A married couple of the Skvortsovs, accomplished and wealthy middle-aged scientists with two adult children, set off on the cruise ship "Dmitry Furmanov" on the weekend route Leningrad-Valaam-Leningrad. During a tour of the island of Valaam, the couple quarrel, and She goes alone on a passing boat to a former monastery where disabled people live. In the boatman, unexpectedly for herself, Anna recognizes her and her husband's youth friend Pavel, whom, as it seemed to her, she loved all her life and was waiting for a meeting, although she considered him to have died during the Great Patriotic War.