AllMovie

In the 1930s, a peasant with a wife and son has to struggle hard to make the barest living. Because of his son's inattention, the family's only cow eats itself sick in a field of clover, and dies. The son, terrified of his father's wrath, remains in the field during a thunderstorm and is killed by lightening. On the same day, the peasant's wife, who was sick, also dies. Distraught, the poor man seeks solace in drink but is brought back to life by another woman, whom he marries and raises a new family with, until he is taken away by the demands of the Second World War. On his return, nothing is left: not wife, nor children, nor farm.