In Belgrade in 1961, there was a hepatitis epidemic. Andrić, along with Koča Popović, Vuča, and Čolaković, goes over the travel protocol and receives instructions regarding potential questions about dissident Milovan Đilas, whose book Conversations About Stalin is set to be published in New York. Andrić works with Vera Stojić on his speech for the award ceremony.

A postcard arrives from Helena Ižikovska from Poland, which takes him back to the past, to 1914, when as a young student he lived with her family in Krakow. Upon learning about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Andrić leaves Helena and Krakow and travels back to his homeland, first to Zagreb, then to Split, where he meets his friends, fighters against the Austro-Hungarian occupation, and his youthful love, Evgenija Gojmerac. As a member of Young Bosnia, Andrić is arrested by the occupation authorities and taken to a prison in Split.