A small circle of conspirators meets in a private salon to debate the purpose of their prolonged struggle against an autocratic regime, alternating philosophical doubt about progress and sacrifice with practical planning for resistance. Their discussions shift into cultivated pursuits such as composing and staging an opera, exposing how artistic ambition and social ritual coexist with political risk. Tension between camaraderie and fear, idealism and bodily peril, reveals the personal costs of dissent and the ambiguity of moral justification.