After the nervous breakdown caused by factory work, Charlot is a victim of events beyond his control: first arrested as a subversive, then pardoned for having thwarted a breakout under the effect of drugs, he falls in love with an orphan (Paulette Goddard) who is as poor as him. They will try to shack up, but his attempts in the working field will fail organically until, hounded by the police, they will walk away along a waste country road, hand in hand, towards a place that perhaps doesn't exist.