Haarlem

Cornelis van Baerle, like most men of fashion in seventeenth-century Holland, is a bulb enthusiast.

Jan Vogel, foreman at the Van Haaften pottery, is busy with a new process for painting porcelain, but so far his experiments have failed.

Berna and his wife Julia, both well-known stage personalities, lead a pleasant life together with their little daughter Gonda until the moment that Berna meets the young actress Jeane Bachiloupi.

When Dora, the eldest daughter of a blind, widowed and orthodox Jew, falls in love with a doctor who is a Christian, she is disowned by her father and driven out of the house.