From stories both told and untold, Genin recreates the lives of the Zwerling family in the Jewish quarter of Lemberg (Lvov): There is her strict, deeply religious grandfather, Shulim, the patriarch; his patient but tired wife, Dvoire; and his beautiful and rebellious daughter, Shayndl, who marries the dreamer Avram Genin against her father's wishes and without his blessing, and who will later become Salomea Genin's mother.