HEER, VROUW, BOER / NABOKOV

Franz (Bubendorf), a young man from a small town, is sent away from home to work in the Berlin department store of his well-to-do uncle (actually, his mother's cousin), Dreyer. On the train ride to Berlin Franz is seated in the same compartment with (Kurt) Dreyer and Dreyer's wife, Martha, neither of whom Franz has met. Franz is immediately enchanted by Martha's beauty, and, shortly after Franz begins work at the store, the two strike up a secret love affair.

As the novel continues Martha's distaste for her husband grows more pronounced, and with it her adoration for Franz. Franz, meanwhile, begins to lose any will of his own, and becomes a numb extension of his lover. Dreyer, meanwhile, continues to lavish blind adulation on his wife, and is only hurt, not suspicious, when she returns his love with resentment.

As her relationship with Franz deepens, Martha begins to hatch schemes for Dreyer's demise. Franz himself has begun to lose interest in Martha, but he goes along with her plotting. As part of Martha's plans, the three vacation together at the Seaview Hotel at Gravitz, a resort at the Baltic. She plans to take Dreyer, who cannot swim, out in a rowing boat so he can be drowned. On the boat, however, the plot is suspended by Martha when she learns from Dreyer that he is about to close a very profitable business deal. Martha then gets pneumonia from the rain and the cold on the boat. To Dreyer's great sorrow she passes away; he never learned about the betrayal and the danger he was in. Franz relieved by her death is heard laughing "in a frenzy of young mirth".