Clarissa

The scenario is one that we would expect from a very foolish person, but Clarissa is anything but that. The daughter of a high-ranking officer in the Austrian military, she has inherited his dutiful, disciplined nature. Hers is a character without intrinsic fault, and it has stood her in good stead throughout her early years. There is her quiet and industrious time in a cloister school, then her efficient (and well-nigh indispensable) service to a brilliant, hard-working psychologist, then her unflagging, self-sacrificing work as a nurse in a field hospital in France in the early days of the war. Indeed, our virtuous young heroine seems destined for one gallant act after another. But then, in the midst of tending to wounded soldiers, she learns that she is pregnant out of wedlock. This snag in her otherwise spotlessly moral life alters the course of her whole existence.