A young couple on the river bank leaf through Lesya Ukrainka's book "Forest Song". Reading takes the young people to Polesia, where the drama takes place.

Terenty leaves the collective farm and goes to the city to study to become an agronomist. Marina works hard and looks forward to her husband's return. When her husband returns home, he reproaches his wife for being uneducated, asks for a divorce and leaves for the city. Left with her daughter, Marina devotes herself entirely to her studies and work.

The crew of a soviet cargo falls prey to an act of piracy in waters between China and Taiwan, and are taken to Taiwan where they are pressured into stating they chose to go into the free world.