Following a scandal in the Dukes court, roguish officer Lally Duchene is dismissed to a new post at a small monastery and asylum deep in the forests of the Rheingau. Disregarding the local superstitions about the dangers of ghosts and nixies in the woods and vineyards, his days slip by in a haze of daydreams. But there is something stirring in this woodland idyll. Among the patients is a woman possessing an overpowering, otherworldly aura, and the vestiges of a sinister paganism leer from beneath the holy facades. As the wine harvest approaches and figures from Lallys past find themselves drawn to the monastery, the forces of nature awaken and the countryside erupts in an intoxicating carnage of ancient rites.
