David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

Horty, a French foundry worker, wins a contest and is sent to see the sailing of the Titanic. In England, Marie, saying she is a chambermaid on the Titanic and cannot get a room, asks to share his room. They do, chastely; when he awakens, she is gone, but he sees her at the sailing and gets a photo of her. When he returns home, he suspects that his wife Zoe has been sleeping with Simeon, the foundry owner. Horty goes to the bar, where his friends get him drunk and he starts telling an erotic fantasy of what happened with him and Marie, drawing a larger audience each night.