In 1936, John, still a young man, flunks out of college. When he returns to his parents' home, his father decides to send him to Vienna and Paris to learn German and French. John arrives in Vienna and attends language classes every day. He meets Jane, a Jewish-Viennese girl living with her parents in the apartment below his. They begin to spend every evening together, Jane practicing her broken English, and he his broken German. One night, John sees Jane with another gentleman at the movie theatre. Much to John's surprise, Jane introduces him as her fiancé. After four months, John moved on to Paris. Despite writing her a goodbye letter, he never sent it and kept it for many years. A few months later, now October 1937, John receives a package from Jane. She's now married and living in Vienna with her husband. When John reads about the Nazi invasion of Vienna, he thinks of Jane, but doesn't write. During the war he works in intelligence, interviewing Nazi prisoner's of war. He asks some about Jane, but upon hearing about the atrocities of the Holocaust, he stops asking. After the war, John's sent to Vienna on military business. He goes to his old neighborhood and asks about Jane. They send him to see the old doctor who just returned from a concentration camp. They all say that Jane died. He goes to his old apartment, now an officers' quarters, and begs to see Jane's apartment. He goes in, looks around at all the stuff that's not hers, and leaves.