Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1890. A group of high-school students run away on an adventure that ends in scandal. The ringleader, Gusta, is expelled from school and sent to stay with his uncle in rural Turopolje. Here, a totally new world opens up to him, where the internal tragedies of the people are played out against the castle of Brezovica and a small town of wooden-framed houses. People end up in this idyllic exile because of some previous "sin" and try then to make the best of their lives there. But memories of the outside world impinge on their happiness.