Preparations for Stockholm are taking a long time. With Vera Stojić, his colleague, secretary and confidant of many decades, Andrić goes through the schedule of obligations in Sweden, through which their complicated relationship is revealed. While the drama The ceremony based on his short story is being broadcast on television, Andrić goes for a walk to Prizrenska to visit Kaja and Brana, whom he has not seen since he moved out of their apartment.
He feels like a hostage to his own past, which in this episode drags him back to 1946, to his entrance speech at SAN and meetings with Milica, then to 1948, the year of the Informburo, which found him in the position of president of the Association of Writers of Yugoslavia, an Association whose many members were expelled for resolutions, and some sent to Goli Otok.