The young peasant girl Rosana, the daughter of a retired Izlet soldier, loves the courtyard Beloved, released into the wild. Their wedding is a long-settled business, it remains only to wait out a short summer post and - down the aisle.
However, the local master Shchedrov has long been looking at Rozana and is looking for an opportunity to reveal his love to her.
The play opens with an ingenuous song that Rosana sings: she brought breakfast to her Beloved. He lives with his uncle, a fisherman, and also hunts fishing. “Poor thing,” she pities her lover. “I am drinking tea, he is now exhausted, tired, hungry <...> How boring I am without him ... It seems that everything around me is sad and everything, as if before a bad weather, has frowned ...”
From morning hunting, master Shchedrov returns: with his kennels and packs of hounds, he crosses a wooden bridge over the river. Rosana is frightened of other men and hides in a nearby grove. Shchedrov drives up, talks with forester Semyon and, wishing that he helped him in matters of love, orders to bring vodka to Semyon. A well-known lover of partying, Simon is touched by the generosity of the master and after the second glass promises him all kinds of help. The hunters drive off.
On the boat fishermen swim. His beloved is catching the nets and the morning catch, he was unusually lucky today, he sold part of the catch on the spot. Rosana comes out of her hiding place, examines the caught fish and admires it: “Ah, hazel, hazel! What a pattern, like gold! My darling! He is sorry for me, let him go into the river again! ” We love her corrects: “It is fun to him that you admire him, Rosanushka! In your hands every thing is having fun! ” But Rosana seizes the moment and really releases the bream back into the river.
The return of the hunters violates this idyll: Shchedrov’s clock stopped, and therefore he missed the return time for lunch, but he was even satisfied: there is reason to talk with the drunkard forester Semyon and ask him something about the rural beauty he liked. The forester is really here, in a clearing, chopping wood. Shchedrov orders a third time to bring him wine, to which he approvingly remarks: "I, de, they say, love the Trinity." Barin inquires in detail about Rosan and in the end asks the forester to help him see the girl. The forester silently shows signs on a hut in which Rosana and Lyubim hid, having decided to wait out an undesirable meeting with hunters. Shchedrov realizes that the girl is here, makes the lovers go out and begins to flirt with Rozana. We love more and more numb from the playful conversation of the girl with the gentleman and sadly pulls Rozana by the sleeve: “let's go, say, from here,” but Rozana fearlessly enters into an exchange of barbs, and her witty answers inflame Shchedrov’s love heat.
“You are beautiful as the sun!” Exclaims Shchedrov admiringly. “Look, don’t burn yourself, master,” the girl suspects. “So you still laugh, thankless Rosana! I was so sad, tormented, I purposely came here to see you! ” “With the dogs ?!” - Rozana parrots smartly. “Why am I a hare?”
Shchedrov invites her to her, promises to bestow, make her mistress. “The gentlemen <...> do not like anything for a long time. So why should I out of fun and boredom ?! ” “I'm in love with you to death!” - assures the gentleman of passion. “No,” the peasant answers him, “I do not believe ...”.
“Oh, how good! Let me kiss you! ” - Schedrov rushes to her. But here we can’t stand it anymore. Realizing that the game has gone far, he insistently offers Rosana to leave. “Who the hell is that?” - "My favorite!" - proudly replies Rosana. "Do you really prefer him to me?" In response, Rosana begins to praise her fiancé. The infuriated gentleman orders the kennel to push the girl into his carriage, and to keep his beloved until they leave for a decent distance. The girl is taken away, the kennel hold the beloved tightly
The forester is cheerful, sings jokes, with the money he received for helping the master, he has acquired a large bottle of wine, jokingly and ceremoniously bows before her, calling him "his hostess." In conclusion, he philosophically remarks: "No, he who invented the intoxicated one was intelligent wherever he was!"
Sister Rosana Milena appears, and almost after her their father, a retired soldier, Islet. They torture the forester if he doesn’t know anything about Rosana. He did not immediately, but nevertheless says that he was taken away by the neighbor gentleman. An outburst laments: “An honest and laudable neighbor in the whole neighborhood ?! Here is the virtue of noble boyars: if they don’t ruin the neighbors, they take the girls away! .. Not a Christian! He doesn’t know that honor is also dear to us! .. ” Semyon pleads with him: “What do you owe! She may live in mistresses, and you fight like over the dead! .. ”-“ It would be easier for me to see her in the tomb, ”Izlet says distressedly,“ rather than in shame. ” Izlet decides to seek justice for the predator: “I also saw the Sovereigns, I shed my blood for them ... I will find a court on the nobleman. I suppose it’s going to shake and the nobleman with such a thing stand before the court of the earthly god! .. The Tsarina is the same mother for us, ”concludes Izlet. The Forester reluctantly agrees to go help his relative to rescue Rosan. But he reasonably adds, “what is high to God, and far to the king.”
Glade in front of the house of Shchedrov. Rosana, dressed up in master's clothes, zealously guarded by handmaids, twists and cries. In the distance, the choir sings about the free life in nature and the emptiness and bustle of urban life. Generous torn apart by conflicting feelings. He seems, as usual, ready to agree with the singers. On the other hand, his eccentric act, in which he already repents, put him on the brink of crime. "I started as a joke, end with passion and make a crime." He seems to be glad to turn everything back, but he has gone far, and Rozana is driving him crazy.
Through the system of watchmen breaks Love. Shchedrov orders him to be chained. The master himself dares to finally approach the angry and saddened Rosana and repeats to her about his love. Rosana cries and asks to let her go. Shchedrov begs to believe him and, as a sign of proof of his love, kneels before her. Exactly, Izlet, Milena, and the forester, who appeared after some time, find this. Seeing father and sister, Rosana begins to sob inconsolably, and Izlet also kneels and begs the gentleman to let them go. Suddenly, ringing with chains, the Beloved comes running: he scattered the guard. Now everyone is on their knees and, interrupting each other, indistinctly singing a pleading song. Shchedrov’s heart does not bear the lamentations of a whole quartet: he orders to relax Lyubim, gives freedom to Rosana, asks everyone for forgiveness, and gives the soldier, admiring his virtue and courage of his daughter, one hundred rubles. “The virtue of inequalities does not know,” Shchedrov concludes. “In vain, our pride takes advantage of itself: nature is the same everywhere!”
“Perhaps a man / Soul is so great, / As a ruler of strong kingdoms!” - the choir sings. Finally, Shchedrov reads moralizing to forester Semyon: “The penny you received for your labors is priceless than the ruble gained for doing nothing!” The crafty forester mutters in amazement towards the audience: “He must be from a hangover!” Left alone, Semyon sings a laudable song of guilt: “What in life - I do not know? - priceless wine. Wine is more expensive than sleep! ” This fun maxim completes the comedy.
