It`s Christmas Eve of 1861. So far unsuccessful poet, but already renown journalist - twenty-seven-year old Jan Neruda (Jirí Bartoska) - calls on the family of professor Muzák (Jirí Pleskot) unexpectedly. Secretly he hands over a letter to the host`s wife Johanna (Bozidara Turzonovová), a beginning woman-writer who has chosen a pen-name Karolina Svetlá. The handy and wild young man fell in passionate love with the beautiful woman, a little senior to him. The marriage of the Muzáks has been, after the death of their only child, for ten years only formal. However, Johanna does not take heart to accept the liaison for she knows it would discredit her in a Prague society.