In 1870s France. An 18-year-old peasant girl, Angèle-Marie, is hired to take care of the newly born baby of a young bourgeois couple, Julien and Charlotte Orcus. Since giving birth, Charlotte has been unable to sleep with her husband, so he naturally finds himself drawn to the attractive young nurse. Unaware of this, Charlotte begins to regard Angèle-Marie as a friend. The two women share outings in tea rooms and even sessions with the photographer. Angèle-Marie reveals that before accepting the position as a nurse, she had just given birth herself. The husband, takes a dim view of the special relationship between his wife and the nurse as he regards her as a simple servant. Faced with this situation, his discomfort is all the greater as he is torn between the very strict respect of conventions and a troubled attraction for the nurse, object of obsessive fantasies.