Rome, November 1941. In a pneumology clinic, Ion Bucur, a young Romanian poet, is dying. His friend and compatriot, artist Eugen Dragutesco, faithfully sits at his bedside, drawing pictures of him, thirty pictures in total, which will finally constitute the poignant diary of a pathetic agony.

Olivier, a young man, falls in love with Marion Renoir, theatre and screen star, to the despair of his fiancée Antonia. The latter goes to find the actress and asks her to invent a ploy to help her win back her lover's heart. The actress gets caught up in the game and ventures into an intrigue where simulation and sincerity are dangerously confused.