Liisa, the daughter of fisherman Simeon, is having a romance with Peter, a city dweller who has arrived on the island. Liisa feels she is being punished for her forbidden feelings when her fiancé Antti's sister Maija falls ill with diphtheria and Antti is lost at sea in a storm.

A story set over one night in a small rural community we watch various relationships and actions among local people; these include birth, death, and conflicts fuelled by alcohol. The fates of various characters become interlaced over a long and light-filled summer night in the Finnish countryside. Lumberjacks, a deer-eyed young man Nokia, a family of poor farmers, a young girl and her lover. New life is born, old life dies, man is slain in his prime, and his widow continues her life.