It’s the 14th birthday of Wendla Bergmann in 1892 provincial Germany. Wendla is upset with her mother for making her birthday dress too long, complaining that it looks like a “sackcloth” compared to her shorter pinafore. Mrs. Bergmann laments how quickly Wendla has outgrown her clothes as she’s developed faster than other girls her age. She tells Wendla she’s worried about what she’ll look like in the future. Wendla replies that she may not live to see that future and asks whether it is immoral to have such suicidal thoughts. Mrs. Bergmann relents, telling Wendla she can wear her old pinafore so long as she doesn’t catch cold. Wendla ridicules her mother’s worry, noting that it’s summer, and suggests that her mother’s worrying might soon beget her fear: “You can thank the good Lord if your dearest darling doesn’t cut her sleeves off one of these mornings and run into you some evening in the twilight without any shoes and socks on!” (8).

At dusk, a group of teenage schoolboys commiserate over their amount of homework. All but two, Melchior Gabor and Moritz Stiefel, leave to study. Moritz and Melchior go for a walk.