A poor girl, gymnasium student, with five brothers, marries a rich state official who counts every single piece of bread, demands from her subserviance and gratitude, is scornful of her relatives... She endures all this, trying not to argue with him, so as not to fall back into destitude again. Then the invitation to the ball comes. Here she causes furore. An important person gets infatuated with her, makes her his lover... Now, seeing how her husband's chiefs fawn before her, at home she's full of disdain.