At a cemetery in Montpellier in December 1976, mourners gather for the funeral of Bertrand Morane. One of the attendants, Genevieve Bigey, stands apart from the others and notices something odd: everyone present seems to be a woman.
Earlier in life, Bertrand, a man in his early middle age, works in a laboratory testing the aerodynamics of scale models of aircraft, but his true obsession is pursuing women. He is frequently successful, yet he stumbles with the woman from the wake-up service who calls to rouse him each morning. After sighting a pair of alluring legs, Bertrand goes to extraordinary lengths—even faking a car accident—to locate the woman, only to learn she has already left France. Still, he does manage to sleep with Bernadette, an employee at the car rental company, a small conquest that feeds his myth of endless conquests.
Bertrand then becomes friendly with Hélène, who runs a lingerie shop and is closer to his age. When she confesses to a preference for younger men, Bertrand, sensing a possible shift in his lifestyle, decides to write his memoirs before the details fade from memory. He recounts his first sexual experience with a prostitute, his complicated relationship with his mother—beautiful yet emotionally distant, who would abandon him to be with her lovers—and many other long and short-term affairs. An emotionally unstable woman named Delphine Grezel enjoyed public displays of affection, and her relationship with Bertrand ends when she is imprisoned for shooting her husband. After Delphine is released, she visits Bertrand, and the two have a threesome with Bernadette.
When Bertrand contracts gonorrhea, the doctor is impressed by his candor and notes that Bertrand does not know who infected him, having slept with six women in the previous twelve days. The typist Bertrand pays to make copies of his manuscript quits in embarrassment over its explicit content, leaving him momentarily disheartened, but he eventually resumes writing and decides to finish the book before returning to publishing houses.
A publisher’s editor, Geneviève, takes a keen interest in Bertrand’s manuscript and champions it to her boss, who agrees to publish it without changes. When Bertrand travels to Paris to meet with Geneviève, he runs into Véra, an old flame whose breakup five years earlier forced him to abandon Paris and rely on various medications. He tells her he has moved on and does not want to dine together, but the encounter rekindles the sense that the book was shaped by her in some way.
Realizing that his decision to write the book was partly inspired by Véra, but that she is erased from it, Bertrand calls Geneviève to request a rewrite. She explains that writers often feel they have failed to capture the exact book they set out to write, and she urges him to let the manuscript stand as it is while suggesting that his next project might focus on Véra. Bertrand agrees to trust Geneviève, and the manuscript is prepared for publication. An offbeat, unspoken romance blooms as Geneviève falls for Bertrand, and they begin an affair.
During the Christmas season, Bertrand cannot reach anyone from his extensive network, so he roams the night streets and is struck by a car while chasing after two women. Severely injured, he is hospitalized and told not to move. In a final, ironic moment, he lunges at a nurse with attractive legs, falls from the bed, and dies.
At Bertrand’s funeral, Geneviève reflects that she is the one who knows the true story of his life. She does not doubt that, in his own way, Bertrand loved each of his partners, and she believes he was always searching for happiness in quantity rather than finding it in any single person.
