This picture reveals late-19th-century Denmark in the way the literature of that period (the so-called critical realism) does. An aristocratic family bears the brunt of the tyranny of its head, Nils Uldahl-Ege. He betrays his once much-beloved wife, giving way to his primitive lust. From that moment on, his multiple adulteries make the lives of his whole family increasingly intolerable. One daughter, Clara, writes a secret diary devoted to her unrequited love--her cousin Isidor--in which she reflects upon her life and her girlish desires and sufferings.