Gottfried Keller

Switzerland 1523. The mercenary Hansli Gyr returns with his soldiers from Italy to his home in the Oberland. They have fought for the Pope and now find a religious upheaval in Switzerland.

A few leagues from Seldwyla, in the Zurich countryside, two children, Sali Mantz and Vreneli Marti, form an inseparable pair of playmates. Unfortunately, their farming parents, who have always been friends, are at odds with each other over the purchase of an adjoining field.Sali and Vreneli don't see each other again until much later and fall in love, but their parents still hate each other fiercely. Despite everything, the young couple will try to live their forbidden love.

It is carnival time in Munich and participants are overindulging in alcohol and sensual pleasures. "Follow us into madness" beckons Lys who is drunk on life, but the sensitive Henry does not follow him. Lys has betrayed his fiancé, as Henry once betrayed his lost love Anna. In memory of Anna and his cruel Dickensian childhood, Henry challenges Lys to a duel to try to appease his guilt.

While on a longer business trip, a wannabe poet urges his beautiful but more simple wife to answer his overly swollen love letters. With no idea how to respond she forwards the letters to a new young school teacher to use his answers instead...

Two farmers, Grimm and Melcher, were once on friendly terms, but a petty argument over a piece of land has since turned them into implacable enemies. Their two children- Veronika and Fabian- used to be childhood friends. When they meet again as young adults, they instantly fall in love, despite the bitter feud between their families. With no hope for a future together, the two seek to end their lives in this retelling of the classic story by Shakespeare.

The daydreaming tailor Wenzel is fired from his job, because the fancy frock he was supposed to cut for the mayor, he instead made for himself. He is allowed, however, to take the frock, which he appropriated for himself and he puts it on as he leaves the shop. A puppeteer picks him up in his coach and addresses Wenzel as "Count". So is he received in Goldach, where people think he is Count Stroganoff, the ambassador to the Czar of Russia.

Frank returns to his homeland as an engineer, falls in love with Regine, the housemaid of his uncle, and marries her. Thanks to the intrigues of Floris, one of Frank's rejects, Regine is suspected of having an affair with another man. Depressed and desperate, she intends to commit suicide, but is saved by Frank in the last minute.