This story of temptation, love, and betrayal served as the basis for the scripts of several film adaptations. A young beauty, the daughter of a impoverished descendant of an ancient aristocratic family, seemed made for happiness. But suffering pursues Tess—she becomes the victim of a lustful bourgeois, loses her child, and endures the betrayal of her husband… “Once a victim, always a victim—such is the law!” she says, yet rebellion is brewing inside her…