The enthusiastic Reine is forced to take a job as a social worker at Kumla prison.
Two men meet in a detached house in the Stockholm archipelago to write a play, hunt roe dear and relax in a sauna. But a tabloid got a news story about the authors and sends a journalist to take photographs and bug their conversations.
A young idealistic civil servant, Arvid Falk, leaves the drudgery of bureaucracy to become a journalist and author. As he explores various social activities—politics, publishing, theatre, philanthropy, and business—he finds more hypocrisy and political corruption than he thought possible. He takes refuge with a group of "bohemians", who meet in a red dining room in Berns Salonger to discuss these matters.
