Financier persuades his mistress to marry a rich industrialist for his money, then discovers that he and the new wife are to be murdered by her new husband.

When they start losing family members and neighbors due to WWII and the Nazi government's policies, a quiet married couple becomes disillusioned and begins spreading leaflets against the government - a crime punishable by death.

Such a soul torments young composer Georg von Wergenthin, around whom the author creates a precise picture of the fin de siècle, its neuroses and its politics. Georg starts a relationship with a young singer, but does not confess to her in front of his friends, even when she becomes pregnant by him.

A married woman takes her young son to a spa resort in the hope of helping his asthmatic condition. But she falls in love with a dashing baron.