A psychologist is asked about a scientific consultation with a girl who attempted suicide.

A young man looking for work in Warsaw has to overcome many hurdles in the world of bureaucracy to finally get employed.

Three idealists - a communist secretary, a former RAF pilot and a female political activist - need to face the hardships and accusations of postwar Stalinist years before being finally rehabilitated.

The young protagonist, Elżbieta, grew up in a small town bourgeois house. She rebels against the town's atmosphere and imagines that a love affair with a poet from a big city will liberate her. However, the love affair lasts only for a fleeting moment. It is the young engineers who arrive in the town to build a factory who are the real harbinger of changes in the town itself and the minds of its inhabitants. Based on a novel by Kornel Filipowicz.