 Based on  Sándor Márai  (qv) s novel, the films tells the story of two young cadets, closest friends once - two old men full of suspicion, bitterness and with a guilty conscience now, forty years later. They have not met since they were young - one of them was serving in the army in the tropics, the other was just sitting in the library watching the shutters in his castle after the army days. But now they meet again, it is time to showdown.