Faithful to his word, Michael Tímar, captain of the St. Barbara, becomes the guardian of Kondya, daughter of a Turkish aristocrat on the run. Later, he weds the grateful young Turkish girl whom he saved from the waters of the Danube. While skillfully managing his wife's fortune, entrepreneur Tímar becomes an important wholesaler of wheat and exports his products to Brazil. But his marriage of convenience proves a failure. He is torn between the demands of bourgeois civilization, governed by money, and the ideal of freedom, consisting of living simply within nature. He then takes refuge by the side of the sweet Noemi on an island on the Danube.

Kati (Bella Muzsnay), the daughter of a landowner (László Bakó), is not very sad while her fiancé, Matyi (Sándor Szőke), is a prisoner of war in Russia: she meets the handsome goulash (Sándor Garamszeghy). He is not too happy when Matyi returns home from Siberia. The two men competing for her hand get into a fight and the goulash is sent to prison. The proposal goes through, but the goulash escapes from his cell. After a long chase, he is captured, but on the day of the wedding his sentence expires and he is released. The newlyweds spend their wedding night in the attic, and the jealous goulash burns down the house in revenge.