"[1][2] Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis.

The doctor meets Dorota as he is entering the elevator one morning, as she smokes a cigarette in the hallway looking out of the window.

The doctor returns from buying milk and runs across Dorota again, since she has not moved from the spot where they met earlier.

Dorota finally introduces herself and reveals that she urgently wants a prognosis of the condition of her husband, who is seriously ill in hospital.

Later that day he meets her again still smoking in the same spot and asks her if a dead hare which the concierge found earlier is hers, which she denies.

The doctor tells her that Andrzej is very ill and that things are not looking good, but he also says that in his experience patients with even less chance than him have recovered, so his prognosis is guarded.

When he opens his door, she enters and smokes without asking permission, using her matchbox as an ashtray and causing a flame when extinguishing the cigarette.

When Dorota returns to the hospital ward she sees a corpse being rolled out and, upon entering, realizes it is not Andrzej but the roommate who appeared healthier than him the day before.

She approaches her husband, who looks very weak, declares her love and touches him for the first time in the film; the lab assistant/orderly is shown staring intensely.

In a typically "Kieślowskiesque" scene, Andrzej opens his eyes for the first time and observes how a bee miraculously manages to climb on a spoon out of a glass with the preserved strawberries in it.

[3] The second commandment is about sanctity of speech, where names are fundamental to identity and moral choice, and the importance of one's word in human life.

Other moral or ethical dilemmas of the characters in this film are murder and punishment, and the nature and relation of love and passion.