The story, based on real events, is told from the perspective of Adolphine, the younger sister of Sigmund Freud, who has experienced more than one loss and has come to terms with the impossibility of her dreams. The secrets of the human soul, dreams, madness, love and hatred are revealed to the reader; and into this bizarre pattern of reasoning are woven the memories of the main character about the cruel actions of her mother, about happy days spent with her brother in the library among philosophical treatises, about the German occupation, about everyday work in a concentration camp and, finally, about her own death.