The novel ‘Ailment’ shows the life of the Kyiv intelligentsia and artistic circles of the 1920s. The main character of the novel is the director of the plant Ivan Orlovets. His life is perfectly ordered and rational: work, home, family, and ahead is the systematic construction of a ‘bright post-revolutionary future.’ However, despite the apparent stability and systematicity, this construction is very shaky. One evening at the opera, where his friends drag him, he sees the famous singer Iryna Zavadska. This meeting turns the hero's life upside down and poses the question: if the new era is so beautiful, why does a person live a gray, miserable and unhappy life?