In Belgrade in 1961, an outbreak of hepatitis is spreading. Andric, along with Koca Popovic, Vuca, and Colakovic, is going over the travel protocol and receiving instructions regarding possible questions about the dissident Milovan Djilas, whose book "Conversations About Stalin" is set to be released in New York. Andric is working with Vera Stoic on a speech for an award ceremony. A postcard from Helena Izikovska in Poland arrives, taking him back to 1914, when he lived with her family in Krakow as a young student. Upon learning of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Andric leaves Helena and Krakow and travels back home, first to Zagreb and then to Split, where he meets his friends, fighters against Austro-Hungarian occupation, and his youthful love, Evgenija Gojmerac. As a member of the Young Bosnia movement, Andric is arrested by the occupying authorities and taken to a prison in Split.