Rudolf Bartoš, the owner of a farm, quarry and factory, is extremely rich, however, he is unapproachable and irritable, and the dread of his employees. One day he falls down a steep slope by a river and hurts himself. The quarryman Fábera finds him groaning in pain and takes him to his cottage.
When the yacht of her former lover Mario Tudor arrives in Split, widowed Countess de Milesi, plagued by financial troubles, is hell-bent on selling him a fake copy of an expensive painting.