In the urban setting of the Russian Empire at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Artashes and Misak represent two contrasting human temperaments. Reserved and taciturn, Artashes quietly observes his friend, while Misak lives through invented stories, embellishes reality, and seeks to impress those around him. The work explores the fragile boundary between truth, self-deception, and imagination, portraying how the habit of exaggeration can become inseparable from a person’s character and shape the way he sees himself.