Antonín Kachlík wanted to make committed films about the moral dilemmas of the working class, but in the era of normalisation, he could only proclaim how faltering individuals would eventually come to the desired thinking. This is also true of the adaptation of Jiří Švejda's book about the wavering career of a young brickmaking technologist - the simplistic drawing of characters and plots, the posterishly lifeless language and the textbook discussion of social ills are all objectionable; the ideal becomes the code of the socialist builder.

Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.