The action takes place after the First World War in a large German city. In the mansion of seventy-year-old Matthias Clausen, a well-groomed gentleman, secret advisor of commerce, his anniversary is celebrated. The house has a festive atmosphere, many guests arrived. The legal adviser is respected throughout the city. He is the owner of a huge enterprise, where his son-in-law Erich Clarmot, the husband of his daughter Otilia, serves as the director. Klarmot gives the impression of a man uncouth, provincial, but businesslike. In addition to thirty-seven-year-old Otilia, the adviser has three more children: Wolfgang, professor of philology; Bettina, a girl of thirty-six, is slightly crooked; and also son Egmont of twenty years. He is actively involved in sports, built and handsome. At first glance, family relationships can seem quite worthy. Everyone loves and reveres a privy adviser. Bettina takes special care of him hourly - she promised to do this to her mother before her death three years ago. Matthias Clausen only recently recovered from this loss, but everyone understands that at any moment a new attack can happen to him. Therefore, the family doctor of the Clausen family, the sanitary adviser to Steinitz, carefully monitors the state of health and mental well-being of his patient and friend.
For some time now, the Clausen family has shown signs of discontent and bewilderment. Rumor has it that the adviser was imbued with sympathy for Inken Peters, an eighteen-year-old girl who lives in the country estate of Matthias Clausen and is the niece of his gardener Ebis. She lives in Broich with her uncle and mother, Frau Peters, the gardener's sister. Her father committed suicide several years ago in prison during an investigation instituted against him. He was accused of moving to another place of service, he deliberately set fire to all his property in order to illegally receive an insurance premium. Desiring to protect the honor of the family, he laid hands on himself. The investigation, having understood all the circumstances of the case, fully proved his innocence. Mother Inken, sparing the feelings of her daughter, keeps her in the dark about the causes of her father's death. However, soon after meeting Matthias Klausen, Inken receives an anonymous letter (belonging to the hand of Wolfgang's wife), opening her eyes to this event. Following the letter, Inken begins to receive postcards that are clearly offensive. Almost at the same time, the estate manager, adviser of justice Ganefeldt was announced to her mother, and on behalf of the children Mattias offered face to face Frau Peters forty thousand marks so that she and her brother and daughter would move to another Klausenov estate in Poland, and Inken said she received the inheritance. Frau Petere, however, is confident that her daughter will not agree and will never understand her.
Frau Peters persuades his daughter not to communicate with the adviser, but from the conversation he understands that the girl’s feelings for Matthias are very strong. Inken wants to be his wife.
A few months after the adviser's birthday in his own house, the Clausens gather for a monthly (for the first time after the death of Matthias wife renewed) family breakfast. While the adviser in his office is talking with Inken, Clarmot, Mattias’s son-in-law, makes his servant Vinter, remove the ninth device for the girl from the table. When Matthias and Inken go to the table, the adviser sees that someone dared to contradict his order. His indignation knows no bounds. In the heat of his discontent, the council does not notice that Inken is running away. A little later, he tries to catch up with her, but to no avail. The family breakfast ends with Matthias, after violent bickering, all of his offspring who dare to believe that he is their property, drove out of the house.
They leave indignantly. They grow irritated by the adviser due to the fact that he gives Inken family jewelry, bought a castle on the lake in Switzerland and now rebuilds it and updates it for the “daughter of a convict”. Clarmot, deprived of all authority in the company of his father-in-law, incites the family to initiate court proceedings on custody of the adviser as an old man who has lost his mind.
For several weeks, Inken lives in the adviser's house. They do not feel that black clouds are gathering above them. The adviser writes a letter to a friend of his youth, Geiger, and asks him to come. Geiger, however, arrives too late. The case has already been started in court, and while it lasts, the adviser is considered to be a citizen inferior. Not one of his orders is being executed, he is not even in control of himself. He is appointed the guardian of the adviser of justice Ganefeldt, the one who played with his son Wolfgang as a child, and then served as manager of the Clausen estate. Arrives in the house and the whole Klausen family. Only the youngest son of the adviser did not sign the petition to initiate proceedings, not wanting to humiliate his father. The rest, driven by Klarmot, still do not realize the possible consequences of their act,
Matthias asks them immediately and to put him in the coffin, because what they have created means for him the end of existence. He renounces his offspring, from his marriage, cuts to shreds the portrait of his wife, painted at the time when she was his bride. Geiger and Steinitz send the adviser's relatives out the door.
After this scene, Klausen runs away from home at night and goes to his estate in Broich. Everything in his head mixed up. He hopes to find Inken in the apartment of Frau Peters, to receive comfort from communicating with her. He appears at Inken’s mother at night, in a thunderstorm, all wet and splattered with mud. In it, with difficulty, despite his elegant clothes, you can recognize the once powerful adviser Clausen. Frau Peters and Ebisch try to calm him down, but to no avail. He keeps repeating that his life is over. They still manage to take him to the bedroom, where he falls asleep. Ebish calls the pastor, consults with him what to do, calls to the city, to Clausen’s house. It turns out that everyone is looking for an adviser. Klarmot is furious that his victim has slipped away from him.
A car drives up to the house. In it are Inken and Geiger, as well as a personal servant of Matthias Winter. They searched for the adviser for a long time and are now terribly surprised that they found it here. They are in a hurry to put the adviser in a car and immediately want to take him to a safe place - to Switzerland, to his castle. However, Clausen assures that now even Inken herself is not able to bring him back to life. While Inken, hearing the buzzes of the cars of the children who came to pick up the adviser who want to lock him in the hospital, heads toward them with a revolver to prevent them from entering the house, Matthias drinks poison and dies in a matter of seconds at Vinter’s hands.
Ganefeldt enters the house and starts talking again about his duty and that, despite such a deplorable outcome, he had the purest and best intentions.
