Kien marries the housekeeper who handles books
Peter Kien, a Viennese sinologist who keeps 25,000 books in a flat with its windows walled up, marries his housekeeper Therese after seeing her handle a book carefully with gloves on a cushion, taking it as proof she reveres learning. Once married, she annexes the flat room by room, demands his will and bank book, beats him, and finally throws him out onto the streets. His psychiatrist brother Georg later clears Therese and the caretaker Pfaff from the flat, but Kien, now mad, sets fire to the library and burns himself with it.