Tõnis Hoopkaup is the head of a fishing collective in Tagaranna, a village on the Estonian island of Saaremaa. On the day of his wedding to fishing engineer Riina, he receives two important presents – a new trawling net, which he hopes will help him sail past rival collectives, and a cigarette case with an anchor on it. The case reminds him of his soaring pre-war dreams, when he was in love with the daughter of the most powerful man in Tagaranna. But her hard-hearted father put paid to their wedding plans. Now the bookkeeper Lauer has moved into the old house with his sister Lidia, and Tõnis wants to get close to her, as close as he once was with his great love … The personal and professional misconduct of a functionary who risks foundering morals is at the centre of love triangle drama featuring a wealth of local colour and complex characters.
The action takes place on the estate of a major, where his friends, inveterate bachelors, and the sisters of the major, who came to marry him with his niece, meet. But the niece has long loved Lieutenant Edmund, and then a plan matures to persuade the major to marry, at the last moment, replacing him with the lieutenant. To do this, the ladies have woven insidious intrigues. At the end of the play, the mutual rejection of the ladies and the hussar develops into sympathy and even love ...
