The Way of the Cross

In a small village in Chodsko the people have a day-to-day struggle to make ends meet. Many have resorted to working on a large estate. Only the parish priest Jiří stands up in protest against their undignified lot. But he receives no thanks for this because the steward stirs up the villagers against him. The mechanic Staněk also works on the estate. His son Ondřej wants to go to Prague to study law but is frustrated by his mother's wish that he enter the priesthood. His mother is relying on the priest to talk her son round. But Jiří himself was in the same position once and knows it is hard to carry out a profession one has not entered willingly. What's more, Ondřej is very fond of Hanča Vachudová and would like one day to marry her. But Ondřej believes the evil gossip he hears and renounces her angrily. She discovers she is pregnant but does not tell her father. The priest takes the unfortunate girl in, but this gives the villagers a reason to request his transfer to another parish. At his last sermon all the parishioners gather and Ondřej is swayed by the priest's words, as the whole congregation is, and he vows to marry Hanča, and so he confesses to be the father of Hanča's child.