It all started with Saratov, where the troupe came on tour and where the actors were accommodated in a bad hotel. It’s hot, the director Sergey Leonidovich drove off to Moscow, leaving Smurny’s assistant instead. This Smurny has long laid eyes on Lyalya (Lyudmila Petrovna Telepneva), one of the theater's actresses, but, taking revenge on her for rejecting him, he gives her a "paste", that is, either does not give her a role at all, or holds on to third-rate . In Saratov, Smurny calls Lyalya to her and shows her a letter composed by her mother, where she complains that her daughter, a talented actress, is not allowed to work. Rumors immediately spread between the actors, Lyale was terribly ashamed, she many times asked her mother, who had long sinned this kind of petition, not to do this. So at a party at the author of the play, Nikolai Demyanovich Smolyanov, a native of Saratov, Lyalya finds no place for himself. She is in a bad mood, she feels estranged from the collective, and she also feels sorry for the provincial, poorly gifted playwright, who took pains to accept the actors well, and they taunt him. Lyalya helps Smolyanov’s mother set the table, and after washing the dishes, she lingers on them and is finally forced to spend the night. Smolyanov seems to her miserable, weak, she listens to stories about the life of this unhappy person in family life, who, moreover, is fully aware of her talent. Pitying Smolyanov, Lyalya becomes his mistress.

Returning to Moscow, Lyalya leaves for a month in the Crimea, returns tanned, rested, attractive and meets Smolyanov in the theater, whose new play “Ignat Timofeevich” is about to be staged by Sergey Leonidovich. In this play, Lyalya, not without the assistance of Smolyanov, gets the main role. In Moscow, Smolyanov makes a variety of useful contacts. Roman Lyali continues with him, she does not feel passion for this man, but feels that he needs him, and therefore does not break off ties, although sometimes she is tormented by remorse before her unofficial husband Grigory Rebrov, with whom they have been living for many years.

Rebrov is also a beginner playwright, the author of two plays that he can’t put on anywhere. The painfully proud Rebrov suffers from his failures, comforting himself with the fact that composing plays is not the main thing in his life. He is also passionate about history, sitting in the library, rummaging through the archives. First, he is interested in such a person as Ivan Gavrilovich Pryzhov, the author of History of Kabaks, a chronicler of folk life, a drunkard, a noble man, one of the participants in the murder of student Ivanov, organized by S. Nechaev, then Nikolai Vasilievich Kletochnikov, an agent of the People’s Witnesses in the Third Division. Rebrov concocts a play about Narodnaya Volya. Due to his disorder, he will not marry Lala, despite the deep and long-standing love for her. Abortions are also associated with this, and her mother, Irina Ignatievna, a past failed ballerina, is pushing her. Mother considers Rebrov a failure, living at the expense of her daughter.

The premiere of Smolyanov’s play is a great success. Lyalya is called with applause several times. Envious whispers are heard around her. After the performance, she is forced to introduce the waiting Rebrov to her seeing off Smolyanov. Rebrov himself was not at the premiere, as he considers the author a graphomaniac. Smolyanov offers to celebrate the success of the play in the restaurant. After dinner, the three of them, drunk, come to visit Lyalya and Rebrov at her parents' house, where they stay for the night.

Rebrov suspects that there is something between Lyalya and Smolyanov, but this idea drives him away. The success that grows with each performance touches him and Lyalin. She becomes popular, she is invited to act in films, arrange concerts with her participation, in which she performs songs from the play. Her salary increase, have special signs of attention. She feels like a rich woman. The only thing that prevents her from feeling completely happy is the suffering of her relatives: Grisha’s disorder, her mother’s nervousness due to illness of her father Lyalya Pyotr Aleksandrovich, who has a third heart attack. They are going to break their old wooden house, like everyone else, because the city is advancing, but Pyotr Aleksandrovich wants to preserve the garden, his pride, where he plants flowers. He is ready to transfer the garden to state ownership, tries to fight, walks around, sends letters, but he does not succeed, and this affects his sharply worsened condition.

Concerned about Grisha, Lyalya, who never asked for anything from Smolyanov, asks for help to rebuild Rybr's plays somewhere. Smolyanov reluctantly responds to this. He does not understand that he connects Lyalya with such a miserable, as he said, “little man”. He believes that Rebrov has no soil, while Rebrov, arguing with him, says that his soil is an experience of history. At a party at a certain "respectable worker" Agabekov, where Smolyanov brings her, Lyalya is in the limelight, sincerely having fun, then Smolyanov is absent somewhere, and Lyalya is left alone with Agabekov waiting for him. After a call from Smolyanov, who reported that he was stuck with a car and would pick her in the morning, Lyalya suddenly realizes that everything is fine-tuned and Smolyanov lost to her boss, on whom much depended on his career. From this moment everything is over with him, which Lyalya informs him about when he met. Smolyanov takes the gap hard, especially since his family is not happy: his mentally unstable wife is trying to jump out of the window, his mother has a stroke in the hospital, and his theater affairs are getting worse. Sergei Leonidovich and Zavlit Marevin refuse to take his new play, and Lyalya unexpectedly supports them.

Meanwhile, serious problems are brewing for Rebrov. A certificate is required from him for house management from the place of work, otherwise he will be considered a parasite, up to and including discharge and eviction from Moscow. He goes to the theater, where he gave his plays for consideration, and he begins a serious conversation with the director Sergei Leonidovich, who bitterly wonders why the playwrights do not write about what is really close to them, but choose opportunistic topics. After eagerly listening to Rebrov’s story about Kletochnikov, he enthusiastically says that it would be great if he could depict on stage the flow of time that carries everyone, a multi-strand wire of history where everything is united.

Smolyanoe is looking for a talented literary "slave." Someone Shakhov, their mutual acquaintance with Rebrov, leads Grisha to him. Smolyanov is still valid: if his name appears next to Rebrovsky in the play, then this can give her a green light. However, Smolyanov’s invitation is fraught with something else: he arranges for Rebrov’s test by purposely putting on the shirt that Lyalya had given him at the time.

Rebrov accidentally discovered his shirt in the closet, and Lyalya lied to his question that this was a collective gift to the musician from the orchestra. Now he looks with amazement at the shirt, then he cannot stand it and asks where Nikolay Demyanovich bought it. Smolyanov replies that Lyudmila Petrovna presented.

There is an explanation between Rebrov and Lyalya. Lyalya frankly admits that in the background of her connection with Smolyanov, almost unconscious, there was a desire to "somehow arrange herself." That conversation becomes the actual end of their relationship. Soon, Smolyanov appears at Rebrov’s house, reporting that he had agreed on a place in the theater for him, and Rebrov cannot understand whether to beat Smolyanov or to go to get a job. And all this is like in a dream - and shame, and surprise. On top of everything, Lyalya, under the pressure of her mother, makes another abortion, but Rebrov already feels that something has irrevocably broken in him, that his former life has ended. The next day, he leaves, without warning anyone, on a geological expedition.

It takes many years. The Telepnevs have not been at home for a long time, as are the parents of Lyali. She herself was fired from the theater, married a military man, gave birth to a son, and now her circle of acquaintances is completely different. By chance meeting in GUM an old girlfriend at the theater Masha, she learns about Smolyanov that he does not write plays and lives by renting a summer cottage. She also learns about Rebrov: he is a successful screenwriter, he has a car, he has been married twice, he has an affair with his daughter Masha’s girlfriend. She does not know only one thing: those old years, when he was in poverty and suffering, Rebrov considers the best, because for happiness you need as much unhappiness ...