Dorothea Angermann the daughter of a clergyman is accused of the murder of her husband, a brutal man that she was obliged to marry because she was pregnant and he was the father of the baby.

On his travels, Paul, a journeyman from northern Germany, runs into a childhood friend, Lisei, a puppeteer's daughter. They fall in love and get married. Together with Lisei's father, the young couple moves to Paul's hometown. Although Paul himself is accepted - even respected - by the stuck-up and snooty citizens, the young woman is rejected by the town dwellers, who are imbued with class arrogance. Paul stands up for his wife but the scorn and abuse heaped on her weigh heavily upon him.

The third form of a boarding school and the students of a neighboring school do not get along. Each side dreams up the craziest pranks to defeat the other. And when one day the high school students go as far as stealing the Gymnasium students’ essays and even burning them, daily school life really gets out of hand.