A man begs his mother for money after their family's fortune falls apart.

Vienna, Austria, 1910. The young painter Egon Schiele is a rising artist, provocative and free, whose work, characterized by eroticism, shocks as much as it fascinates art lovers.

Heinrich wishes to conquer death through love, and when he meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance, she expresses interest in a suicide pact when she learns she has a terminal illness.