Drama in the village: Laca disfigures Jenufa's face with a knife out of jealousy. Her fiancé Stewa leaves her, although she is pregnant by him. Jenufa secretly gives birth to her child. To force her to marry Laca and to ward off disgrace, her foster mother, the sexton, drowns the child - broken, Jenufa agrees to the marriage. When the body is found in the pond, the sextoness turns herself in to justice.