In this film based on stories by Henry James, François Truffaut stars as an obituary writer and World War I veteran who is haunted by the memories of his perished comrades and deceased wife. This preoccupation develops into a full blown obsession, as he begins to organize his life around memorializing the dead, which in the process isolates him from the living. He shares the obsession with Cecilia Mandel (Nathalie Baye), who falls in love with him.