The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. In the last year of the war, Andrei returns to his native village. But he does not return as a hero, but as a deserter, who, after being wounded, failed to make it back to his military unit from the hospital. Only one person knows that Andrei has returned – his wife, Nastya, the only one to whom Andrei can entrust his life. Nastya is forced to hide her husband even from their relatives, only occasionally visiting him in his hiding place. Andrei is now a perpetual fugitive, doomed to loneliness.