1925. Rosemary Hoyt, a young, but already famous after success in the film "Daddy's Daughter" Hollywood actress, comes with her mother to the Cote d'Azur. Summer, not season, only one of the many hotels is open. On a deserted beach there are two groups of Americans: “white-skinned” and “black-skinned,” as Rosemary called them to herself. The “black-skinned” girl is much prettier - tanned, beautiful, relaxed, at the same time impeccably tactful; she eagerly accepts the invitation to join them and immediately falls a little childishly in love with Dick Diver, the soul of this company. Dick and his wife Nicole are the local inhabitants, they have a house in the village of Tarm; Abe and Mary North and Tommy Barban are their guests. Rosemary is fascinated by the ability of these people to live merrily and beautifully - they constantly arrange fun and pranks; a kind powerful force emanates from Dick Diver, forcing people to obey him with unreasonable adoration ... Dick is irresistibly charming, he wins hearts with extraordinary attentiveness, captivating the courtesy of treatment, and so directly and easily that the victory is won before the conquered have time to understand anything . Seventeen-year-old Rosemary weeps on her mother’s chest in the evening: I'm in love with him, and he has such a wonderful wife! However, Rosemary is in love with Nicole too - with the whole company: she had never met such people before. And when the divers invite her to go with them to Paris to accompany the Nortes - Abe (he is a composer) returns to America, and Mary goes to Munich to study singing - she willingly agrees.
Before leaving, Dick arranges a farewell dinner, to which the fair-skinned company is also invited. Dinner was a success: the "fair-skinned" in the rays of Dick's charm revealed the best aspects of their natures; but Rosemary, comparing them with the owners, is imbued with the consciousness of the exclusivity of the Divers ... And dinner ended with a duel. Mrs. Makkisko, one of the "fair-skinned", entered the house and saw something there that she did not have time to share: Tommy Barban very convincingly did not advise her to discuss what was going on at the Diana villa; in the end, Tommy shoots with Mr. Makkisko - however, with a mutually successful outcome.
In Paris, during one of the dizzying escalades, Rosemary says to himself: "Well, here I am burning my life." While shopping with Nicole, she gets involved in how a very rich woman spends money. Rosemary falls even more in love with Dick, and he barely has the strength to maintain the image of an adult, twice the older, serious person - he is by no means indifferent to the charms of this "girl in bloom"; half-child, Rosemary does not understand what avalanche collapsed. Meanwhile, Abe North gets into a binge and, instead of going to America, provokes a conflict between American and Parisian blacks between themselves and the police in one of the bars; to disentangle this conflict goes to Dick; disassembly is crowned by the corpse of a black man in Rosemary's room. Dick arranged that the reputation of “Daddy's daughter” remained unsullied - things were hushed up, there were no reporters, but the divers were leaving in a hurry. When Rosemary glances at the door of their room, she hears the inhuman howl and sees Nicole's face distorted by madness: she stared at the blood-stained blanket. It was then that she understood what Mrs. Mackisko did not have time to tell. And Dick, returning from Nicole to the Cote d'Azur, for the first time in six years of marriage, feels that for him this is the way from somewhere, not somewhere.
In the spring of 1917, doctor of medicine Richard Diver, having been discharged, came to Zurich to complete his education and obtain a degree. The war passed him, - even then it was of too great value to let him into cannon fodder; for a Connecticut scholarship, he studied at Oxford, completed a course in America and trained in Vienna with the great Freud. In Zurich, he is working on the book Psychology for a Psychiatrist, and dreams of sleepless nights being kind, sensitive, courageous and smart - and still being loved if this does not interfere. At twenty-six, he still retained many youthful illusions - the illusion of eternal power, and eternal health, and the predominance of a good start in a person - however, these were illusions of a whole nation.
Under Zurich, in the psychiatric hospital of Dr. Domler, his friend and colleague Franz Gregorovius works. For three years now, the hospital has been the daughter of the American millionaire Nicole Warren; she lost her mind, at sixteen becoming her father’s lover. Her cure program included correspondence with the diver. For three years, Nicole's health has recovered so much that they are going to be discharged. Seeing his correspondent, Nicole falls in love with him. Dick is in a difficult position: on the one hand, he knows that this feeling was partly provoked for medicinal purposes; on the other hand, he, “collecting her personality from pieces”, like no other, understands that if this feeling is taken away from her, then her soul will remain empty. And besides, Nicole is very beautiful, and he is not only a doctor, but also a man. Contrary to the arguments of reason and the advice of Franz and Domler, Dick marries Nicole. He is aware that relapses are inevitable - he is ready for this. He sees Nicole as a big problem - after all, he does not marry her money (as sister Nicole Baby thinks), but rather contrary to them - but this does not stop him. They love each other, and in spite of everything, they are happy.
Fearing for Nicole's health, Dick pretends to be a convinced homebody - for six years of marriage, they almost never parted. During the protracted relapse that occurred after the birth of their second child, the daughter of Topsy, Dick learned to separate Nicole from Nicole from the healthy and, accordingly, in such periods to feel only a doctor, leaving aside that he was also a husband.
In front of his eyes and his hands, the Nicole Healthy personality was formed and turned out to be very bright and strong so much that more and more often he was annoyed by her attacks, from which she does not bother to resist, being already quite capable. Not only does he think that Nicole is using his illness to maintain power over others.
Dick is struggling to maintain some financial independence, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for him: it is not easy to resist the flood of things and money that floods him - in this, Nicole also sees the lever of his power. They are farther and farther away from the simple conditions on which their union was once concluded ... The duality of the position of Dick - husband and doctor - destroys his personality: he cannot always distinguish the distance a doctor needs from the patient’s chill from his heart to the wife with whom he is one in flesh and blood ...
The appearance of Rosemary made him aware of all this. Nevertheless, the life of the divers does not change outwardly.
Christmas 1926. Divers meet in the Swiss Alps; Franz Gregorovius visits them. He offers Dick to buy the clinic together so that Dick, the author of many recognized psychiatric works, spent several months there a year, which would give him material for new books, and he would take on the clinical work. Well, of course, “why a European can turn to an American if not for money” - starting capital is needed to buy a clinic. Dick agrees, convincing himself to Baby, who basically manages the Warren’s money and finds this venture profitable that staying in the clinic in a new capacity will benefit Nicole’s health. “There I would not have to worry about her at all,” says Baby.
This did not happen. One and a half years of a monotonous measured life on Lake Zug, where there is nowhere to go from each other, provoke a grave relapse: having set up a scene of causeless jealousy, Nicole with insane laughter almost derails the car in which not only he and Dick were sitting, but also the children. Unable to live any longer from seizure to seizure, Dick, having entrusted the cares of Franz and the caregiver to Nicole, is leaving to take a break from her, from himself ... supposedly to Berlin for a congress of psychiatrists. There he receives a telegram about his father’s death and goes to America for a funeral. On the way back, Dick calls in Rome with a secret thought to see Rosemary, who is filming there in the next film. Their meeting took place; what began once in Paris has come to an end, but Rosemary’s love cannot save him - he no longer has the strength for a new love. “I am like the Black Death. I now bring only misfortune to people, ”Dick says bitterly.
Having parted with Rosemary, he monstrously gets drunk; From the police station he was terribly beaten and rescued by Baby, who appeared in Rome - she is almost pleased that Dick is no longer impeccable to their family.
Dick drinks more and more, and more and more often he is changed by charm, the ability to understand everything and forgive everything. He was almost not affected by the readiness with which Franz made his decision to leave the business and leave the clinic - Franz himself wanted to offer him this, because the reputation of the clinic does not benefit from the constant smell of alcohol emanating from Dr. Diver.
For Nicole, it is new that now she cannot pass on her problems to him; she has to learn to be responsible for herself. And when this happened, Dick disobeyed her, as a living reminder of the years of darkness. They become strangers to each other.
Divers return to Tarm, where they meet Tommy Barban - he fought in several wars, changed; and the new Nicole looks at him with new eyes, knowing that he always loved her. Rosemary also appears on the Cote d'Azur. Influenced by the memories of the first meeting with her five years ago, Dick tries to arrange something similar to the old escapades, and Nicole, with cruel clarity, intensified by jealousy, sees how he has aged and changed. Everything around has changed - this place has become a fashionable resort, the beach that Dick once raked every morning, is filled with an audience like the “pale-faced” ones, Mary North (now Countess Minghetti) does not want to recognize the Divers ... Dick leaves this beach as if deposed king who has lost his kingdom.
Nicole, celebrating his final healing, becomes Tommy Barban’s mistress and then marries him, and Dick returns to America. He practices in small towns, never staying anywhere for a long time, and letters from him come less and less.