Peter is a failure as a writer and composer and decides to take his own life. In the midst of his attempt, he encounters two businessmen who are desperately short of money. The three make a deal where Peter takes out a life insurance policy and lives a year in luxury with everything paid for, only to commit suicide and give the money to the businessmen. And then all that's left for Peter to do is give it his all for twelve months. And that's what he does...

A tale of murder and marriage in 1625 Denmark.

After three long years, the young legal secretary Bodil is reunited with his former girlfriend Carsten. Their love affair flares up again, but unfortunately Bodil has meanwhile come a little too close to his boss' son, the skirt hunter Hugo. And he has no intention of making Bodil happy.

Eight separate family dramas (uncovering many aspects of deceit) are woven together to the sound of a certain Chopin waltz.

The stout Axel Høegh is a forester on the Troldborg estate in South Zealand, where he lives with his daughter Anne, who runs the house, and his son Mogens, who serves as a forester candidate under his father, and who is engaged to a young girl, Ulla Kryger, who is employed at a Copenhagen advertising agency.

Architect Poul Friis Henriksen falls in love with Norwegian Gerd. Unfortunately, she is already engaged to the doctor Arne Lorentzen, whose former wife died of an overdose under mysterious circumstances. Gerd invites Poul to a party at her home, where he accidentally sees her secretly taking a syringe. This makes Poul suspect that Arne is anything but the perfect husband. He sets out to investigate the matter further.

When Møller Jakob Clausen of "Højmøllen" sits at his wife's deathbed, he makes her promise that if he marries again, he will choose a woman who will be good to their little son, Hans. And in motherly care for her little son, the dying wife mentions the forester's gentle and kind sister, Hanne, who will surely be able to become both a faithful wife for the miller and a good mother for Hans.

Henrik and Emilie Schultze rent the Hotel Paradis in a small, poor fishing village by the coast.