Musician Max Tooney goes to sell his prized Conn trumpet to a music shop, where he plays the instrument one last time. The shopkeeper recognises the song as one on a record matrix he found and asks who the piece is by. Tooney tells the story of an infant found abandoned in the first class dining room of the four-stacker ocean-liner SS Virginian on 1 January 1900. Danny Boodman, a coal-man from the boiler room, names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900, after himself, the fruit crate the boy was found in, and the year, and raises him as his own.

Isaac Rubinchik, like a biblical old man who has lived a long and dramatic life, feels the need for moral reflection on his experiences. Disputes with long-dead relatives, a glance into the future, which he sees in the ruins of civilization - all these memories and fears make Rubinchik reevaluate many things and bring closer the moment of his spiritual epiphany.