Franka, a Warsaw prostitute, is wounded with a knife by a pimp. She ends up in the hospital, where the doctor caring for her, who wants to help her break with her past, offers her a job as a maid in the countryside. Desiring to forget the torments of her past life, the girl agrees. In the countryside she meets Pawel, a simple country boy whom she seduces. The infatuated Pawel, to whom Franka reveals her past, marries her. However, the monotonous rural life bores Franka, longing for a big-city life, and when Pawel leaves for a few days, she escapes with a man she meets casually to Warsaw, where she leads the life of a cabaret chansonist. After a few years she returns, bringing with her an illegitimate child. Pawel forgives her and takes her back under his roof. But this is not the end of Pawel's ordeal....