A terrible accident robs the successful artist Imhoff of his sight—a jet of flame shoots out of the kiln where he hardens his sculptures, and his career seems over. An attempt to surgically restore his sight fails. While he lies in his sickbed, the sensitive nurse Agnes tenderly cares for her patient. She gives him courage when he is on the verge of despair. Thus, a tender love slowly develops between patient and nurse. Eventually, Imhoff and Agnes marry, and his first attempt at sculpture, even in his blindness, is to be a sculpture of his wife's face. However, since Imhoff has never seen Agnes, she fears he will create an idealized image of her that she cannot live up to. Therefore, after a second operation, he initially conceals the fact that he can see again. He wants to "get used to" his wife first... But how long can he maintain the charade?

During Napoleon's victorious campaign in Germany, the city of Kolberg gets isolated from the retreating Prussian forces. The population of Kolberg refuses to capitulate and organizes the resistance against the French army, which immediately submits the city to massive bombardments.

Aels, a rich and tempermental woman from the North, moves to Hamburg. She lives in a mansoin besides the newly married couple, Alrecht and Octavia. The friendship between Aels and Albrecht does not disturb the harmony of this marriage. But soon, Aels has a reoccurrence of a tropical disease, and because she is confined to bed, Albrecht rides by each day on his horse to her window and inquires as to her health. When, eventually, he gets sick with an epidemic, his wife takes over this dear service and greets Aels in her riding clothes, pretending to be Albrecht and comforting the sick woman, so as to not worry her about Albrecht also being sick. Aels, however, is not completely fooled and ends up dying of a broken heart. It turns out, she cannot live without Albrecht's love -something Albrecht only finds about from her last letter to him before her death.