Seven months after marrying and settling on Rosa’s Alpine pasture, fishmonger Hannes flees back to Hamburg. Furious, Rosa follows him to the Hanseatic city.

On a seniors ride a bourgeois widow meets a proletarian man. Out of despair they marry right away without getting to know each other. Moving in with her, he brings a cat, which is a thorn in her eye and a synonym for the rough relationship.

Stefanie von Nauenstedt begins a passionate affair with David, her brother-in-law, and realizes only too late how much her husband André and her son mean to her.