This story - as play, novel, and motion picture - achieved international fame as a work of great understanding and tenderness. It is the simple and affecting story of Manuela, a lonely and sensitive child, who is brought to an old-fashioned German girls' school. In an unguarded moment of hilarity she proclaims her adoration for her teacher, Fraiilein von Bernburg. The punishment administered by the tyrannical head mistress of this Prussianized school for what she chooses to regard as depravity leads to a tragic ending.