This writer-director picture from German director Carl Junghans captures the tragic tale of an aging laundress whose profligate husband, a brutal alcoholic, takes advantage of her labors. The film differs from run-of-the-mill productions of the period through its bold editing, reminiscent of a Soviet cinematic esthetic. The quick cutting creates its own emotive and symbolic plane, advancing as well the movie’s social dimension: the wrath of marital bickering, frantic dancing on a pub table, and the burden of destiny as the laundress walks among gloomy statues. Despite the coming of talkies at the end of the 1920s, this is a silent motion picture, a fact reflected in its financial failure. Nevertheless, among international films of the silent era it ranks with the classics. The source for digitalization was the oldest preserved print, made in the 1950s from a print that predated the 1930 Czech premiere and thus was not shortened by the censors. This print contains intertitles also created in the 1950s that are more concise than the original title cards. The integrity of the print was respected during digitalization.