Eighteen-year-old Dalibor Daněk grew up in an orphanage, did not get an education and became involved with a group of smugglers in the Ostrava region. But there are those who want to help him selflessly...

The story of a Czech national revivalist, writer and author of a famous cookbook... The story takes us to Litomyšl in 1836. The local bourgeois society, which does not fail to interject a German word into their conversation as proof of good upbringing and better origin, slanders Mrs. Rettigová. "Rettička" not only fights for standard Czech, is a patriot, but also attracts young girls and students to her and lends them Czech books. She simply disrupts the good old order. Another sensation in the town is caused by the announcement of a planned wedding. Maiden Lenka will marry old doctor Plavec. When Mrs. Rettigová finds out about it, she invites both fiancés to her, each separately. The hunter Valenta, Lenka's former admirer, who had been abroad with his master for a long time, asked her to help him get Lenka back...

Leopold Kohák married a rich widow a long time ago and now has nothing to do compared to his energetic wife. He's growing old and troubled by the fact that he betrayed his first love Emča and his beloved river Sázava where he spent his childhood and youth. A visit from an old friend Lebeda brings it all back to him. After a nervous breakdown Leopold secretly visits his home instead of going to the spa. A wandering tramp suggest Leopold should bathe in the magical waters of the Sázava, and slowly his youth returns to him.