An Italian socialite on the run signs on as housekeeper for a widower with three children.

At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.

Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.

Sometimes he feels a tugging in his shoulder, sometimes he thinks his kidneys are failing. Two weeks before his marriage to the beautiful Anne, junior architect Stefan seems to have gathered all the diseases in the world. Drawn from the stress of the wedding preparations, the hypochondriac is in top form. When he overhears a phone call from the family doctor, he mistakenly thinks he is a dead man. Now a substitute husband is needed for Anne.