A sixteen-year-old boy on a journey of self-discovery meets up with a hobo, claiming to be an Arab, who tells him of his own search for the center of the universe.
A fiddler who went into seclusion after his wife's death agrees to play at a wedding. When he finds that only sacks of grain are around to listen, he goes in search of company.
Everytime the poor girl mends the broken porcelain vase it becomes something different, providing the means of escaping from her dreary existence of mending junk.