The clerk Pavel Simov is a compulsive gambler. His last savings are lost gambling and he begins to steal. He attacks a rich woman in the park, grabs her bag and coat and runs away. The police chase him. He leaves the stolen items with his wife Rinka. She cannot prove her innocence and is sentenced as his accomplice. The greengrocer Katerina takes in their three-old-year son Pepi but later sends him to a manger on Rinka insistence. Katerina puts on his neck a small cross left by his mother. Three years later Rinka is released from prison. At the manger, she learns that the child has been given to a foster mother. Hungry, Rinka stops in front of Zoya's bakery. A boy of about six works there. He takes pity on the beggar-woman and gives her two buns for which Zoya gives him a beating. Rinka starts work in a sweet factory. One evening she finds a child sleeping in front of her house and recognizes the boy from the bakery. She is full of joy when she discovers her own cross hanging around ...