It tells a story of Sabitri, a beautiful (subjective) woman and widow, who has been thrown out from her husband's home by her in-laws driven to work as a maidservant in a youth hostel, where she falls in love with her master.
For the act of deceit by one of her own relatives she was forced to make a living as a maid servant, doing tasks appropriate only for a 'depraved woman' albeit it is established in the novel that she has been, and remains, pure of character, and devoted to the man she loves – Satish.
She surprises and impresses all the three main men in the novel – Satish, Upendra and Dibakar – but ultimately her life gets reduced to shambles as her extreme pride and the ghosts of unfulfilled desires wreak havoc on her causing to go insane.
Losing Savitri, Satish suffers intolerable pain and though his physique shows no marks of injury his heart knew no peace.
An orphan, he is delighted by Kiranmayi treating him as her brother and eventually shirks education but gradually attracted by her unearthly beauty develops the vague idea of love between them and for this of his immature and illogical interpretation he pays a heavy price but ultimately he gets redeemed in the climax.
The depiction of orthodox Hindu society in conflict with Western thoughts brought in by the British is both realistic and relatable considering the premise of the novel, Kolkata in nineteenth century.