After having her second child, a German housewife suffers from postpartum depression before inexplicably falling into a continually misdiagnosed mental state, befuddling her relatives.

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.