A Yiddish lecturer is on tour of a Jewish colony in Argentina with his companion, Sonya, a townsperson and poetess, to revive the Yiddish cultural heritage in the settlement. After the lecturer gives his talk on Jewish history and Yiddish literature to an audience of completely disinterested colonists and a host of whining and barking animals, he and Sonya retire to their hostel at which point Sonya describes the colonies progressive dilapidation: most everyone married in the colony has affairs, the men have embraced a dangerously secular lifestyle, gambling and soliciting sex. Sonya describes how even she has been solicited for sex by publishers and critics of her poetry. She shares with the lecturer that even she has indulged in extramarital affairs as her marriage has turned platonic because her husband would rather discuss her poetry with his friends then work to support the family. 

The next day, the lecturer and Sonya go out for coffee and happen upon an old man praying. The old man recognizes the lecturer from his talk the night before and insists the two come inside his house for lunch. The man shares that he was one of the original colonists. He describes the early years as difficult to weather: an epidemic swept through the colony, killing children, the land was nonarable, the indigenous Spanish opposed their presence, and a week’s-long flood threatened to destroy the colony. He mentions a traveler, Hershelle Moskver, who along with his partner, Bella, helped restore the colony, but after Bella died and Hershelle refused to recite the sacrament, he was hanged. The old man takes the lecturer and Sonya to the cemetery where they are buried and they spend the afternoon reading the gravestone inscriptions.