminates the robbers spread around the fire. Some are already asleep, "for others, tales of a gloomy night reduce an idle hour." Everyone fell silent and listen to the sad story of a robber who recently appeared in a gang.

The robber and his younger brother grew up orphaned by strangers. From early childhood, they fully understood hunger and want, contempt and envy. Having grown up, the brothers decided "to test another lot."

As comrades, we took
Damask knife and dark night;
Forgot shyness and sorrow
And conscience was driven away.

The brothers' distant youth passed in robberies, robbery and noisy revelry. Finally, the fellows caught, the blacksmith chained them to each other, and "the guard took to prison."

The narrator, being five years older, was able to make a conclusion, but his brother was exhausted. He was tormented by intense heat. Soon the young man ceased to recognize his brother.It seemed to him that his brother had taught him robbery and an unrighteous life, and then he threw him in prison, he himself enjoys the will and has already forgotten about it.

Then flared up in him again
The pesky conscience of torment:
Ghosts crowded before him,
Shaking a finger from afar.

Those were all his innocent victims. More often than not, the younger brother was an old man who had long been stabbed to death by his brothers. Frightened, the patient closed his eyes with his hands and asked the narrator not to touch the old man.

Soon, youth took its toll - the strength of the younger brother was restored. Now the brothers were tormented by longing for the will, the light of which they saw only through the window grill.

Once, gathering alms on the street for a city prison, the brothers decided to “fulfill a long-standing desire.” They ran to the river and sailed to a sandy islet. Even the heavy chains did not stop the brothers on the path to freedom. The robbers freed themselves from their shackles, threw stones at the guards who rushed in pursuit, moved to the opposite bank and disappeared into the forest.

But poor brother ...
And labor, and the waves of autumn cold
He has been stripped of his recent strength:
Again the affliction broke him,
And evil dreams have visited.

For three days the patient did not sleep and did not speak. On the fourth day he woke up, shook his brother's hand and died on his chest.

For three nights the storyteller sat “above a cold body” in the hope that his brother would wake up, and wept bitterly. Then he dug a grave, said “a sinful prayer‹ ... ›” and buried the body in the ground over it.

The narrator returned to the robbery, but the fun of previous years went away from him - everything was taken away by his brother's grave.

Wandering gloomy, lonely
My cruel spirit has petrified
And in the heart, pity died.

Only the old robber spares.He remembers how his sick brother begged not to touch the old man, and his hand does not rise “to defenseless gray hairs”.