Eline Vere. She is beautiful, she is rich, she is talented, she seems to be made for happiness. But this happiness is supposed to exist and develop in the confines of the closed and rigid society of the rich bourgeoisie of the Hague at the end of the last century. A set of people whose horizon does extend beyond their milieu, their lives are ruled by harsh conventions based on decorum, the rules of etiquette and irreproachable behaviour...