After Leon struggles with the locals (Mishkin the postman, Slovitch the butcher, and Yenchna the vendor), the action shifts to the home of Dr. Zubritsky and his wife. We learn that the pair are equally dimwitted as the rest of the characters. Soon, Leon enters and the pair plays out their unintelligent antics on him. When the doctor mentions a curse, Leon discovers that the town's idiocy is no accident, that it is a 200-year curse of stupidity cast on them by Vladimir Yousekevitch after his son killed himself because the first Sophia (not the doctor's daughter, but rather an ancestor with the same name) was forbidden to see Vladimir's son by her father, who found out the boy was illiterate, and made to marry another man. The curse will be broken if Leon is able to educate Sophia. Leon is introduced to the Zubritsky's daughter, Sophia, and is immediately lovestruck. He tries to ask her a few simple questions, but she responds idiotically. Later, Leon talks to the Zubritskys, who tell him that the curse can also be broken if Sophia marries Count Gregor, the last of the Yousekevitch line. Leon resolves to break the curse. After a moment of faltering when the doctor believes that the meaning of life is "twelve," Leon is more resolved than ever to break the curse when Sophia greets him. Later, Leon encounters the locals again, and Leon learns that the people in Kulyenchikov are also incapable of loving. Leon also meets Count Gregor for the first time, and after a debate, Count Gregor shocks Leon by saying that if Leon can't educate her within 24 hours of his arrival in Kulyenchikov, he, too, will fall victim to the curse. Although Count Gregor proposes to Sophia twice a day, she continually rejects his offers. Leon meets with Sophia again, and she affirms her desire to be able to love him. Leon promises that she will love him the next day. The next morning at 8 o'clock, with more motivation than ever, Leon strives to educate Sophia, attempting and failing to teach her elementary mathematics. However, the lesson soon spirals into a debate, and Leon is unable to educate her. Try as he might, 9am rolls around, as announced by the magistrate, and all seems to be lost. Even though the curse does not affect Leon, he fools everyone into believing the curse has befallen him.