Sixties of the twentieth century. In a small town on the Chinese border, an elderly woman dies of cancer. To prevent her from suffering from unbearable pain, she is given regular morphine injections. And under the influence of these injections, in a semi-conscious state, she relives her life from the very moment when, as a thirteen-year-old girl, she became a servant in a manor house. There she saw the kind of life... which she later dreamed of and strived for all her life. She wanted to become a mistress, like her former mistress, the mistress of life, and for this she sometimes showed incredible energy and resourcefulness. And it seemed that the revolution that happened provided such opportunities. But, alas, as they say, every cricket knows its nest...