The story takes place in a small Argentinean city. There was a rumor among its inhabitants that an unknown monster called the sea devil appeared in the sea. But the devil did evil selectively: among rich and unkind people he tore fishing tackle, interfered with obtaining pearls, and helped the poor, saving them during a storm.
The cruel world of people
The owner of the schooner Medusa, rich Pedro Zurita, wants to make big money on the myth of the sea devil, and therefore decides to catch him. Further, the events of the novel develop very dynamically, which reflects a brief summary. Amphibian man, as Zurita found out, lives in an underwater hole. By order of Pedro, the exit from it is blocked by a metal network, but the devil manages to cut it and leave. Then Zurita decides to enter the house of a great scientist - Dr. Salvator. He sends an Indian with a sick girl to him. The doctor assists the child, and the grateful grandfather asks to serve with the professor. After serving for several months, the new servant, Cristo, finally gets acquainted with the "sea devil." It turned out to be an ordinary youth Ichthyander, to whom Salvator transplanted shark gills instead of diseased lungs. Ichthyander spends most of his life in the sea, where he is surrounded by a beautiful and kind world of underwater inhabitants. An amphibian man (a brief summary of the novel takes us either under water or into the world of ordinary people) once saves a drowning girl, and then falls in love with her. But on the shore, a whiskered stranger tells her that it was he who saved her. Ichthyander shared his new impressions with the "good" servant Cristo, and he advised him to go to the city and find a girl. Together with Cristo, they go in search of. Kristo has a completely different goal: he needs to bring Ichthyander to his brother Balthazar, where Pedro Zurita will meet them. But when they come to Balthazar’s house, they find there a beautiful girl in whom Ichthyander recognizes her lover. The young man runs out of the house in excitement and hides. The adventure novel is increasingly acquiring a social connotation, which is endowed by the author A. R. Belyaev. Amphibian man (a brief summary emphasizes the main storyline) gets acquainted with the world of people and involuntarily compares it with the harmonious world of nature that he sees in the sea. He is struck and disarmed by lies, hypocrisy, greed of people, and he is increasingly striving to go under water. But love holds him in the cruel world of people.
Fight for love
Ichthyander every day comes ashore, dresses in a regular suit and meets with Guttiere. But one day, a girl, walking along the shore with her friend Olsen, gives him a pearl necklace that slips out of her hands and falls into the sea. Guttiere in despair. But then Ichthyander jumps from a cliff into the waves and takes out jewelry from the bottom. After some time, Ichthyander confesses his love to Guttiere, but here Pedro Zurita appears and reproaches her for having another groom, walking with Ichthyander. The young man jumps into the bay and disappears for a long time. Guttiere is convinced that he drowned. Time has passed, Ichthyander continues to look for meetings with Guttiere, and we follow the plot, reading the novel or its summary. An amphibian man once meets Olsen, they get acquainted, and he tells a sad story. Having been assured of the death of Ichthyander, Guttiere marries the rich but hated Pedro Zurita. Ichthyander decides to go to the city, to the house of Zurita. On the way he is stopped by a policeman, but the young man runs away and comes to the house where Guttiere now lives. He calls her, but Zurita, mistaking Ihthyander for a runaway convict, hits him on the head with a shovel and throws him into the pond. At night, Guttiere goes into the garden and finds a "drowned man" in the pond, who suddenly comes out of the water and reveals his secret to the girl. But here the amphibian man is seized by the people of Zurita and sent to the schooner. Now he must serve the greedy master, taking pearls from the seabed . What further is the novel or its summary? Amphibian man escapes from Zurita in the house of Salvator. But Pedro is organizing a criminal case against the doctor, accusing him of inhuman experiments. Salvator is offered to escape from prison, but he passes this opportunity to Ichthyander. The young man swims to South America to a friend of Salvator, and the doctor after some time is released. Guttiere divorces Pedro Zurita and marries Olsen.
Conclusion
This is a summary. Amphibian Man is a work where, behind the outward appearance of an adventurous novel, a deep thought is revealed about the real and imaginary values of human life.