Count Kyrill, a Russian exile living in Paris and Graham Wilson III, an American magnate plan a big art exhibition in the idyllic Bad Kranach. Art collectors from all over the world are to take part, for example the Polish Jew Joel Weiss and the German Baron Kugler. The exhibition, which is to show some of Europe's finest art treasures, could be a proof that the fine arts are superior to petty nationalism. But while Count Kyrill and Graham Wilson III are engaged in revealing their interests – an insurance fraud on the highest level – in the course of a telephone call, a German security official with a dubious past is busy preparing for the exhibition. The Pole Jan, who has been tormented by nocturnal visions of the past since the death of his wife, also sets off for Kranach. Thus a meeting takes place between people with a common past which overtakes them in this play with fire.