Sisters Irma and Airi Ranna's café Iltatähti has run into financial trouble. Touring musicians Heikki and Jussi end up as tenants in the same boarding house where the siblings and the poetic accountant live. Since the landlady does not allow music in her nursing home, the musicians practice at Iltatähti and revolutionize the life of the cafe.

Senator Fredrik, who advocates a policy of appeasement, expels his nephew Robert, an activist and lover of Justiina, from his home. Decades later, the lovers meet again when Robert returns to claim his inheritance.