Feld, a Polish immigrant who owns a cobbler shop in a big American city, has lost much of his health and mobility over the years and worries for the future of his 19-year-old daughter, Miriam. Max, a young college student, has caught his eye as a potential suitor. Though Max is impoverished, Feld admires his dedication to his studies, an ambition that he wishes his daughter shared. Miriam herself has no interest in going to college; even so, she is never without a book and often reads literary classics that Sobel (her father’s stocky, bald, 35-year-old assistant), frequently lends her. Each book is densely inscribed with Sobel’s own peculiar commentary, all of which she reads religiously. Ignoring Miriam’s outspoken desire to be “independent,” Feld, whom Max hires to repair his shoes, tries to interest the young student in his daughter. Max agrees to go out with her. Hearing this, Sobel creates a ruckus and rushes out of the shop in a passion.

Sobel’s days-long absence soon worries Feld, who, ever since his heart attack five years before, has depended entirely on Sobel to run the shop, paying him miserly wages. A recent Polish immigrant, the prematurely aged, tempestuous Sobel is a survivor of the Nazi death camps and cares nothing for money or advancement; he seems quite content to work for Feld’s meager pay and share his books with Miriam.