Paulinus is a young novice at a small Austrian monastery in 1929. In a few days he will take his final vows and become a full member of the order. His only contact to the outside world is Jakob, a young farmer, who visits the monastery every day to deliver errands. When Paulinus' feelings for Jakob start to grow beyond their friendship, he finds himself at a crossroads between God and the world. Before he can make his life's most important decision, he needs to uncover where he belongs in life.
Jean receives in payment for seven years of work with a master craftsman a gold nugget. He then exchanges this nugget for a horse, then the horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, the goose for a sharpening stone. Finally, he loses the stone by dropping it in a well. After losing the sharpening stone, he is relieved because it weighed heavy, and continues his happy journey to his mother's house. On his way home, he keeps running into Knudsen the Merchant and his beautiful daughter Elisabeth.
Felix from Hamburg comes into possession of a run-down gas station in the middle of the north German provinces through a dubious barter. But that's not all: right across the street, the young Weda also runs a petrol pump business and is of course not very enthusiastic about the annoying competition. Only when an oil company stretches out its greedy fingers for the two gas stations do the quarreling operators also get closer personally...