This is a romantic family melodrama on lost and newly found love. A young diver sets off to work as a butler for Zlobec, a rich, retired pilot. In ten days the life story of the "pathetic old man" unwinds before his very eyes. On the last day of World War Two, Zlobec lost the love of his life when a plane named Herzog crashed into the Adriatic sea. Since then he has been obsessed with setting up an altar in her memory. Because of this he was blind for many things, especially for his daughter Ana, who grows into an attractive young girl and is seduced by the elderly Rihard at the age of eighteen. A friendship develops between the girl’s father and lover, but it is soon interrupted by a disastrous flood, which confines Zlobec to a wheelchair. Rihard sets of to seal the seas, while Ana moves away and begins to teach deaf-mute children. She only returns to visit her father once a year, on his birthday. When she returns this time, Rihard reappears and the old flame flares again.