Alice Thursday brings her grandson David back to England from a family visit to the New World. On the way from the airport to the country house near London, the headstrong boy causes chauffeur Bates and butler Hunter some grief. He takes advantage of a car breakdown to go trout fishing and climbs into the stately Rolls Royce with his pants dripping wet. The millionaire heiress also experiences trouble at home and at work upon her return. The housekeeper complains that Alice has hired Mary, a girl with a criminal record.

After the death of his father, the ambitious farmhand Hauke Haien works his way up to become the successor to the old dyke count, whose daughter Elke he marries. He develops plans for the construction of a new dyke to provide better protection against storm surges, but encounters resistance and inertia from the villagers, who superstitiously suspect him of being in league with the devil. As a heavy storm approaches, he chases towards the floods with his white horse...

Paolo Sanseviero is a professor at a German university and more married to his profession than to his wife. Martina decides to leave her husband. But it happens differently.