Andric's youth disappeared too soon in the face of the horrors of war and gruesome labour in the Austro-Hungarian prison. A more mature and more cautious Andric arrives to the capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia - Belgrade - with an aura of a doomed young poet, and begins to write prose. He is seen, for the first time, by the eyes of a woman who will never leave him, even when he falls in love with another. Through a set of circumstance he enters into diplomacy, while his literary reputation is growing rapidly. He receives a call from an influential secret society which only confirms Andric's status in the cultural elite of the Kingdom.