Per Brask is a fisherman's son, a lively 16-year-old boy, still too young to go out to sea, even though, like other boys on the west coast, he has to help out with the daily work. He is mostly preoccupied with playing, while dreaming of getting his own boat. The boys from the dunes are in a constant battle with the fjord boys, or land crabs – usually just called crabs – who are the boys from the village by the fjord or from the farms further inland.

Hopeless romantic Gertrud inhabits a turn-of-the-century milieu of artists and musicians, where she pursues an idealized notion of love that will always elude her. She abandons her distinguished husband and embraces an affair with a young concert pianist, who falls short of her desire for lasting affection. When an old lover returns to her life, fresh disappointments follow, and Gertrud must try to come to terms with reality.