Olivier, a young man, falls in love with Marion Renoir, theatre and screen star, to the despair of his fiancée Antonia. The latter goes to find the actress and asks her to invent a ploy to help her win back her lover's heart. The actress gets caught up in the game and ventures into an intrigue where simulation and sincerity are dangerously confused.

The climbing of an immense staircase made up of the most varied stairs. Symbolic scenes occur on different levels where characters seem to be prisoners of their deeds and of their own folly. The steep staircase leads little by little towards the zones of great light where human beings and nonhuman beings meet.