Fifteen years later, Viișoara has not changed much: the shepherd remains the same lonely character, Varvara the same energetic woman caught in complicated administrative tasks, Toderaș with his palinca hidden in the barn and his fading authority, elders wise and active, young people enthusiastic—but not all of them.

Margelatu discovers and annihilates a plot by the Austrians by infiltrating the Fratia organization with a fake envoy of the French revolutionary Alphonse de Lamartine

During the Second World War, a fascist warden takes over a prison in Romania and plans to kill communist prisoners under the pretext of attempted escape during their forced transfer to another penitentiary.