The legendary Eduard Haken as Aquarius in the first television production of the composer's most famous musical-dramatic work.

The story takes place at the time when Giacomo Casanova, probably the most famous conqueror of women, held the position of librarian at the Valdštejn castle in Duchcov. He was then a rather bored and grumpy old man who enjoyed only writing his memoirs and then a daily game of cards with the Count. But all that changed when Wallenstein's young nephew František Adam arrived at the chateau with his charming wife Valeria. She wanted to see the famous seducer with her own eyes. However, she was somewhat disappointed by the reality, as well as by the seducer's outdated views on love.

In the Prague Old Town and the adjoining streets there is always plenty of life. Housewives shop, beggars arouse sympathy, the Salvation Army tries to put the godless on the road to salvation by hymns and sermons, and Ferdys Pistora hunts in the pockets of his fellow men and isn't even put off by the presence of an officer of the law. Ferdys sets off to burgle villa of the banker Rosenstok, but a fire breaks out in the house and Ferdys ends up saving the banker's two small children. For this he is celebrated as a hero and gets a place as an errand boy with the Rosenstoks. At home he is visited by representatives of the Salvation Army, Captain Kosterka and Terezka, with whom Ferdys instantly falls in love.

An impoverished merchant, decided to sell a precious painting of his deceased wife, wanders into a fairy-tale castle at night, where he loses his painting and is given lavish gifts of clothes and jewelry for his two vain daughters. He then picks a rose himself for his youngest, Beauty. He is caught by the lord of the castle, a terrible monster, who sets a condition that the merchant either returns or one of his daughters voluntarily comes as a sacrifice for his father.

The television production captures the last decade of the life of the now world-renowned painter Karel Purkyně (1834 - 1868) and his struggle for the possibility of creative expression. After studying in Paris, he returns to Prague. He is not recognized, has no success and actually lives on the support of his father, the famous physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně. The only understanding he finds is in his admirer Maria, whom he marries. But he loses her too due to his emotional involvement with another woman. He dies too young and leaves behind a work whose artistic value will only be appreciated much later, at the beginning of the twentieth century.