A historical crime film, the protagonist of which is 30-year-old Juhan Liiv. In 1894, Liiv gets rid of the Tartu Nervous Clinic and sets off to the countryside to her parents’ home to recover her health. He suffers from incipient schizophrenia, he has not managed to publish his collection of poems and he is painfully aware that the hopes of freedom of the Estonians’ awakening are fading. Russification is taking place in Estonia, it is time for ideals to disappear. Liiv reaches Alatskivi, where the farmer Madjus, who had previously bragged about old silver coins in the tavern, is found killed. Madjus’s daughter Mari, who is a relative of Juhan Liiv, confesses to him that Madjus dug up a mint on which witchcraft words were scratched – the devil takes the thief’s soul…..