Feeling neglected by her busy husband, Muriel meets the nobleman Emile le Blanc and falls for him head over heels. But he is not what he claims to be. (stumfilm.dk)

Magda, a piano teacher, meets Knud, a parson’s son, who invites her to spend the summer at his parents’ parsonage. When a travelling circus stops in the village, Magda leaves the meek Knud for the dashing circus rider Rudolf. But circus life with Rudolf quickly turns out to be anything but happy, and Magda comes to a tragic end.

1813. The Swedish army is fighting in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The popular general Von Döbeln is arrested for sending the army against the French in breach of orders by the crown prince. At the court martial he is sentenced to death but is pardoned by the king and sent to prison instead. A group of conspirators are planning to set him free and make him their leader in a coup d'etat.

A young woman of good family is driven into one of thieves and prostitutes and ends in suicide.

In the most idyllic East Jutland, the corn stands tall and beautiful, while Count Carl Trolle and his family thrive. The daughter Mathilde and the honorable and hard-working Preben want to get married and are only waiting for Mathilde to turn 18 and Preben to finish his education. But the lazy and sloppy Magnus also has a good eye for Mathilde, and what he doesn't get, he takes.

At the dinner for their school's 100th anniversary, three old schoolmates meet. All three have done well in life, for Eyvind is now a respected judge, Herluf the stern director of a glassworks and Ove the owner of a printing house. In the time after the dinner, the coincidences of the three men's lives will become entangled in a way none of them could have foreseen. Fortunately, they still have their old principal in the background to pull the strings.

The young Ms. Holm gets the job as private secretary to Director Berg and it quickly becomes clear that she is unusually active and enterprising. Ms. Kirkemus, as Berg has named her, brings life to the entire office and a business trip to Stockholm, where half the staff participates, becomes no less festive thanks to her. But Ms. Kirkemus has fallen in love with her director and it doesn't really suit her that Berg is meeting another girl in Stockholm and then the antics get even more intense...

Søndreø is a small, peaceful island in one of Denmark's fjords, owned and run by the old farmer Lars Søndervold and his son Søren. But times are hard, and everything is not going as it should. The greedy, bragging merchant Anders Lundrup has used all means to gain possession of the island, and one fine day Søren and his old father must leave their ancestral farm and the island. Søren swears an expensive oath - he will earn so much money that he can one day buy the farm and the island back, and at the same time he swears revenge on Anders Lundrup.

After three long years, the young legal secretary Bodil is reunited with his former girlfriend Carsten. Their love affair flares up again, but unfortunately Bodil has meanwhile come a little too close to his boss' son, the skirt hunter Hugo. And he has no intention of making Bodil happy.

Eight separate family dramas (uncovering many aspects of deceit) are woven together to the sound of a certain Chopin waltz.