After the funeral of a friend, the artist Arkhipov experiences a creative crisis. However, having met a ballerina who was hospitalized due to an injury, he spends many days with her, helps the young woman get back on her feet and forgets about his own misfortune.

A flutist in the forgotten past, at present the husband of a “big man’s” daughter and head of one of the Chief Directorate’s sections felt unwell one day: the forty-year-old man had a pain in his heart. This unpleasant incident provided an opportunity to meet a nurse named Lida. However, their stormy love affair ended, with Filimonov returning to normal life and an unloved wife.