Der Roman eines Dienstmädchens (1921)

A girl from the country, as pretty and young as she is innocent, arrives one day in the “cesspit of sin” that is Berlin to take a job as a second housemaid with Baron von Birthal’s family. The Baron has two grown children: a son who is a dissolute gambler and womanizer, and who one day helps himself to his own mother’s valuable jewelry to cover his mounting debts; and a daughter, who is far less depraved, though she is involved in a relationship with a sculptor that is considered somewhat beneath her station. The extensive household staff at the Birthals’ also get up to plenty of mischief. For instance, the first, somewhat plump maid is romantically involved with the son of the neighboring greengrocer. This sleazy fellow, a waiter at a large hotel, is a real rogue: although he is involved with the plump housemaid, he immediately seduces the innocent girl from the country as soon as he lays eyes on her, and promptly gets the maid—no longer quite so innocent—pregnant. From then on, things go rapidly downhill for the new maid: not only is she pregnant out of wedlock, but she also comes under suspicion of having stolen Madame’s jewels, which, as mentioned earlier, are in the possession of the family’s light-fingered son. Then she is also shamefully abandoned by the man who impregnated her. The maid then tries to kill herself. But amid all her misfortune, salvation arrives in the form of the older house servant, who loves her with all his heart and eventually marries her.