The circus leaves 1948. In one of the towns there is a circus organized right after the liberation. A conflict arises between Kossakowski, a lion trainer, and Chamron, a horse trainer, which creates a tense atmosphere in the entire team.

The young protagonist, Elżbieta, grew up in a small town bourgeois house. She rebels against the town's atmosphere and imagines that a love affair with a poet from a big city will liberate her. However, the love affair lasts only for a fleeting moment. It is the young engineers who arrive in the town to build a factory who are the real harbinger of changes in the town itself and the minds of its inhabitants. Based on a novel by Kornel Filipowicz.