 The screenplay is based on the short story  The Private Teacher  by the classic Bulgarian writer Yordan Yovkov (1880-1937). The scene is set in a remote village near the Bulgarian-Romanian border in the early thirties. A gray border, dull village. Time seems to have stopped in this place. The village schoolmaster, the local medical orderly and the captain of the border patrol stationed there spend their evenings at the village inn, philosophing on the same subjects over and over again. It so happen, however, that their uneventful existence, symbolized by the incessant rain, is suddenly jolted by the arrival of two traveling circus performers - the pretty and mysterious foreigners: Miss Eliza and the clown Fujiama. The Captain sets out to arrange a dinner in their honor. There is dancing and artistic performances but evening comes to a dramatic conclusion. Already drink; the coarse, cynical officer assaults the actress. Much to the amazement of all those present (including himself) only the tumid village schoolmaster rises to her defense. The sudden act of brutality provides an impetus to the love between Eliza and the teacher, two strange people - lonely in their own separate ways. The film is notable for its fine artistic rendering of the atmosphere of the period.