Annette writes verses that are not as modest as one might expect from her. In the summer of 1820, she meets Straube, the first man who takes her literary work seriously. However, the handsome Arnswaldt is also visiting, whose strict religiosity awakens her lingering feelings of guilt because she does not align her poetic life with God. She engages in intimacies that the men thoroughly misunderstand. And when her friend Male arrives, a catastrophe is on the horizon.