Misty autumnal Petersburg. A well-fed artist, enamored with the beauty of the city, encounters a homeless boy—hungry, proud, bristling like a wolf cub. The boy asks, "Take me with you." Out of whim and curiosity, the artist takes him—partly as a servant, partly as a picturesque "model." Behind the anecdote of the meeting of two worlds, the well-fed and the impoverished, lies a bitter question: is it possible to tame a wolf cub, and what will this endeavor cost both of them?