Gertrud is being abandoned by her husband after 20 years of marriage. Offended and unhappy she leaves her home and rents a room. The landlady's son is drawn to her and tries to help her out of the loneliness.

When Nora's father unexpectedly dies, she moves to her uncle Berthold and his wife Alice. Berthold is immediately attracted to the 19-year old girl, but his wife, jealous and alcoholic, notices it and becomes hostile to Nora. Nora begins her art studies to become a painter and gets to know the young Johan Manel, who falls in love with her.

Görel and Arne are about to get a divorce. Görel thinks back on how history has repeated itself within her family.

Before World War II, Swedish workers had to deal with low wages, scarce work, and the extensive importation of foreign labor, particularly for the purpose of breaking strikes. This did not make foreigners of any stripe very popular, and those from "guest worker" countries were particularly disliked. In this film, set in 1938, a half-Polish boy goes to Poland in search of his mother, runs into financial and psychological difficulties there, and is sent back to a Swedish mental hospital. In another story, an unfortunate woman suffers a miscarriage and ends up at the asylum where the Polish boy is being kept.