Fresh out of prison, a seasoned poker hustler finds himself teaching the trade to a young cab driver chasing his first big win.

Set before the first World War in part of Poland under Austrian occupation, the story of a young boy in primary school who later grows up to become a rebellious, poetic-minded teen in the same school when the national movement toward liberation is under way. The story of a country where church and state work together to suppress the human spirit.

A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god.

The 1920s, the southern border of Poland. Smuggler Józef Trofida is released from prison. From his friend Władek, he learns that he has lost his dominant position in the world of smuggling to the Alińczuk clan. To change this, Trofida organizes further expeditions, which multiply his wealth many times over. The next smuggling operation—exposed by Alińczuk—ends with Józef's death. Władek decides to take revenge on the hated clan.

1956. Stefan Madejski, a former KBW lieutenant, is released from prison and rehabilitated. Ten years ago he fought against the gangs, but his brutal and ruthless methods aroused opposition. Because he let go of a band member, his former AK unit colleague, he was brought before a military court and sentenced to fifteen years. Now he is trying to find the people who put him in prison. These encounters give him nothing but bitterness.

In 1905 partitioned Poland, a bomb moves through the anarchist underground as revolutionaries prepare to strike against Tsarist rule.

Second half of September 1939. Lt. Brejer, along with a detachment of his sappers, receives orders to blow up the bridge. The promised explosives do not arrive. So Brejer gets the order to withdraw and reunite with the rest of the division. Along the way, suffering hunger and discomfort along with his soldiers, he joins various divisions, collects survivors and fights. From a German prisoner of war, he finally learns that the Soviets have entered Poland. Finally, he and his men manage to reach his home unit, but that unit has just surrendered to the Germans.