A young female student of music finds herself in a Dalmatian town in order to practice organo playing in the local church, and there she falls in love with a timid young man who helps her with it.

The story of the Dubrovnik landowner Nikša Prokulić, who fiercely opposes romance between his daughter Jela and the Czech officer Marek, member of the Austro-Hungarian army that occupied their city in 1814, after the departure of the French. The story of the final downfall of the Republic of Dubrovnik thus also becomes the story of the agony of an ancient aristocratic family.

Through Šimun’s conflict with the head of the new agricultural cooperative, where he is forced to work in order to feed his family, the changes that land reclamation has brought to everyday life in the Neretva Valley are depicted, destroying the traditional way of life.