The main character Yasha Mazur is a magician from Lublin, who travels around Poland to perform before audiences.

Zeftel visits him in Warsaw and tells him that she has moved there and is staying with a man named Herman who has promised her work in Argentina.

Yasha suspects that Herman is a pimp, and he accompanies Zeftel back to her new home, and spends much of the night talking and drinking with them.

He is seen by a policeman and runs away, eventually hiding in a synagogue where he joins the morning prayers.

In an epilogue set three years later, Yasha has returned to Lublin and his wife, and given up performing to become a penitent.

She has learned from newspapers about Yasha's penitence, and she asks for his forgiveness, telling him he is being too harsh to himself, and says that Halina will also write to him.