Rodka Gulyaev is a pupil of the Gumniskii rural secondary school. One day on the bank of the river he digs out the darkened old icon. Unfortunately for him his grandmother Avdotya, an overbearing and cunning old woman, spreads a rumor that the icon is miraculous, and her grandson is a saint.
In 1913 a family of traveling musicians goes to the house of a rich marquise. Lolita, daughter of one of the musicians, encounters the son of the wealthy lady.
Little Jerguš's father was killed by gendarmes. To help his mother, the boy is hired as a laborer, then goes to the factory, to the city, but, unable to withstand the cruel exploitation, hoping to become free and independent, returns to the mountains, where his father once fought for the good of the people.
An honest man instills in his only child the adage, 'Honesty is the best policy.' When the boy grows up, he has to fight for the truth and it remains to be seen if he can keep his ideologies alive.
Milja, living in Kristiania in the late 1800s, becomes pregnant, but the father of the child, Julius, is not around after the child has been born and Milja decides to adopt it.
Two plays by William Saroyan portraying writers stymied, inspired, frustrated, excited, listful, wistful, slothful, awed, unnerved, perhaps corrupted and perplexed by the promise and let-down writing holds for them.