Karl Emil Franzos

In the nineteenth century a young Jewish woman living in the part of Poland controlled by Austria, meets an Austrian Count at a ball held by one of her father's business associates. After he rescues her from the unwanted attentions of a Polish army officer, they fall in love.

By his father’s deathbed, the young Karl Victor von Sendlingen swears that he will never make the same mistake his father made in his youth: to marry a girl beneath his own station in life – a promise that proves to have fatal consequences.