Irakli Andronikov tells about his youth, when his talent as an imitator manifested itself, about his work as a lecturer at the Leningrad Philharmonic, shares his memories of the musicologist and literary scholar I.I.Sollertinsky, about the artists V.I.Kachalov, A.A.Ostuzhev, about the writers M.Gorky and A.N.Tolstoy.

Germany, the 1930s. A young scientist, Professor Johannes Werner discovers rays of life-giving power. The scientist refuses to give up his invention for military use and, breaking the equipment, runs to the USA, where he hides for a long time under the name of Martini. One day, after being invited to a military industrial concern to see a new European invention, Werner meets his former pupil Huber. Huber, a traitor and fascist, has restored the professor's apparatus according to stolen plans and is demonstrating it as his own invention. Werner rejects the proposal for joint cooperation and, at a meeting in the hall of scientific associations, reveals his real name and resolutely reveals the criminal intentions of the revanchists.

The outstanding researcher and scholar Irakly Andronikov speaks in the television film about his search for places connected with Lermontov in the Caucasus and about the identity of the woman to whom Lermontov dedicated many poems under the initials N.F.I.