Pharmacist Janota's daughter, Karla, is about to get married to wealthy lawyer Jaroslav Kříž. On the day of the wedding, however, instead of the ceremony, she will have an appendectomy. After the successful procedure, the weakened Karla also develops severe pneumonia and even has a heart attack. Fortunately, she is under the care of Prague's best surgeon, MUDr. Hegl, who saves the young woman from certain death. Karla falls in love with the attractive doctor and begins seeing him. Hegl's resigned wife suffers silently from her husband's affairs in order to preserve the family. Karla's fiancé, on the other hand, cannot cope with the situation and commits suicide. When Karla becomes pregnant with Hegl, the doctor turns away from her. After all, he already has a new "patient". The girl is nevertheless determined to keep the child...

While street photographers Máček and Kalabis are vainly offering their services to passersby, a pair of cronies rob a jewelry store almost right in front of their eyes. Kalabis accidentally manages to photograph one of the robbers. Coincidentally, the brutal thug is indistinguishable from the notorious bookseller Karel Pelikán. Hard times await him: the police, led by the experienced district inspector Moudřý, are interested in him, as well as a gang of criminals who accidentally slipped Karl a ticket from the train station locker where they hid the loot. The only ones who trust Karl are his good-natured aunt Klára and his girlfriend in love, Jarmila...

The family of the worker Kučera lives happily. His daughter Anežka, engaged to technical draftsman Adolf, is a seamstress. His son Váš is studying to be a machinist. The family also includes his grandfather, a former miner. However, an economic crisis is beginning. Factories stop production. Adolf loses his job and has an argument with Anežka, who has no idea the cause of his nervousness.