Erwin Krause is a complete orphan. His parents, Franz and Uta Krause, shepherds for Landgrave Manfred von Castell and his wife Gisela von Castell, who owned extensive pasturelands, died in a farm accident three years ago.

Judge Roderich von Erbach ruled that the Castell couple must take the boy in, feed him, and raise him as their own son.

But the Castells treated Erwin not as a son or even a simple servant, but as the lowest slave: they starved Erwin and for the slightest misstep, beat him with a leather whip.

Nevertheless, the Castells did not refuse to give the boy difficult tasks, for instance, to deliver gifts to banker Leopold Neumann, who, out of friendship, would lend money to the Castells when they spent too much on their amusements. It seemed they enjoyed that Erwin failed his task every time and could be punished again. But Erwin even enjoyed delivering the gifts to Leopold, because the latter, upon discovering that the orphan was eating grapes from his gifts, did not punish Erwin, but patted him on the shoulder and wrote to the Castell couple, telling them to feed the boy more and teach him right from wrong.

When Erwin turned eighteen, his old clothes became too small for him, and the Castell couple decided to buy their orphan new clothes so he would look more presentable. However, Erwin was too afraid of failing Manfred von Castell's order to chop two piles of straw for horse feed, and so he tried so hard to complete the task that he didn't notice he had cut his own clothes.

Terrified of punishment, Erwin decided to kill himself. He knew that Gisela kept poison for mice under her bed. When Erwin drank the poison, it tasted sweet to him. "Is death this sweet?" thought the orphan, who had never eaten honey before and had mistaken it for poison. Next, he went to Manfred's room, because he knew poison for flies was kept there too. After drinking it, Erwin felt hot and thought, "I suppose this is what people feel before dying." But he didn't know he had drunk expensive Hungarian wine. Erwin went to the cemetery, found a dug-up grave, and lay down in it, closing his eyes.

Meanwhile, you were strolling through the cemetery, remembering all your deceased relatives, and upon reaching the dug-up grave, you saw a boy sleeping there.