The old man sits in a wheelchair at the billboard. He sees the Student talking to the Milkwoman and tells her that the day before he saved people from the rubble of a collapsed building. The old man hears the words of the Student, but does not see the Thrush, for she is a vision. The old man talks to the Student and finds out that he is the son of the merchant Arkenholz. The student knows from the late father that the Old Man - Director Hummel - ruined their family. The old man claims the opposite - he rescued the merchant Arkenholz from trouble, and he robbed him for seventeen thousand crowns. The old man does not demand this money from the Student, but wants the young man to provide him with small services. He tells the student to go to the theater on the Valkyrie. The Colonel and his daughter, who live in a house that the Student really likes, will sit in neighboring places. The student will be able to get to know him and be in this house. The student looks at the daughter of the Colonel, who is actually the daughter of the Old Man: once the Old Man seduced Colonel's wife Amalia. Now the Old Man decided to marry his daughter to a Student. The student says that he was born in a shirt. The old man suggests that this gives him the opportunity to see what others do not see (he means Thrush). The student himself does not know what is happening to him, for example, on the eve he was pulled into a quiet side street, and soon the house collapsed there. A student picked up a child walking along the wall when the house collapsed. The student remained safe and sound, but he did not have a child in his arms. The old man takes the Student's hand - the young man feels what an ice hand he has and recoils in horror. The old man asks the student not to leave him: he is so infinitely lonely. He says he wants to make the student happy. The servant of the Old Man Johansson appears. He hates his master: once the Old Man saved him from prison and for this made him his slave. Johansson explains to the Student that the Old Man longs to rule: “The whole day he drives around in his gurney, like the god Thor ... examines houses, demolishes them, paves the streets, spreads the squares; but he breaks into houses, breaks in windows, rules the fate of people, kills enemies and forgives nothing to anyone. ” The old man is afraid of only one thing: the Hamburg thrush girl.

Students are welcomed at home in the round living room of their favorite Student. Johansson is hired to help Colonel Bengtson's servant meet them. Bengtson announces to Johanson that so-called “ghost dinners” are regularly held at their home. The same company has been going together for twenty years, they say the same thing or are silent, so as not to say something out of place. The mistress of the house sits in the pantry, she imagined herself a parrot and was like a talkative bird, she can not stand cripples, sick, even her own daughter because she is sick. Johanson is astonished: he did not know that Froken is ill.

The old man on crutches comes to visit the Colonel and orders Bengtson to report to the owner about himself. Benggson comes out. Left alone, the Old Man looks around the room and sees the statue of Amalia, but here she herself enters the room and asks the Old Man why he came. The old man came for his daughter. It turns out that everything lies around - the Colonel has false metric evidence, Amalia herself once falsified her year of birth. The colonel took the bride from the Old Man, and the Old Man seduced his wife in revenge. Amalia predicts to the Old Man that he will die in this room, behind the Japanese screens that are called mortals in the house and set when it is time for someone to die. Amalia says that people who hate each other regularly gather in their house, but sin, guilt, and mystery bind them together with inextricable bonds.

The old man is talking to the Colonel. The old man bought up all his bills and considers himself entitled to dispose of in his house. The old man wants the Colonel to receive him as a guest, in addition, he demands that the Colonel drive out his old servant Bengtson. The colonel says that although all of his property now belongs to the Old Man, the noble coat of arms and the good name of the Old Man cannot be taken from him. In response to these words, the Old Man takes out an extract from a noble book from his pocket, which says that the kind to which the Colonel allegedly belongs died out a hundred years ago. Moreover. The old man argues that the Colonel is not at all a colonel, because after the war in Cuba and the transformation of the army all previous ranks were abolished. The old man knows the secret of the Colonel - he is a former servant.

Guests come. They silently sit in a circle, except for the Student, who passes into the room with hyacinths, where the colonel’s daughter sits. Whenever Freken is at home, she is in this room, she has such a strangeness. The old man says that he entered this house in order to tear up tares, reveal sin, summarize and enable the young people to start life anew in this house, which he gives them. He says that everyone present knows who they are. And who he is, they also know, although they pretend to not know. And everyone knows that Freken is actually his daughter. She wilted in this air, full of deceit, sin and falsehood. The old man has found a noble friend for her - the Student - and wants her to be happy with him. He tells everyone to disperse when the clock strikes. But Amalia approaches the clock and stops the pendulum. She says that she can stop the run of time and turn the past into nothing, done - not done, and not by threats, not by bribery, but by suffering and repentance. She says that for all their sinfulness, those present are better than they appear, because they repent of their sins, while the Old Man, who is dressed in the toga of a judge, is worse than all of them. He once lured Amalia to false promises, he entangled the Student with the fictitious duty of his father, although in reality he did not owe the Old Man a single era ... Amalia suspects that Bengtson knows the whole truth about the Old Man - that's why the Old Man wanted him from him get rid of. Amalia rings the bell. A little Thrush appears at the door, but no one except the Old Man sees her. Horror was frozen in the Old Man's eyes. Benggson talks about the atrocities of the Old Man, he tells how the Old Man, who was a loan shark in Hamburg at that time, tried to drown the thrush girl because she knew too much about him. Amalia locks the Old Man in the pantry, where she sat for many years and where there is a cord that is quite suitable for hanging on it. Amalia orders Bengson to block the door to the pantry with mortal Japanese screens.

Froken in the room with hyacinths plays the student on the harp. On the fireplace is a large Buddha holding a hyacinth root on his lap, which symbolizes the earth; the hyacinth stalk, straight as the earth's axis, rises up and is crowned with star-shaped flowers of six rays. A student tells Freken that Buddha is waiting for the earth to become heaven. A student wants to know why Freken's parents do not talk to each other. She replies that the Colonel and his wife have nothing to talk about, because they do not believe each other. “Why talk if we can’t fool each other anymore?” - says the Colonel, Freken complains about the cook, who runs everything in the house. She is from the vampire clan Hummels, and the owners can neither drive her away nor cope with her. This cook is a punishment for their sins, she feeds them so much that they languish and scorch. In addition to her, there is also a maid in the house, behind which Freken has to clean endlessly. A student tells Freken that she wants to marry her. “Be silent! I will never be yours! ” She replies, but does not explain the reasons for her refusal. The student is surprised at how many secrets are in their house. He sees that if people were completely frank, the world would collapse. A few days ago, the Student was in the church at the funeral service for Director Hummel, his alleged benefactor. At the head of the tomb stood a friend of the deceased, a respectable elderly gentleman. And then the Student found out that this elderly friend of the deceased was burning with passion for his son, while the deceased borrowed from his son’s admirer. A day after the funeral, the pastor was arrested, whose heartfelt speech at the tomb so touched the Student: it turned out that he had robbed the church box office. A student says that his father died in a madhouse. He was healthy, just once he could not restrain himself and told the guests in his house what he thought about them, explained to them how they were lying. For this he was taken to a madhouse, and there he died. The student recalls how the Colonel’s house seemed like a paradise, but it turned out that he, too, was saturated with lies. The student knows that Freken refused him because she was ill and was always ill. “Jesus Christ descended into hell, the descent into hell was his descent to earth, the land of madmen, criminals and corpses, and fools killed him when he wanted to save them, and they released the robber, they always love robbers! Woe to us! Save us Savior of the World, we perish! ” Freken falls, pale as chalk. She tells Bengtoon to bring screens: he brings screens and sets them up, blocking the girl. The sounds of the harp are heard. A student prays the heavenly Father to be merciful to the deceased.