Weights and Measures

Synopsis

A fable about the disintegration of a good man. At the insistence of his wife, Eibenschutz leaves his job as an artilleryman in the Austro-Hungarian army for a civilian job as the inspector of weights and measures in a remote territory, near the Russian border. Attempting to exercise some proper rectitude in his trade duties, he is at a loss in a world of smugglers, profiteers, and small crooks. Eibenschutz soon finds he can no longer distinguish law from justice. When he discovers that his wife is pregnant by his own clerk, he spends more time away from home.