1st Picture
Widower Paul has long been living in seclusion, creating a cult around his dead wife, Marie. Everything in one room, the "Temple of Memories", reminds him of the deceased. His housekeeper, Brigitta, reports to Paul‘s friend, Frank, that the widower has undergone a strange transformation. Incensed, the latter tells his unbe-lieving friend about his meeting the dancer Marietta, in whom he believes to recognize his deceased wife. Paul is now projecting the miracle of his wife‘s fleshly return onto Marietta. The young woman comes to pay Paul her first visit. Her presence lets the widower believe in the uncanny: “In you who came, my dead one came, my Marie.” Dream and reality become blurred for Paul: His dead spouse appears to him. In a dialogue they assure each other of their mutual love. In this situation, Marietta is like an intruder.
2nd Picture
Repressed and guilty feelings break loose in Paul‘s subconscious. Images roll past him. In a nebulous world he meets his housekeeper Brigitta, who announces that she will quit her service to become a Beguine. No less mysterious, but most of all disappointing, is Paul‘s meeting with Frank. As if transfigured, the latter reveals to him that he is also having an affair with Marietta now – as is apparently the case with Paul, too. He breaks with Paul. Amongst her theatre colleagues, Marietta is the absolute centre of attention. They bizarrely enliven the darkness of the city with a high-spirited party that is no stranger to melancholy either, however. Inspired by this atmosphere, Fritz the Pierrot sings a song about past happiness. Paul is drawn ever deeper into the layers of his soul. Proceeding before his eyes is a gruesome spectacle wherein Marietta rises from the dead. The evil prank and the theatre company dissolve. Marietta and Paul begin to argue about jealousies and accusations until he reveals that he was only looking for his deceased wife in her. Marietta gives in, recognizing her greatest asset in comparison with the deceased: life. Demanding the past be forgotten, the two of them work themselves up into a frenzy.
3rd Picture
Before a portrait of the deceased wife, Marietta challenges the deceased. Can she, can life, win? As if he weren‘t there, Paul permits himself to be captivated by the religious atmosphere of a procession passing by his house and pursues his memories of Marie. Marietta mocks his piety: “Whoever loves you has to share you with dead and saintly beings.” She keeps on provoking Paul until he strangles Marietta. Paul awakens from his daydream. He is slowly regaining consciousness in the situation he was in when Marietta bade him farewell on her visit. Frank advises Paul to leave the city and start a new life. Paul realizes the finite nature of earthly existence.
Act 1
When the opera opens, Paul, a younger middle-class man whose young wife, Marie, has recently died, cannot come to terms with the sad reality of her death. He keeps a "Temple of Memories" in her honour, including paintings, photographs and a lock of her hair. When his friend Frank pays him a visit at his house and urges him to honour Marie by moving on with his life, Paul flies into a rage and insists that Marie "still lives." He tells Frank that he has met a woman on the streets of Bruges who exactly resembles Marie (indeed, Paul thinks that she is Marie) and invited her back to his home.
Soon the woman, Marietta, a young and beautiful dancer, appears for her rendezvous with Paul. They talk, she is put off by his odd behaviour, but persists in trying to interest him with her charms—she sings (Lute Song, "Glück das mir verblieb") and dances seductively, but eventually gets bored and leaves. Paul meanwhile is driven into a state of extreme anxiety.
Torn between his loyalty to Marie and his interest in Marietta he collapses into a chair and begins to hallucinate. He sees Marie's ghost step out of her portrait and urge him not to forget her, but then the vision of Marie changes and tells Paul to move on with his life.
Act 2
After a series of visions in which his pursuit of Marietta alienates him from all his remaining friends, the act ends with Marietta finally overcoming Paul's resistance and leading him offstage locked in a passionate embrace. All this takes place in Paul's imagination.
Act 3
Paul's vision continues. Back in his house, living with Marietta, he quarrels with her. She gets fed up with his quirks and obsession with Marie and starts to taunt him by dancing seductively while stroking his dead wife's hair. In a rage, Paul grabs the lock of hair and strangles Marietta. Holding her dead body he exclaims "Now she is exactly like Marie." Then he snaps out of his dream. Astonished that Marietta's body is nowhere to be found, he has barely had time to collect his thoughts when his maid informs him that Marietta has come back to pick up her umbrella which she left at the house when she departed a few minutes ago. With the shock of the traumatic dream still fresh in his mind, Paul is met by his friends Brigitta and Frank who note that though Paul's vision is there, his desire is dead. Frank begins to leave and asks if Paul will leave, to which he replies, "I will try". The opera ends with a reprise of "Glück, das mir verblieb" sung by Paul in what is apparently his last time in his "Temple of Memories".