Writer Pavel Snegirev comes to the village where during the war there was an orphanage where he spent his childhood, and meets his old friend Klim Avilov. The collective farm foreman does not understand and does not accept the writer, who did not keep his promised word and did not return after the army, thereby betraying both their friendship and the love of Anichka, who had been waiting for Pavel all this time. Their meeting is the last in their lives.