Clara, diagnosed with tuberculosis, is treated in a sanatorium in the Alps where she can finally take a break from her miserable life.

A woman endures a miserable life in the basement of her Milan apartment with her three sons, her boring in-laws, and her husband, who has been injured. Her bleak life takes an unexpected turn when she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and must go to a sanatorium in the Italian Alps. At the medical clinic in Milan she meets a young mechanic with the similar health problems; at the sanatorium she meets this man again and they start a passionate love affair. But all things must come to an end, and when she is cured she must return to that rat-hole from which she only too briefly emerged.—marty gottlieb <[email protected]>, [email protected]