Wiktor Zawadzki is a playwright who flies to Gdansk to have a look at the rehearsals of his new avantgarde play. Although the play asks serious existential questions, the stage director and the actors have no artistic idea for it. Unable to find a room in a hotel, he ends up in a private house inhabited by an old woman and her young attractive daughter Krystyna. Wiktor becomes briefly involved in their lives - he has a love affair with the daughter and discovers the truth about the mother's difficult mental condition.