The play takes place at the beginning of the 19th century. in the Dutch village of Guizum, near Utrecht, in January. The scene is the courtroom. Adam, the village judge, sits and bandages his leg. Licht, the clerk, comes in and sees that Adam's whole face is in abrasions, a crimson bruise under his eye, a piece of meat is torn from his cheek. Adam explains to him that in the morning, getting out of bed, he lost his balance, fell his head directly into the stove and, in addition, sprained his leg. The clerk Licht informs him that a member of the court, adviser Walter, is going to Guizum from Utrecht with an audit. He checks all the courts in the county. On the eve of his visit to the neighboring village of Guizum, Hall, and after checking, removed the local judge and clerk from office. The judge was found early in the morning in a barn hanging on rafters. He hanged himself after Walter put him under house arrest. However, somehow managed to bring him back to life. The servant of counselor Walter appears and announces that his master has arrived in Guizum and will soon appear in court.

Adam is alarmed and orders to bring his clothes. It turns out that a wig cannot be found anywhere. The maid declares that the wig is currently at the hairdresser, and the second yesterday, when at eleven o'clock in the evening Judge Adam returned home, was not on his head. The head was all in abrasions, and the maid had to wash her blood. Adam refutes her words, says that she mixed up that he returned home in a wig, and at night he was pulled from a chair by a cat and roamed in it.

Walter enters and, after greeting, expresses a desire to start a trial. Adam leaves the hall for a while. The plaintiffs come in - Marta Rull and her daughter Eva, and with them Faith Tympel, a peasant, and his son Ruprecht. Martha screams that her beloved pitcher broke and that she would make the offender Ruprecht pay for it. Ruprecht declares that his wedding with Eve does not happen, and calls her a slutty girl. Having returned and having seen this whole company, Adam begins to worry and thinks to himself if he will really be complaining about him? Eve trembles and begs her mother to quickly leave this terrible place. Adam says that he is troubled by a wound on his leg and he cannot judge, but rather he will go and lie in bed. Likht stops him and advises asking permission from the adviser. Then Adam quietly tries to find out from Eve why they came. When he finds out that only about a jug, he calms down a little. He persuades Eve not to say too much and threatens that otherwise her Ruprecht will go to the East Indies with the army and die there. Walter intervenes in their conversation and states that it is impossible to conduct conversations with the parties, and requires public interrogation. After much hesitation, Adam still decides to open the meeting.

The first to testify is the plaintiff - Marta. She states that the pitcher broke Ruprecht. Adam is quite satisfied with this, he declares the guy guilty, and the meeting is closed. Walter is extremely unhappy and asks to deal with all the formalities. Then Marta begins in all details to talk about the merits of this jug, about its history, which, in the end, pisses everyone off. Then she goes on to describe the events of the past evening. He says that at eleven o’clock she already wanted to put out the nightlight, when she suddenly heard men's voices and noise from the Evina room. She was frightened, ran there and saw that the door to the room was broken and that she heard scolding. Entering inside, she saw that Ruprecht, like a mad woman, breaks Eve's hands, and in the middle of the room lies a broken jug. Marta pulled him to an answer, but he began to claim that the jug was broken by someone else, those who had just escaped, and began to insult and defame Eve. Then Martha asked her daughter who actually was here, and Eve swore that only Ruprecht. At the trial, Eve says she did not swear at all. The current situation begins to worry Adam, and he again gives Eve his instructions. Walter suppresses them, expresses his dissatisfaction with the judge’s behavior and expresses confidence that even if Adam himself broke the jug, he couldn’t be more diligent in blaming all suspicions on the young man. Ruprecht’s turn comes to testify. Adam pulls this moment in every way, talks about his sick chicken, which he is going to treat with noodles and pills, which ultimately infuriates Walter. Ruprecht, who finally received the word, declares that there is not a word of truth in the charge against him. Adam begins to divert general attention from him, so that Walter intends to put clerk Likht in the place of judge. Frightened, Adam gives Ruprecht the opportunity to continue his testimony. The young man says that in the evening, at about ten o’clock, he decided to go to Eve. In the courtyard of her house he heard the creak of the gate and was glad that Eve had not left yet. Suddenly he saw his girlfriend in the garden and someone else with her. He could not make out because of the darkness, but thought that it was Lebrecht, the shoemaker, who had tried to recapture Eve from him in the fall. Ruprecht climbed into the gate and hid in the bushes of the hawthorn, from where he heard chatter, whispering and jokes. Then they both went into the house. Ruprecht began to burst at the door, already bolted. He lay down and knocked her out. She thundered, a jug flew from the ledge of the stove, and someone hurriedly jumped out the window. Ruprecht ran to the window and saw that the fugitive was still hanging on the bars of the stockade. Ruprecht hit him on the head with the door latch that remained in his hand and decided to run after him, but he threw a handful of sand in his eyes and disappeared. Then Ruprecht returned to the house, cursed Eve, and a little later Martha also entered the room with a lamp in her hand.

Eve should say next. Before giving her the word, Adam again intimidates her and urges her not to say too much. Eva assures everyone of her mother’s attacks on her profligacy that she did not disgrace her honor, but that neither Lebrecht nor Ruprecht broke the jug. Adam begins to assure Walter that Eve is not able to testify, she is stupid and too young. Walter, on the contrary, makes out the desire to get to the bottom of the truth in this matter. Eve swears that Ruprecht did not break the pitcher, but refuses to name the real culprit and hints at some strange secret. Then Marta, resenting her daughter for her secrecy, begins to suspect her and Ruprecht of a more terrible crime. She suggests that on the eve of taking the military oath, Ruprecht and Eve gathered to flee, changing their homeland. She asks to call aunt Ruprecht, Brigitte, who allegedly at ten o’clock, before the jug was broken, saw young people arguing in the garden. She is sure that her testimony will fundamentally refute the words of Ruprecht, who claims that he broke into Eve at eleven. Sent for Brigitte. Likht leaves. Adam offers Walter during the break a little refreshment, drink wine, have a bite. Suspecting something, Walter begins to question Judge Adam in detail about where he hit. Adam still answers that he has a stove in his house. The wig, as he now claims, burned down when he dropped his glasses and bent low behind them, touched the candle. Walter asks Marta whether Eve’s windows are high from the ground, from Ruprecht — whether he hit the fugitive in the head and how many times, from Adam — how often he goes to Marta’s house. When both Adam and Martha respond, which is very rare, Walter is a little confused.

Brigitte comes in with a wig in his hand and Licht. Brigitte found a wig on a picket fence near Martha Rull in front of the window where Eva was sleeping. Walter asks Adam to confess everything and asks if the woman is holding his wig in her hand. Adam says that this is the wig that he gave to Ruprecht eight days ago, so that Ruprecht, going to the city, gave it to master Mel, and asks why Ruprecht did not. Ruprecht replies that he carried it to his master.

Then Adam, furious, declares that it smells of treason and espionage. Brigitte, however, states that Eve was not Ruprecht in the garden, because the girl talked with her interlocutor, as with an unwanted guest. Later, closer to midnight, returning from the farm from her cousin, she saw a bald man with a horse's hoof standing in front of her in a linden alley near Martha’s garden and rushing past, it smelled of sulfur and tar smoke. She even thought it was hell. Then, together with Licht, she traced where this trace of the human foot leads, alternating with the horse's trace. He led directly to Judge Adam. Walter asks Adam to show his leg. He shows his healthy left leg, and not his right, lame. Then a discrepancy appears in the judge’s words about where his wig went. He said one thing to Lich, and another to Walter. Ruprecht realizes that the judge himself was with Eve yesterday and is attacking him with insults. Adam declares Ruprecht guilty and orders him to be imprisoned. Then Eve cannot stand such injustice and admits that Adam himself was with her yesterday and molested her, threatening, if she does not agree, to send her groom to war. Adam runs away. Walter reassures Eve, convincing that Adam tricked her and that soldiers are only recruited into internal troops. Ruprecht, learning that Eve was with Adam, ceases to be jealous and asks the bride for forgiveness, Faith proposes to arrange a wedding for Trinity. Walter removes Adam from his post and appoints in his place the clerk Licht. Martha, still not reassured, asks the adviser where she can find a government in Utrecht in order to “finally achieve the truth about the pitcher”.