A film about a young sanitation worker who tries to prevent the pollution of a river, but pays the price...

The film depicts the fate of the residents of an apartment block in Prague’s Jewish quarter following the invasion by German troops in 1939. Among them is an elderly widow who had once disowned her son and now wishes to bring him to Brazil; there are also the owners of a stationery shop, who are driven to ruin by the German occupiers. The caretaker Glaser, who is of German descent, also comes under pressure when his son is arrested in a communist pub. To save his own skin, he informs on two young people who are active in the resistance.

At the funeral of his schoolmate, the nearly-fifty-year old architect Jirí Mánek (Václav Voska) meets his former close acquaintance - physician Jarmila (Blanka Bohdanová). They both are still single. Jarmila has recently returned to Prague after years of work on the frontier. Jirí leaves for a business trip. As a conservationist, he is to grant permission for an adaptation of a Baroque château to office spaces. On the road, a pretty young hitchhiker named Eva (Ida Rapaicová) stops him. Eva is Slovak and her spontaneous behavior enchants Jirí. He thus does not mind making a short detour and takes Eva all the way to the luxurious cottage of her parents. A romance develops between the two people, so different in age and temperament.