Synopsis
The USSR in the early fifties. Six-year-old Sania lives alone with his mother, Katia, a young war widow. She is seduced by Tolian who, although disguised as an officer, is actually a professional burglar and pickpocket. Sania at first feels suspicion - even hatred -towards his mother's lover, but he gradually grows to treat him as a father figure.Tolian is unfaithful to Katia, however, and is soon back in prison serving a seven-year sentence. Once again, the boy finds himself fatherless; then, a few months later, Katia dies and Sania, unable to forget Tolian, is taken to live in an orphanage. But the latter does not even recognise him when he gets out of jail and Sania's growing hatred leads him to murder the man he once loved.
Much later, Sania, now an officer in the Russian army, thinks he recognises Tolian in the features of an old beggar he sees through the windows of a train on a station platform...
