A servant girl named Felicite. After her one and only love Theodore purportedly marries a well-to-do woman to avoid conscription, Felicite quits the farm where she works and heads to another location, where she picks up work in a widow's house as a servant. Despite her life being seemingly pointless, she has within her the power to love. She also carries within her a yearning, a majestic quasi-religious sensibility.