Sjöström's second collaboration with author Hjalmar Bergman is, according to film historian Tom Gunning, “one of the neglected masterworks of world cinema.” The uniqueness of Sjöström's refined sense of staging, composition, and editing “expand(s) film language in its portrayal of desire and renunciation.” Master Samuel Eneman, pejoratively referred to as “Masterman” by the townspeople, is a stingy and wealthy pawnbroker who, against his better business sense, finds himself in possession of pledge no. 1313-a beautiful young woman who indentures herself as a housekeeper until her fiancé can repay his loan. She is able to turn the tables on the old miser, however, by redefining economies of exchange and power “in her own way,” eventually changing him into a new man.