1878 Paris. Following their father's sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. With their laundress mother's small wages vanishing into absinthe, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opera to train for the ballet while her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a play by Zola. Marie is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas where she meets a wealthy patron of the ballet, while Antoinette must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.