During the 1917 Russian revolution, a group of artistocrats find themselves in the custody of a brutal Communist revolutionary. He lusts after one of them, a ballerina, and gives her an ultimatum: give in to him or her friends will face the firing squad.

Vienna, sometime around 1680: Augustin makes fun of Leopold I mistress and in doing so, stirs up the passions of the people against the luxury-enjoying rulers, who neglect their people. He is arrested and sent to prison. When the plague breaks out, he manages to get out of prison, but accidentally ends up in a mass grave for victims of the plague