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Ilya Averbakh was considered to have been one of the better directors of film romances in the former Soviet Union. This story of a writer's love spans many decades. An elderly writer (Yuri Bogatyryov) is visiting his wife (Ewa Szykulska) at a medical establishment to give her a copy of his latest book. As he travels, he remembers how they met during the chaos surrounding the Russian Civil War (1918-21). She came to the door of his apartment looking for a room and was carrying her infant son with her. He took her under his wing, but his job of conveying the meaning of the revolution frequently sent him on trips which placed him in danger. The two of them married, but around the beginning the Second World War, his wife left him following the accidental death of her then-teenaged son. On an assignment to the front, he meets an injured publisher who tells him about her life since she left him -- her affairs and so on -- before he dies of his wounds. After the war, he returns to his apartment, which the two of them shared together for so many years, and he finds her sitting there in a darkened room.