Dida Ibsens Geschichte (1918)

The very young Dida Ibsen has a great many obstacles to overcome on her way to personal happiness. Her parents expect her to marry a man she does not love in the slightest. She escapes this predicament with the man who means something to her: Erik Norrensen. But this arrangement, too, is fraught with problems, since he is still married. And his wife is not at all willing to get a divorce. Dida faces social ostracism, because she is expecting a child with her lover. So that the baby will not be born out of wedlock, she reluctantly marries Philipp Galen, an unmarried man who has traveled to India. But he is suffering from a persistent tropical disease and torments Dida at every opportunity. Nevertheless, she nurses the sadistic invalid at his sickbed, and in a moment of mental clarity he asks her to leave him. Dida then returns to Erik, the father of her child, but he, too, eventually falls incurably ill and takes his own life with a gunshot. Having endured such severe trials, Dida Ibsen decides to return to the family fold. By then, her parents have also come to their senses, and they try to make amends for the mistakes they made with Dida.