Brother and sister Mirek and Jana grew up together in the small town of Policka. The murder of their much-hated father, staged as an accident, only serves to intensify their already strong emotional bond. Over the years the older dominant sister gradually loses her influence over the brother, an influence which has allowed her to easily destroy all his attempts at finding a love relationship. Jana, who sought an escape from feelings of guilt and the small-town boredom of her life in wild excursions to Prague, finally gets married to a doctor named Josef; the careworn Mirek in turn looks for a way out with a lonely waitress named Olga. But not even after this do the siblings, bound together by their tormenting incestuous love, stop torturing each other and the end is tragedy.