 While playing piano in a bar, the pianist Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) is approached by his crook brother Chico Saroyan (Albert Rémy), who has been chased by two gangsters. Charlie helps him to escape, but he upsets the two criminals, and they watch Charlie and the waitress Lena (Marie Dubois), who is in love with him. The shy Cahrlie tells his past to Lena, when he was the former famous pianist Edouard Saroyan, and he quited his successful career after the suicide of his wife, the also waitress Thérèse Saroyan (Nicole Berger). When his brother Fido Saroyan (Richard Kanayan), who is raised by Charlie, is kidnapped by the gangsters, Charlie has to take an attitude with tragic consequences.