A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.

Every evening a deep-rooted cynic Andrey wears a smoking and shouts "Bravo!" at the theater performances. He gets paid for getting audience emotional. Andrey is absolutely sure that all people lie until he meets the sincerest girl among the audience.

Alex is a fashionable showbiz character. One day he comes across an article about a big win in a casino in colonial Cambodia in a French magazine with a vintage photograph. In the photo, Hero recognizes his grandfather, who everyone thought was dead. He asks his former lover, the French cultural attaché, to find out. It turns out that he has an inheritance waiting for him in Paris for many years. The guardian of the inheritance turns out to be a high-ranking Freemason who tells him the story of his grandfather, gives him the winnings and involves him in a Masonic conspiracy.

Is secret cooperation with the government a respectable thing?.. This is the question Nikolay should answer for himself.