After marrying Hofrat Geiger, Marianne moves to Vienna to be with her husband. She runs the household while her daughter attends the music academy. But Mariandl is heartbroken. She constantly catches her Peter in strange situations with other women. Marianne, on the other hand, constantly has to listen to the innuendo of Franzi, Geiger's long-time housekeeper, who would have loved to be a Hofrat herself. Frustrated, mother and daughter decide to leave Vienna and visit their grandfather. He has inherited a dilapidated farm in the Wachau region, where horses are kept, awaiting shipment to Italian slaughterhouses. Through two benefit concerts, the talented music student Mariandl is able to raise enough money to buy the horses' freedom.