The apothecary is an old comical figure. Therese Keller deals with it in a way that is more or less consensual; however, she adds a discreet indictment concerned with women’s status and patriarchal authority through Christine, a character. The embroidery Christine is working on at the beginning of the play symbolically represents Persephone’s abduction. But in the happy denouement of this social comedy, she will renounce the character of Pluto…

Christine is in love with Heini, a law student, but her father has promised to give her in marriage to the apothecary, a character so conceited and ridiculous that she cannot tolerate him. Heini resolves to leave for Leipzig in order to finish law school and he makes Christine promise that she will resist the apothecary’s advances in the meantime. The apothecary, however, learns that an uncle has bequeathed his fortune to him before he passed away, provided that he would marry his niece: he easily forgets about Christine. But his baseless allegations about Christine offend her father, and, as he is furious with the apothecary, he calls Heini back in order to organise the wedding of the young lovers.