The country estate of Count Claudieuse is located near Paris. One night in 1871, it goes up in flames. Two shots are fired, the count is critically injured, and the countess and her children escape the flames with the help of the feeble-minded Cocoleu. Cocoleu accuses Jacques von Beaucoran from the neighboring estate of being the perpetrator. Jacques protests his innocence.

Monk Medardus, administrator of the relic chamber of a Capuchin monastery, drinks from the elixirs of the devil and is confronted with the dark sides of his soul.

Old Karl Knesebeck has long been head waiter and rules his waiters with an iron fist at the hotel. When the business passes into the hands of the heirs after the owner's death, he's in a difficult position. The unscrupulous Alwin makes advances toward Niddy, the owner's daughter, whose well-being Knesebeck watches over like a father. Alwin demotes the old man to toilet attendant – a tragedy that Knesebeck tries to salvage, especially since Niddy is about to marry Alwin and another man would actually be better for her...

On a winter day in 1961, 31-year-old Anna Eichmayr crosses the Grosshesseloher bridge in Munich, she suddenly stops in the middle of the bridge, opens a manhole and plunges into the depths. The film traces the young woman's life in flashbacks. It goes back to 1945.