Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.

Pharmacy trainee Władzio is a shy young man with a good heart, in love with lovely Loda.

A middle-aged woman takes a young lover, and leaves her husband and family to live with him. Her lover tires of her, and tosses her out and she wanders around pawning her jewelry in order to live. She makes a last visit to her family, planning suicide after she sees them.

Rena is adored by the prosecutor's son, but his father won't let them be together. The manager of the warehouse where she works is also trying to win her favor.

During a trip to the mountains, a young teacher Maria starts an affair with Wiesław, who she meets by chance.

Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.

In a Polish shtetl, two young men who have grown up together betrothe their unborn children, ignoring the advice of a mysterious traveler not to pledge the lives of future generations. Soon after, one of them dies, and the wife of the other dies in childbirth. The children grow up in different towns, without ever knowing of the betrothal, but the power of the vow leads them to meet each other when they are marriageable. The young woman, Leah, is promised to another man, but Channon, the son of the father who died, is a practitioner of mysticism, and seeks to win his bride through sorcery.

A young married couple is torn apart by WW1. When the news comes of her husband's death, Wanda marries another man, not knowing that her loved one is somewhere deep in the east.