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“Miss Brill” begins with the titular protagonist Miss Brill, sitting in a park in a French town on a beautiful autumn afternoon. Miss Brill is happy that she has worn her fur stole since the air has a faint chill. She recalls the moment earlier in the afternoon when she brought the fur out of its box for the first time this season. She loves the fur, calling it her “dear little thing,” treating it almost like a pet.
She takes note that there are more people at the park than on the previous Sunday. The beginning of the autumn season brings out additional people, well beyond the number of regulars. A band plays in the rotunda, putting more effort into their playing since their audience contains people who do not regularly hear them.
An old couple sits on the bench next to Miss Brill. Their silence disappoints Miss Brill because she enjoys eavesdropping on people, pretending not to listen while taking in every word. She hopes they will leave soon. She thinks back to the previous Sunday when another old couple sat by her. They talked but were not very interesting. Their conversation concerned the dull topic of eyeglasses.
Ignoring the old couple beside her, Miss Brill turns her attention to the activity of the park. People walk about in couples or groups, stopping to talk, greeting each other, and buying flowers from a beggar. Children play together vigorously. Miss Brill notices that the people who sit on the park benches and chairs tend to be odd, silent, and old, looking as if they have emerged from dark rooms or closets.
A woman and gentleman meet. She wears a hat made from ermine fur; he is dressed in grey. At first, Miss Brill believes they know each other. The woman babbles on about her day and the weather in a one-sided conversation. The man replies by rudely blowing cigarette smoke in the woman’s face and walking away. She reacts as if unbothered by the encounter, moving on to meet up with another unseen person or persons.
As the silent couple leaves Miss Brill’s bench, she sees four girls nearly bowl over a funny old man with long whiskers who limps along the path.
Witnessing all the activity around her, Miss Brill has an epiphany. She enjoys watching everything because it is like a play. Every person is both an audience member and an actor playing a part, including herself. She realizes that this is why she comes to the park each Sunday at the same time. If she were not there, she would be missed, and the play would not be the same. She takes pride in being “an actress.” She imagines telling her students and the insensate invalid to whom she reads that she is, indeed, an actress, and how impressed they would be.
As the band plays on, she imagines that the music lifts up every person there, and that the entire group, from young to old, would raise their voices together in song. Overwhelmed with emotion, tears come to Miss Brill’s eyes. She feels a great connection to everyone. At that moment, she believes that all the park-goers understand a great something. However, she is not sure what that something is.
Interrupting Miss Brill’s moment of epiphany, two young lovers appear and sit at her bench. She imagines them to be the hero and heroine of the park’s play, but when she listens in, she gets a great shock. The girl refuses the boy’s amorous advances. He asks whether the presence of the “stupid old thing” at the end of the bench is to blame. He calls Miss Brill unwanted and wonders why she doesn’t stay home instead of disturbing their mood. The girl giggles and compares Miss Brill’s fur to a fried fish.
Miss Brill immediately leaves the park and heads home, skipping her usual stop at the bakery for a treat. Instead, she returns to her dark room and sits motionlessly on her bed. Eventually, she removes her fur quickly without looking at it. As she closes the lid on its box, she thinks she hears something crying.
