The reformed priest of Gát, Pap Énók, gets married. He is engaged to the worthy Miss Ica Zádor from Malomsk and Zádor. At the Easter 'priestess election ball', Énók could have chosen a wife from among thirty-five Gáti girls, but he asked the thirty-sixth, Ica, a young lady from Pest. Enoch, of peasant origin, had studied his way up to the middle-class intellectuals of the countryside. Ica, the scion of a ruined noble family, comes from Budapest to a low-class marriage, but Ica's rise to office could bring her back into the higher social circles she had lost through the family's decline. They married for love, but both were guided by interest and expectation. Ica is a vivacious woman of the world, dissatisfied, bored, longing to return to life and society in Pest. She finds strange amusements: sometimes she embraces, sometimes she torments her master. Enoch is head over heels in love, puts up with everything, and in return happily accepts the kisses he is rewarded with.

Isti, a junior official in the ministry, is a happy husband and father. He works all day to support his family, and gives his wife all the money she needs to bring home, as a proper husband should. But one day his colleagues are talking about female philandering, and Isti's jealousy flares up for no reason. In addition, he is let home early from work because of the holiday, causing a bit of a disturbance because his wife hasn't finished lunch yet. Isti is suspicious of everything, even her friend Évi gets her worked up. She and the woman have a row over four crowns, and Isti runs away from home to see her friend, the skirt-chasing Füredit. The two men set off together into the Pest night...