New Yorker Ben Phillips and mysterious Léo Hoffmann are strangers who are summoned to Paris by a mutual acquaintance. Upon arrival, they meet and soon find themselves tangled in a complex mystery.

Her mother had advised her to marry to acquire respectability and material comfort, the obedient little girl married a successful Catholic writer a few years later, giving her two beautiful children, a spacious house, a few servants, and glittering social evenings. But in her thirties, Rose can no longer fall asleep at the side of her husband, who is imperturbably indifferent to her charms and neglects her, to develop, with more attentive ears, endless considerations on divine values in this world. So, in the evening, the young woman lets herself be drawn into pleasantly equivocal reveries. And if the day finds her repentant at the feet of her confessor, the night lurks again with its temptations and the virile torso of a handsome groom straight out of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", one of her clandestine reads.

A young man who seems lost, Nicolas, has an appointment with her sister Juliette. They are bound by a heavy childhood secret: their mother committed suicide when their father had instructed Nicolas to keep it. Since the father chased him and forbade Juliette to see him.

After her brother was killed by a notorious all-female pirate gang, Morag dedicates her life to bringing the murderers to justice. Soon, she has become an important member of the pirate gang and has begun acquiring the loyalty of key members. Eventually, she makes her move and challenges the leader, a demi-god, known as "The Daughter of the Sun."

A dedicated clarinetist receives a valuable violin and has a difficult time deciding what to do with it.

Phillipe and Esther live an apparently idyllic life with their daughter, Elise. In an attempt to preserve this bliss, Phillipe decides that he and Esther should each have affairs, being sure to tell each other openly about them. The plan backfires with tragic results as Phillipe becomes engulfed in jealously.