Stanisław Maria Rochowicz, a bumbling art historian, is falsely accused of stealing a painting. The alleged thief faces five years in prison. Desperate, he decides to hide in disguise as a woman until he can paint a copy of the stolen canvas. Lacking means to live, he takes jobs as a maid for a variety of colorful characters.
An anxiety-riddled woman and her husband reside in a small, secluded house in the forest. They live a relatively peaceful life until one night when the woman appears to fall sick and die.
Markheim impulsively kills an elderly antique dealer during an attempted robbery. From there Markheim’s sense of reality steadily dissolves in a morass of guilt and shame, until a spectral dog leads him to a shadowy figure who seems to know an awful lot about Markheim and his problems.
