The story takes place at a steel mill in the late XIX - early XX centuries.

Rainy august morning. The factory horn is caught by engineer Andrei Ilyich Bobrov, a short, thin man with a dull appearance and a pleasant smile, over tea. Recently, Andrei Ilyich suffers from insomnia due to a long-standing habit of morphine, which Bobrov is struggling with. At seven o’clock, Beavers set off for the factory. He cannot look at life from a practical point of view, like his fellow engineers. Andrei Ilyich loathes his service at the factory and engineering, which his mother forced him to study.

Soon Bobrov opens a panorama of a huge steel mill.

Thousands of people ... gathered here from different parts of the world to ... give their strength, health, mind and energy in one step ahead of industrial progress.

Looking at the hard work of the workers, Bobrov himself feels their physical suffering, and he becomes ashamed of his well-being.

At the plant, Andrei Ilyich is approached by co-worker Stanislav Ksaverievich Svezhevsky, who is always looking for someone to gossip that Bobrov really does not like. Svezhevsky reports that one of the board members, millionaire Vasily Terentyevich Kvashnin, will come to the plant to lay the new blast furnace. Kvashnin, a huge and fat man, is known as a lover of beautiful women.

Having finished the working day, Bobrov goes to visit the Zinenok family, consisting of a father, mother and five daughters. The father manages the warehouse at the plant and is under the heel of his wife Anna Afanasyevna. The most charming of the Zinenok sisters is Nina, the favorite of the family, completely unlike massive sisters with rude, vulgar faces. The girl has an elegant, aristocratic appearance, and her parents have high hopes for her. Because of Nina, Andrei Ilyich often visits Zinenok, although the engineers are offended by their philistine tastes and cliched conversations.

That evening, Bobrov manages to remain alone with Nina. He is more and more inclined to the idea of ​​getting married and is sure that Nina shares his feelings. In the living room they are talking about Kvashnin. Anna Afanasyevna is going to lead her girls to the station, where a solemn meeting will be held. Bobrov’s heart is getting colder and shrinking. He quietly leaves.

At home, Bobrov finds his good friend, Dr. Goldberg. He sincerely loves this meek Jew for his versatile mind and passion for abstract disputes. Such a dispute begins now. Bobrov considers his work useless, aimless.

Two days of work devour the whole person. ... The brass gentlemen, Moloch and Dagon, would have blushed with shame and resentment at the numbers that I just brought ...

Goldberg objects that the engineer is moving forward with his labor. Bobrov, on the other hand, compares the plant with the ancient god Moloch, who requires human blood. Overwhelmed by pity and fear, the doctor puts Bobrov, excited by the argument, into bed, and sits nearby for a long time, comforting and reassuring.

The next day, the entire board of the plant, headed by director Sergei Valeryanovich Shelkovnikov, meets Kvashnin. Few people know that Shelkovnikov is a director only on paper. In fact, affairs are managed by Belgian engineer Andrea, a semi-half-Swede by nationality. The Zinenok family is also present at the meeting. Andrei Ilyich is ashamed of their tactless arrival, but he is glad to see Nina.

An unbearable desire for a tender, fragrant virgin love, a thirst for habitual and soothing female affection, suddenly flared up in his sick, plagued soul.

For a few minutes, Bobrov was left alone with Nina, but again she could not confess her feelings.He is confused by the duality in the character of Nina, when from a tender, refined girl she suddenly turns into a provincial young lady with a template set of phrases. Nina realizes that she is a product of the environment in which she grew up, but she can’t fight her everyday life and feels it only during communication with Bobrov, whom she admires. It seems to the girl that she is sincere, but this is only a need to tell Bobrov something pleasant.

Meanwhile, a courier train appears due to the turn of the railway. Kvashnin, one of the shareholders of the railway, drives his own carriage. From the window of the car, Kvashnin notices Nina and becomes interested in her.

Kvashnin ... stood behind a glass wall ... with legs wide apart and a squeamish mine on his face, like a Japanese idol of rough work.

Those who meet look at Kvashnin with servility, almost with fright. The same expression Beavers bitterly notices on the face of Nina.

Four days later, the laying of a new blast furnace and a prayer service takes place, which is attended by almost three thousand workers. Tomorrow one of them will gobble up the insatiable Moloch. From this thought, a cold wave of nervous excitement runs across Andrei Ilyich’s back.

After the service, the shareholders are shown all the workshops. Then everyone gathers in the heart of the plant - the steam boiler department. Shelkovnikov takes the guests to a gala dinner, and Bobrov stays near the boilers and looks at the hard work of the stokers. It seems to them that they feed an insatiable, gluttonous monster. To the approaching doctor Goldberg, Bobrov tells how easy it is to destroy this Moloch - it is enough to put cold water into the hot boiler. Andrei Ilyich jokes, but his voice is serious, and his eyes are severe and sad.

Kvashnin is approaching the Zinenok family. In relation to the girls, he behaves like a good uncle showers them with expensive gifts. A regular guest in the Zinenok house is also the careerist Svezhevsky, whom Kvashnin silently suffers. The gossip that Kvashnin is caring for Nina reaches Bobrov, but he cares only about the girl’s reputation. Jealousy is alien to the trusting nature of Andrei Ilyich.

Bobrov is irresistibly drawn to Nina, but constrains the presence of Kvashnin. Despite this, Andrei Ilyich accepts an invitation from Nina to a gorgeous picnic, which Kvashnin arranges for the girl.

A train, richly decorated with flowers, takes the numerous guests to the picnic site. In the morning, wives, sisters and mothers of workers gather at the station to see the "red and fat boss." They ask Kvashnin to insulate their huts and put stoves for cooking. Kvashnin confidently promises to fulfill their request, and then orders Shelkovnikov to stack two carts of bricks at the huts — let them admire it.

One must be able to communicate with these people. You can promise them anything — aluminum dwellings, an eight-hour workday, and steaks for breakfast — but do it very confidently.

Andrei Ilyich is embarrassed by Nina's behavior - the girl does not even look at him, although on the eve she was very affectionate with the engineer. Bobrov begins to realize that Anna Afanasyevna does not approve of their relationship, but decides to go on a picnic and get an answer from Nina.

The picnic was a real ball. Kvashnin ordered to build a pavilion in a forest glade, set tables in it and hire an orchestra. Beavers does not like to dance, but still decides to invite Nina to the square dance, so that during the dance she can talk to her. It turns out that all the dances of Nina are painted. Dull and indifferent longing seizes Beaver, but he still does not lose hope.

It's getting dark. The pavilion and the playground are lit with colorful lights and dancing continues. Beaver manages to stay alone with Nina. At first, the girl tries to avoid the conversation, but then she admits that this is the will of her mother. Anna Afanasevna appears immediately and takes her daughter by the hand. By order of her mother, Nina invites Kvashnin to the dance, then dinner begins.

Bobrov continued to stand on the very spot where Nina had left him.Feelings of humiliation, resentment and hopeless, desperate longing tormented him alternately.

Dr. Goldberg carries Andrei Ilyich to the table. Bobrov’s neighbor is Andrea. He is drunk. Only six months later it became known that this hardworking, talented and erudite person drank alone every night until he lost consciousness. Beaver also decides to drink cognac, but he became even sadder.

Kvashnin gives a rant, and then announces the engagement of Nina and Svetevsky. Seeing Bobrov’s face distorted by suffering, Andrea utters an ironic toast in which he congratulated Svetevsky on his appointment to St. Petersburg as managing director of the company's board. This appointment is a wedding present from Kvashnin.

A picnic is interrupted by a top manager with news of unrest at the plant. Panic and stampede begins. Bobrov notices a glow over the factory chimneys, and a wave of triumphant gloating rises in him. Andrea’s toast explains to Andrey Ilyich both Nina’s cold restraint, and her mother’s indignation, and Svezhevsky’s proximity to Kvashnin.

Beaver rides to the factory. A timber warehouse burns there, and a black crowd of workers is boiling at the dam of a quadrangular factory pond. A stone thrown by someone falls into Bobrov, blood flows from the wound on the temple. Having lost his way in the crowd, he loses consciousness. Waking up from a swoon, Bobrov discovers that he is near the factory, and goes to the blast furnaces.

Bobrov wanders through an empty factory and speaks to himself. He feels that he needs to do something big and important, but he cannot remember what exactly. Andrei Ilyich descends into the stoker pit and begins to throw coal into both furnace openings.

He looked at the huge body of the cauldron, which was starting to hum and be lit with fiery reflections, and it seemed to him more and more alive and hated.

Finally, everything is ready, it remains only to turn the small valve, but unusual work tires Bobrov, and he does not make this last movement.

In the morning, Andrei Ilyich arrives at the factory hospital. He looks terrible. He begs Goldberg to inject him with morphine. The doctor fails to dissuade him from this fateful step. Goldberg makes an injection. Beaver is forgotten with a sweet smile on his face, and the doctor carefully washed his head.