An aging lonesome man, Dimitri Pavlovich Sanin, holds a celebration at his manor. He leaves for his study and the iron ring which he finds in his table returns him in his memories forty years back to when he was a handsome twenty-four-year old young man. At that time, he was returning from Italy to Russia. He planned to spend just one night in a small Austrian town but accidentally wandered into an Italian sweetshop where he was asked for help by a scared girl. Sanin managed to awaken her small brother from unconsciousness. The beautiful and grateful Gemma, daughter of the sweetshop's owner, invited him for dinner.