A friendship made at the international pioneer camp in Artek is sealed by the gift of a live bear cub... Educators feared that the film might inspire young viewers to unscripted acts, but even the children didn't take this much-imagined story seriously...

Shortish forty-year old Ludvík Podzimek, lute and flute player in a Prague orchestra, is far from being an attractive man. He is nevertheless generally considered a great 'Don Juan'. Women take up with him out of a certain motherly compassion and Ludvík's tender heart does not allow him to split with any of them. His lovers thus accumulate and cause him numerous troubles.

Tanya, a 10-year-old Russian tourist traveling with her parents from Prague to Brno, is left behind in a foreign country. Tanya leaves her compartment when the train stops because of a cow. Disobeying her parent's instructions, she gets off the train to investigate, lingers too long, and is left behind. Cold, lonely, and clad only in her pajamas in the unfamiliar countryside, the girl is relieved to meet up with two rather nervous Czech boys camping out together for the first time. At first the would-be "cowboys" are frightened by her ghost-like appearance. After hearing her story, the boys find Tanya a dress to wear and accompany the girl on foot to her final destination, Brno.

A little boy, who has no time for his busy parents, solves his loneliness by befriending a dashing old man whose shed holds many surprising secrets and unseen things.

Young script-writer Frantisek (Petr Cepek) is hired to write a film script based on the successful novel Looking Back. He meets with the novel's female author, a University professor and writer named Olga Machová (Jirina Trebická), approximately ten-years-older than him. In the beginning, they do not understand each other at all. Frantisek is a skeptic experiencing a moral crisis, unsatisfied with both his work and his private life - he lives separated from his wife and has no deeper feelings for his numerous lovers. He even gets drunk from time to time and breaks the public peace. Olga is lonesome, too, but considers her life fulfilled.

A stuffy middle-aged foreigner, a businessman named Fabricius, lonely and looking for a night's diversion, finds it in the form of a mysterious blonde. In an abandoned cemetery, she tells him three tales involving black magic and erotic obsession. In "The Last Golem," a young rabbi struggles to fashion a massive, silent giant out of living clay — until he's distracted by a mute servant girl. In the second episode, "Bread Slippers," an 18th-century countess indulges her passion for sweet cakes, adulterous affairs, and secret kisses with pretty maids until a mysterious visitor whisks her away to an abandoned mansion, where Fate has a different kind of dance in store for her. And in the final story, "Poisoned Poisoner," a ravishing murderess in the Middle Ages dispatches lecherous merchants to the tune of upbeat '60s Czech pop songs.

Government bureaucrat Ludvik becomes suspicious after several colleagues disappear and he overhears something strange at a cocktail party. Returning home with his wife, Anna, he finds their house under surveillance and spends a fraught night worrying about his possible arrest in the morning. Marital difficulties come to light as Ludvik and his wife attempt to act normal in front of the cameras while dredging up their problems out of sight.