The heroine of this love story is an extraordinary old lady portrayed by Lili Darvas, the famed stage actress who worked with Max Reinhardt and the widow of playwright Ferenc Molnár. In her last days, a bedridden matriarch enters into an unspoken pact with her daughter-in-law which will allow her to live proudly and die happily. The young Luca (Mari Torocsik), whose husband Janos (Iván Darvas) has been seized by the secret police, concocts a story of his voyage to America and imminent success as a filmmaker. Luca delivers airmail letters filled with Hollywood gossip; Mother devours them and awaits her son's return--from where, she does not care. After a while, only Janos really exists in the present, and when he is suddenly sprung from prison, it is too late for the mother, who has opted for the comforts of the past and the hope of the future. What is Love? “...always exact, sad, and noble. It is a marvelous film, made with a precision of eye and spirit which records real love. Of neurosis and perfidy it knows nothing.” (Penelope Gilliatt, New Yorker).