The year is 1820 and a young, promising artist, Olaf Malm, has settled in Rome, Europe’s centre of art at the time. He is in love with Sigrid, but class differences make their love impossible. Olaf Malm dies in a tragic accident; he allegedly drowns in the Tiber, but his body is never found. Sigrid gives birth to their lovechild, and twenty years later history repeats itself: their son, Henry, who has never known his real parents, loves a woman who is far above him in social rank. Fate brings him back to Rome, where his parents loved and lost each other many years before. The film is based on Vilhelm Bergsøe's 1867-novel by the same name. The Danish subtitles have been prepared on the basis of the original manuscript.