Marie Marková-Nekolová

Professor Karas is widely known as enthusiastic propagator of the motto "Morality Above All Else". He guides his students as well as his own family to live a morally decent life. One day he has an unexpected visit. It's his illegitimate daughter Vera, who is proof of his thoughtless youth. Mr. Karas know that she can ruin his image, thus he decides to keep her a secret and asks her to leave. Instead of leaving she takes a position of a governess in his own family without letting him know. Mr. Karas realizes that he must reveal the truth sooner or later, but he doesn't have enough courage to do so. As he postpones it, he is more and more scared to come to his own home.

The orphan Eliška Irovská, nicknamed Líza, arrives in her native village of Ptačice. As an orphan she is housed in the local poorhouse and has to go out begging. Her guardian Petr Tumlíř, however, sees that she is competent enough to go to school.

Such an hour-long probe into the conditions in Czechoslovakia during the occupation. Here it is in the image of a small village, in which citizens simply adapt to the current situation. Each in their own way. In any case, this film has a message that should be repeated again and again, especially today. It's simple. Neither we nor our children will forget.

Factory owner Dvorský also faces his own share of life's troubles; the supply of kaolin for his factory is running dangerously low. Mayor Pivoňka’s wife is willing to sell her kaolin fields, but only on the condition that Dvorský marries her daughter, Táňa—who, however, has no desire to marry a widower with a four-year-old son. Mrs. Lexová also owns kaolin deposits. Dvorský organizes a puppet show at his villa for his ailing young son. During the night, little Mirek wakes up and goes to the theater to look for a princess puppet; tragically, he accidentally sets the curtain on fire with a candle, and the theater burns down.