This short dramatic monologue is in the form of a public lecture by Ivan Ivanovich Nyukhin, the "husband of a wife who keeps a music school and a boarding school for girls." Nyukhin begins by indicating that his wife has insisted that he lecture today on the harmful effects of tobacco, though he himself smokes. He invites those who are not prepared for a dry, scientific lecture to leave, but then keeps postponing the topic while he talks about how forceful and dominant his wife is.

He longs "to take off this vile old frock that I wore to my wedding thirty years ago" and assert himself. Yet, he can't; his wife is waiting in the wings. At the end of the monologue, Nyukhin begs the audience not to "tell" on him: "tell her that the lecture was... that the booby, that is me, behaved with dignity."