On planet Perdide, an attack of giant hornets leaves Piel – a young boy – alone in a wrecked car with his dying father. A mayday message reaches their friend Jaffar, an adventurer travelling through space. On board Jaffar’s shuttle are the renegade Prince Matton, his fiancée, and Silbad who knows the planet Perdide well. Thus begins an incredible race across space to save Piel.
Rural France, the 1890s. Always in motion, Augustin wanders three times. First, as a youth, while a boarder near Bourges, he's lost in the woods and finds a chateau where an engagement party's in progress: there he falls eternally in love with Yvonne and she with him. Back at school, he hears she is in Paris, so he follows in a vain search and meets a woman, jilted by her lover. In the countryside a few year's later, Augustin's friend François finds Yvonne and brings Augustin to her. They marry, but the next day, Augustin leaves to fulfill a youthful promise he made to Yvonne's brother. François comforts the pregnant Yvonne as they await Augustin's return.
Renee Saccard is a pampered, selfish young wife of a middle-aged Parisian businessman who falls in love with her stepson but is driven to the point of madness when her husband tricks the stepson into betraying her.
