Set in a small town in southern Russia at the end of the 19th century, the story follows the Ashkenazi family after the mother’s death. The eldest daughter Berta - pretty, modest, but slightly hunchbacked - cares for her wealthy merchant father Shmul and her siblings. Bernard Zilberman seeks her hand, but her father refuses and instead marries a widow from a neighboring town. When Bernard returns from Germany he has fallen in love with Berta’s younger sister Ida; they marry, devastating Berta and paralyzing their father. Ashkenazi hires German engineer Luis Karschunski to modernize his mill; Luis begins an affair with the unhappy Ida. Rivalry and confrontation follow until Luis leaves, later writing that love has driven him to suicide. Berta hands Ida her child with the words that the death of one does not end the lives of others - one must live thinking not only of oneself. The film is currently lost.
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