An eminent and respected merchant has a problem with gambling, alternately winning and losing until the fateful night when he loses everything. He decides to kill himself, but his wife stops him. Kind words make him go with his son to the church to pray and start new life from the beginning. Based on a novel by famous Serbian writer Laza Lazarevic.

It describes the social process of stratification in the Serbian countryside during late 19th century, which occurs with the penetration of the commodity-money in the countryside. Under new conditions, peasants and farmers are unable to adapt, and rot under the burden of debts.