Young Törless is to go to boarding school. His experiences there, the merciless torments of the pupils among themselves and the unsatisfactory answers of his teachers make it clear to Törless that good and bad cannot be differentiated in life. The boy leaves the boarding school at his own request after a short while. The incipient social and personal deformation in Musil's novel is skillfully implemented by Schlöndorff in close correspondence with the text but also in a more distant manner.