The club of a large industrial city has a full house. The hall is full of people standing in the aisles. Extraordinary event: published a novel by a young local writer. The readers of the conference praise the newcomer: workdays are reflected accurately and vividly. The heroes of the book are truly the heroes of our time.

But one can argue about their "personal life", says Dmitry Koroteev, one of the leading engineers of the plant. Typical here is a penny: a serious and honest agronomist could not fall in love with a windy and flirtatious woman with whom he has no common spiritual interests, in addition - the wife of his comrade! The love described in the novel seems to be mechanically transferred from the pages of bourgeois literature!

Koroteev’s speech causes a heated debate. His closest friends are more discouraged - although they do not express this out loud - his young engineer Grisha Savchenko and teacher Lena Zhuravleva (her husband is the factory director sitting on the podium of the conference and openly pleased with the harsh criticism of Koroteyev).

The debate about the book continues at Sonya Pukhova’s birthday party, which comes directly from Savchenko’s club. “A clever man, but he performed on a stencil! - Grisha gets excited. - It turns out that the personal - no place in the literature. And the book touched everyone for the living: too often we still say one thing, but in our personal lives we act differently. The reader yearned for such books! ” “You are right,” one of the guests, artist Saburov, nods. “It's time to remember that there is art!” “And in my opinion, Koroteev is right,” Sonya objects. “The Soviet man learned to control nature, but he must learn to control his feelings too ...”

Lena Zhuravleva has no one with whom to exchange opinions about what she heard at the conference: she has already cooled off for her husband a long time ago, it seems, from the day when she heard from him at the height of the "doctors' case:" You can’t trust them too much, it’s indisputable. " The disdainful and merciless “them” shocked Lena. And when, after the fire at the factory, where Zhuravlev showed himself well done, Koroteev answered him with praise, she wanted to shout: “You know nothing about him. This is a soulless person! ”

This is also why Koroteev’s performance at the club grieved her: he seemed to her so whole, extremely honest, both in public and in private, in private, and in private with his own conscience ...

The choice between truth and falsehood, the ability to distinguish one from another — this calls on all heroes without exception to lead the time of the “thaw”. Thaws are not only in the public climate (Koroteyev’s stepfather returns after seventeen years of imprisonment; relations with the West, the opportunity to meet with foreigners are openly discussed in the feast; daredevils are always at the meeting, ready to argue with the authorities, the majority opinion). This is the thaw of everything “personal” that it has been customary to conceal for so long from people, not to let people out of the door of their house. Koroteev is a front-line soldier, there was a lot of bitterness in his life, but this choice is also painfully given to him. At the party bureau, he did not find the courage to stand up for the lead engineer Sokolovsky, whom Zhuravlev dislikes. And although after the ill-fated party bureau Koroteev changed his mind and directly stated this to the head of the department of the city committee of the CPSU, his conscience did not calm down: “I have no right to judge Zhuravlev, I am just like him. I say one thing, but I live differently. Probably, today, we need other, new people - romantics, like Savchenko. Where to get them from? Gorky once said that we needed our Soviet humanism. And Gorky has long been gone, and the word “humanism” has disappeared from circulation - but the task remains. And to solve it today. ”

The reason for the conflict between Zhuravlev and Sokolovsky is that the director disrupts the housing plan. The storm, which in the first spring days flew into the city, destroying several dilapidated barracks, causes a response storm - in Moscow. Zhuravlev is on an urgent call to Moscow, for a new appointment (of course, with a decrease). In the collapse of his career, he blames not the storm, and especially not himself - Lena who left him: leaving his wife is immoral! In the old days, for such a thing ... And Sokolovsky is still to blame for what happened (he almost hastened to report the storm to the capital): “It's a pity that I didn’t ditch him ...”

There was a storm - and swept away. Who will remember about her? Who will remember the director Ivan Vasilievich Zhuravlev? Who recalls the past winter, when loud drops fall from icicles, until spring - a stone's throw? ..

It was difficult and long — like a path through a snowy winter to a thaw — the path to the happiness of Sokolovsky and the “pest doctor” Vera Grigoryevna, Savchenko and Sonya Pukhova, actresses of the drama theater Tanechka and Sonya’s brother Volodya. Volodya passes his temptation with lies and cowardice: at a discussion of an art exhibition, he falls upon Saburov’s childhood friend, “for formalism”. Repenting of his baseness, asking for forgiveness from Saburov, Volodya confesses to himself the main thing, which he did not realize for too long: he has no talent. In art, as in life, the main thing is talent, not loud words about ideology and popular demands.

Lena now strives to be needed by people, who again found herself with Koroteev. Sonia Pukhova also feels this feeling - she confesses to herself in love for Savchenko. In love, which trials over time and space: they barely had time to get used to separation from Grisha (after the institute, Sonya was assigned to a factory in Penza) - and here Grisha has a long way, to Paris, for an internship, in a group of young specialists.

Spring. Thaw. It is felt everywhere, everyone feels it: both those who did not believe in it, and those who were waiting for it — like Sokolovsky going to Moscow to meet her daughter Masha, Mary, a ballerina from Brussels, who was completely unfamiliar to her and dear to her, with whom he dreamed of meeting all his life.