An idealist sculptor is inspired to carve a large relief on a cliffside, commemorating the spot where his pacifist father was executed for his beliefs and for protesting the saber-rattling of the times. The sculptor's inspiration was his visit to New York to see Picasso's famous "Guernica," portraying the inhumanity and horrors of war, a painting that was subsequently returned to Spain. When a young woman watches an interview with the sculptor on television, she is motivated to pay him a visit and the two strike up a relationship. He loans her his apartment in Budapest, though he refuses to sleep with her. Meanwhile, her lover becomes jealous of the sculptor and goes to visit him himself, upon which the two immediately clash because their views on life and politics are so different. Margit has been away to track down the painting of Guernica so as to understand what has inspired her sculptor friend, and when she comes back, she decides to marry her lover.