The life story of Franciszek Murka, a municipal official. He is dismissed from his job as a result of unfounded slander about his alleged left-wing political past. After losing his government job, he assumes the identity of a foreigner named Franz Klamm and makes a career for himself in the aristocratic salons of Warsaw as a master of the occult.

Grand Duke Konstanty marries Countess Joanna Grudzińska. However, Joanna still loves Major Łukasiński, and she agreed to the marriage out of a sense of patriotic duty. Łukasiński is arrested. The November Uprising breaks out. The conspirators capture Belweder Palace. Joanna hides Konstanty from them.

Follows the lives of people shortly after World War 2 as they try to adjust to their new lives. Completed in 1946, it was banned from release by the communist government of Poland until 1957 in edited form.

Two children are born in a rich family's manor house - one of them, Gogo, is a son of a countess and the second one, Maciek, a son of the servant. The servant decides to switch the babies so her son can have a better life. They both grow up and fall for the same woman, a girl named Kasia raised by the countess.