Kostoglotov begins two romances in the hospital, one with Zoya, a nurse and medical student, though the attraction is mostly physical, and a more serious one with Vera Gangart, one of his doctors, a middle-aged woman who has never married, and whom he imagines he might ask to become his wife. Both women invite him to stay overnight in their apartment when he is discharged, ostensibly as a friend, because he has nowhere to sleep; his status as an exile makes finding a place to lodge difficult.