"The Source of Happiness" by Polina Dashkova, summary

Polina Dashkova’s novel "The Source of Happiness" was written in 2007. The plot unfolds across two time periods: pre-revolutionary Moscow in 1916–1917, engulfed by the Civil War, and the 2000s. The narrative centers on the fate of a scientific discovery capable of halting aging and granting human biological immortality, as well as the price paid for interfering with the laws of nature.

This work opens the trilogy of the same name, "The Source of Happiness," as the first volume. This cycle also includes the novels "Mysterium Tremendum: A Secret That Causes Trepidation" (book two) and "The Sky Above the Abyss" (book three).

Professor Sveshnikov’s discovery

In January 1916, in a Moscow apartment on Vtoraya Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, professor of medicine and military surgeon Mikhail Vladimirovich Sveshnikov made an incredible discovery. In his home laboratory, he observed a white rat with a red spot on its neck, nicknamed Grigory the Third. A month earlier, the elderly, bald animal had been injected with an extract from the pineal gland of a young rat.

The result exceeds all expectations. The old rat is completely transformed: he grows silky white fur, the whites of his eyes turn pink, and his former strength and aggression return. Sveshnikov is assisted by his seventeen-year-old daughter, Tatyana, and his assistant, Fyodor Fyodorovich Agapkin. Examining the tissue under a microscope, the professor discovers the cause of the phenomenon. The rejuvenation is caused by cysts of an unknown ancient parasite that lives exclusively in the pineal gland.

The helminth larvae unerringly navigate the bloodstream to the pineal gland and reorganize the body’s hormonal balance. This process is accompanied by a seven-day fever, after which the subject regains a second youth. Sveshnikov repeats the experiment on other specimens. He recognizes the danger of jumping to conclusions and keeps the research strictly confidential, protecting the subjects from prying eyes.

The Salvation of Osi Katz and Occult Societies

At a military hospital, Sveshnikov and Tanya take care of eleven-year-old orphan Iosif (Osya) Katz. The boy suffers from progeria, a rare premature aging disorder that has left him frail and with a worn-out heart. In the spring of 1916, Osya’s condition becomes critical: his heart stops three times a night.

Seeing the resuscitation efforts fail, Tanya begs her father to take a risk. Sveshnikov takes a step unacceptable from an official medical perspective and injects Osa with a solution containing cysts. The child suffers a debilitating fever, losing his old hair and baby teeth. Soon, the boy’s body regenerates, returning to a normal childhood. Sveshnikov takes the rescued orphan into his home.

At the same time, the professor’s eldest son, student Vladimir, becomes fascinated with mysticism and introduces Agapkin to the occultist Georgy Khudoley. Khudoley leads a secret group, preaching ideas of immortality and subjugating the will of neophytes. Agapkin undergoes an initiation ritual. In December 1916, Fyodor secretly assists in the difficult birth of young Zina Belkina, who had been seduced by Khudoley. Risking his life, Agapkin saves the newborn girl from the sectarians and hands her over to her mother. Zina’s influential father, the Freemason Matvey Belkin, takes the young doctor under his personal protection.

The fate of the Sveshnikov family and the mystery of Agapkin

In January 1917, Vladimir Sveshnikov was struck down with rapid pneumonia. His lungs collapsed, and bleeding began. Agapkin, driven mad by despair, prepared a medicinal solution, but was too late to help his friend: Vladimir suffocated.

Left alone with the dead man’s body, Agapkin takes a desperate step. He ties a tourniquet around his own arm and injects a deadly dose of the parasite into a vein in his elbow. Having endured a brutal fever reaching 40 degrees Celsius, Fyodor survives. His body permanently stops his biological clock, granting the doctor eternal youth.

In March 1917, Tatyana Sveshnikova married her longtime lover, thirty-seven-year-old combat colonel Pavel Nikolaevich Danilov. The abdication of Emperor Nicholas II plunged Professor Sveshnikov into deep despondency, having sworn allegiance to the monarch and grieving over the collapse of the state. Danilov returned to the front, then participated in the Kornilov Revolt, and was arrested in Bykhov along with the generals’ elite.

Revolutionary upheavals and the birth of an heir

In October 1917, bloody fighting erupted in Moscow. The Bolsheviks stormed the Kremlin, defended by cadets and officers under the command of Danilov, who had returned from Bykhov. Professor Sveshnikov, seeking to aid the city’s defenders, went outside and was shot in the shin. Agapkin carried the wounded teacher home on his own shoulders.

A pregnant Tatyana, struggling through labor pains, calmly operates on her father on the kitchen table and removes the bullet. A few hours later, to the roar of gunfire, Tanya gives birth to her first child, named Mikhail. The Kremlin falls, and White resistance in the capital is crushed. Danilov is forced to hide from Bolshevik patrols.

The family finds itself on the brink of survival in cold and hungry Moscow. Matvey Belkin, who has begun collaborating with the Soviet government, supplies the Sveshnikovs with firewood, medicine, and provisions. Agapkin remains close to the professorial family, concealing his eternal biological nature from everyone.

Peter Colt’s Hunt for Immortality

In the 2000s, Russian billionaire Pyotr Borisovich Kolt was agonizingly facing the approach of old age. No elite Swiss clinic could guarantee the oligarch eternal life. Having instructed his personal security chief, Ivan Anatolyevich Zubov, to investigate old rumors, Colt traces Professor Sveshnikov.

Zubov discovers that the only living witness to the pre-revolutionary experiments is the elderly retired general Fyodor Fyodorovich Agapkin. At 116, the former Chekist is paralyzed but retains a phenomenal memory. Colt tries to extract the secret of the drug from the old man. Agapkin confesses that the secret method and the surviving materials are kept abroad by Sveshnikov’s direct descendants.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, thirty-year-old biologist Sofia Dmitrievna Lukyanova is grieving the sudden death of her father, Dmitry Nikolaevich. The man, who had never suffered from heart problems, died suddenly one night after a mysterious dinner at an elite restaurant. Among the deceased’s belongings, Sonya finds an envelope containing photographs of the Sveshnikov family and a portrait of a young man in an SS officer’s uniform holding a baby.

Sofia Lukyanova’s investigation and Melnik’s exposure

Trying to unravel her family past, Sonya turns to her trusted friend Arnold, nicknamed Nolik. Former professor Valery Kulik offers her a contract with the international foundation "Biology of Tomorrow" and introduces her to Zubov. Zubov arranges for Sofia to visit Agapkin. Upon seeing her, the elder is struck by her resemblance to Tatyana Sveshnikova. Agapkin realizes she is the professor’s great-granddaughter and warns her of danger.

Zubov takes Sofia to Germany, where a new laboratory is supposedly being prepared at the institute’s branch on the island of Sylt. Along the way, Nolik shares with Sonya the results of his archival investigations: the son of Tatyana Sveshnikova and Colonel Danilov was Mikhail Pavlovich Danilov, a military intelligence officer who now lives on that very island of Sylt.

Once in the laboratory, Sonya analyzes her father’s heart medication capsules. She is horrified to discover Rofexide-6 — an experimental poison that triggers a latent heart attack. She realizes that her supervisor and longtime family friend, Boris Ivanovich Melnik (Bim), who had been searching in vain for years for Sveshnikov’s secret, cold-bloodedly poisoned Dmitry, hoping to seize Sveshnikov’s legacy. In Moscow, the exposed Melnik, realizing the failure of his ambitions, commits suicide with his own toxin.

Meeting on the island of Sylt

On the North Sea coast, Sophia meets her grandfather, 89-year-old Mikhail Pavlovich Danilov. The veteran intelligence officer carefully preserves sealed vials containing dried tissues and Professor Sveshnikov’s diaries. He was waiting for Sophia, as her mother had instructed him to leave the discovery only in the safe hands of his biological heir.

Zubov confesses to Sofia that he worked for Colt’s investor but never wished harm on her family. Sofia agrees to accept her ancestor’s legacy and personally lead the scientific research. She understands that her great-great-grandfather’s discovery should not become a tool for self-serving oligarchs or crazed fanatics.