In small czech town named Jilemnice live unfortunate, but brave and jovial woman Štěpa Kiliánová, whose only desire was to fill the void in her virgin life. In despair and excessive trust, she married a sardonic, reclusive man, former lieutenant and gambler Pavel Malina, whose only wish was finally found peace and forgetting the past. They lived through unrequited love, dislike and disappointment. But no one knew that her groom begin to show signs of cerebral disease, which in the coming years engulf his sanity.