What would it take for a woman to poison her husband? Young couple Elli and Link have been married for a year when Elli meets Gretchen, and the two soon become friends. When Elli confides in her friend about the abuse she suffers at her husband’s hands, they hatch a plan for Elli to escape. But when their efforts prove unsuccessful, the pair begin to discuss a more permanent solution to Elli’s problem: poison.

Based on a famous murder trial which took place in Berlin in 1923, this short novel by the master of German modernism, Alfred Doeblin, explores questions of moral culpability and societal expectations which remain as relevant today as in the 1920s.