1900. On a rainy Vienna night, the successful pianist Stefan Brand returns home to pack his bags and leave the city. In doing so, he wants to avoid the morning duel to which he has been summoned for fighting. The servant John hands Stefan an envelope that was brought by the letter carrier the day before. The first line, written in a woman's handwriting, read, - "By the time you read this letter, I may be dead. I have so much to tell you, and I have so little time...".
Before the eyes of the hero passed the life of a woman whom he met in passing only a few times, many years ago, a woman who loved him until the last day of her life, and he did not know it....