Cruel Kindness

Can love survive in the shadow of cholera?

In 1853, Henriette Dahlbeck, the daughter of wealthy merchants in Munich, meets physician and scientist Dr Aaron Nicholai at a ball and falls in love. Though she has been warned about him, she cannot help but be captivated by this intelligent and mysterious man. Desperately poor and a social outsider, he has dedicated his life to his work, and his only interest in Henriette is her money.

However she is determined on marrying him, and, in the end, her plan comes off. Aaron thereby gains financial independence, on the condition that he provides her with a thorough education. He begins to develop an interest in his unconventional new wife with her thirst for knowledge, but from the outset their fortunes are ill-starred. In 1854, Munich is hit by disaster: in the heat of the summer, more and more people are perishing - it soon becomes apparent that an outbreak of cholera is the cause.

The poignant love story of a young woman with a thirst for knowledge, whose love for a social outcast flies in the face of convention.