A series of interlinked portraits and episodes portrays life in a small Hungarian market town, following characters whose ambitions, debts, grievances, and superstitions shape communal life. Central narratives trace a coarse, ambitious lawyer nicknamed the kestrel who climbs from poverty to wealth through predatory deals, marries above him and rules his household tyrannically, while the town's clergy, notables and neighbors react. Other vignettes record childhood games, local myths about sand mounds as castle remains, and tensions between tradition, social mobility, and moral compromise.