The narrative concerns life on vast, badly kept forested estates and centers on the death of an elderly tenant neglected by his children, the family's coarse domestic routine, and the arrival of a young steward whose indignation exposes local apathy and social decay. Scenes alternate between vivid depictions of peasant squalor, communal self-interest, and the steward's attempts to interpose compassion and order. Through episodic village incidents and landscape descriptions, the work explores themes of neglect, class disparity, the contrast between human hardness and the surrounding natural fertility, and the moral obligations of landowners and their agents.