Ernesto is a young Italian Jew of the early 1900s who works in his uncle's factory in Trieste. Not entirely secure with his sexual orientation, Ernesto enters into an affair with one of his uncle's employees.

A woman loses her husband in a car accident and plunges into a severe emotional crisis, which is why she leaves her son in the care of her mother-in-law. When she goes to pick him up weeks later, a fierce battle breaks out between the women over the child.

Manfred takes his nephew, Martin, on a business trip to Rome. They stay with Manfred's brother Georg, who lives in Rome. On the way there Manfred and Martin meet Lilo, a girl who is also on her way to Rome.

After an alleged malpractice that led to the death of his brother, heart surgeon Daniel Guth took the consequences: he gave up his beloved job and retreated into the solitude of nature. At his place of refuge, the Salzburg mountains, the heiress to a private clinic is desperately looking for a capable chief physician. Daniel declines the post, although he finds the woman attractive. When a boy is seriously injured in a bus accident, he is confronted with his trauma again.