Pravda - khorosho, a schastye - luchshe

The imperious old woman Mavra Tarasovna, mother of the Moscow merchant Amos Panfilovich Baraboshev, is looking for a general groom for her granddaughter Polixena. But the girl loves the clerk Platon Zybkin, an honest and poor guy who owes his master two hundred rubles. Platon is threatened with debtor's prison. Thanks to the efforts of the nanny Polixena, who decided to help the lovers, a new watchman appears in the house - retired non-commissioned officer Sila Erofeevich Groznov, Mavra Tarasovna's former lover. Frightened that her old sins will become known to everyone, the old woman satisfies Groznov's demands - she destroys Platon's bill and allows her granddaughter to marry him.