The Glembays of Zagreb are a rich family cursed with tragedies and haunted by sinister past. Leone Glembay, a rebelious son of the family patriarch, is becoming disgusted with hypocrisy, perversion and crime that runs in the family.

The story retrospectively returns to the past of the noble Lenić Remetinski family through the stories of the last descendant, old woman Amalija. The novella talks about a frequent subject of 19th century prose, which is the decline of the nobility during the industrial revolution.