The main character of the story is the successful opera singer Jana Mirská, whom you recognize the moment she leaves Vienna when she learns from the mother of her noble fiance Franzi that she will not give her son consent to the marriage. On the way to Prague, Jana meets the painter Petr Domin on the train, and together with him they get off at the nearest stop to help a young woman from their compartment when she started having labor pains. They find themselves at a small railway station, and immediately Jana discovers that she has accidentally found herself in her birthplace, in the small town of Podlesná, where her mother came from. Because she misses the train, the young woman decides to stay there for a while, just like Petr. During her several-day stay there, she and Petr experience a short love affair and win over the majority of the town's inhabitants with her charm and even sing at their May mass at their request. Meanwhile, a desperate Franzi is badly injured in a duel, and Jana, begged by Franzi's mother, returns to Vienna to see him.