The old, sickly Demeter Lapussa is a tyrant in the family. He forces his granddaughter, the beautiful Henriette, to marry baron Hátszegi, although the girl loves the penniless Vámhidy Szilárd. The two lovers attempt to commit suicide, then are torn away from each other.

He travels the country as a fire inspector. He arrives in the small town for a week-long visit, where he meets his old friend József Máté. Máté is a manager, proud of his achievements and spoiling his beautiful young wife Panni. But she's tired of the dollhouse and wants to work, but her husband won't let her. Tired and disillusioned, Palotas immediately senses and understands his wife's dullness and boredom, and encourages Panni to leave her husband...

1963 film by László Ranódy

Three people – a returned prisoner of war, his beautiful second wife, and the possessive, hunchbacked spinster who is his sister-in-law by his first marriage – are isolated in a little house under an extinct volcano, where each strives for personal happiness but is suffocated by their dependence on the others.