An idealistic adolescent suffering under the thumb of a sadistic schoolmaster falls in love with a loose girl who is bullied and tormented by another lover.

Jan-Erik Widgren is a high-school senior. His Latin teacher Caligula is feared by everybody, both teachers and students. Widgren falls in love with Berta, who works in a tobacco store. She tells him that she is harassed by a mean, sadistic man, but does not tell him that it is Caligula himself.—Mattias Thuresson

In contrast with his best friend at school, who cites Strindberg's and Nietzsche's cynical views on women, Jan-Erik Widgren considers himself an idealist who believes that a chaste woman is out there waiting for him. But the adolescent schoolboy's first love proves to be a loose girl he finds stumbling around drunk one night. They become lovers although she has another man in her life--a man she says bullies and torments her. Meanwhile, Jan-Erik is poised to fail at school, thanks to a sadistic schoolmaster--a browbeating Latin teacher whom all the boys call Caligula.—J. Spurlin