Against the wishes of her parents and her fiancé, 19-year-old Paula travels to Berlin for the entrance exam of the art school. She becomes a painter at the cost of hardening herself against everyone and everything. All her relationships with men fail, while those with women are more enduring; however, they do not dispel the dominant gray tones from her paintings. Where does this indifference towards others, and ultimately towards herself, come from? How do we become what we are?.