A needy couple in a bad marriage travel back to Stockholm after a trip to Italy. Meanwhile, a widow resists seductions from two different persons - her psychiatrist and a lesbian friend.

In 1946, nervous ballet dancer Ruth and her husband Bertil are returning to Sweden from his scholarship tour around Italy. In a Basle hotel room and on a train they quarrel; give food through the window to starving Germans; overhear wisdoms about marriage by Swedish clergymen returning from a conference; and finally make up. In flashbacks, Ruth reminisces her romance with middle-aged officer Raoul, her subsequent abortion, and her ballet career. In a seemingly separate episode set in quiet Stockholm during Midsummer, middle-aged widow Viola is harassed first by a psychiatrist, Dr. Rosengren, and then by a lesbian old school-friend Valborg, with tragic consequences.—Markku Kuoppamäki

Ruth is an ex-ballet dancer, who, after health problems resulting from a botched abortion, was forced to give up her career. Now she drinks too much and prattles too much, getting on the nerves of her husband, Bertil, as the two of them travel back to Stockholm after a trip to Italy. Ruth's thoughts turn to her affair with Raoul, a scoundrel whose wife paid her a surprise visit one day. Bertil's thoughts turn to murder. Meanwhile, Viola, a widow and Birtil's ex-lover, resists seductions by two different persons - her psychiatrist and a lesbian friend who happens to be Ruth's former classmate.—J. Spurlin