The time is 1832 and a cholera epidemic is sweeping Provence. Angelo, a handsome, angel-faced officer gallops untiringly through the dying towns and villages. He takes the time to help until his own strength gives out. Inscrutable and calm, Angelo also takes the time to silently love Pauline de Theus, an enigmatic young woman who joins him in his trek while she searches for her missing husband. Together they face an unrelenting epidemic that, like war, reveals both the misery and the greatness of mankind: fear, panic, denunciation, treason, hatred, anger, devotion, courage and self-sacrifice.