When ageing actress Martha arrives in the small town of Husum she meets the wealthy furniture manufacturer Schorsch Waller, encounters a young carpenter called Sebastian Göbel and comes up against the massed forces of provincialism. She spends a night with Waller. He is a shrewd businessman able to use his money and position on the local council to twist the citizens of the small town around his little finger. But he is still a lovable idiot who has lost all connection with reality: he is so infatuated with Martha that he even sets up a theatre just for her. However, Martha develops a passionate interest in Gröbel. As a young man from a miserable background who has fallen in love with a much older woman he feels he has to keep their relationship secret, since the people around him would not tolerate it. And even though Martha herself attempts to comply with convention, she can make little progress against the stereotypes around her; she also suffers from crippling self-doubt and finally collapses, broken by her own feelings and inferiority complex.