When his young wife commits suicide with no explanation, an introspective pawnbroker looks back on their life together.

A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.

The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.