Chapter 4 Summary

Sophie relates the story of her upbringing to Stingo. With her colorful English, she paints a picture of domestic bliss and harmony in her parents' home before the war. She tells him how she loved the house in which she grew up, and continued to live in after her marriage. Her parents were both professors at the university in Cracow, and she tells of a lovely life spent studying, listening to music, and enjoying the countryside on weekends. She married Casimir, a professor and admirer of her father's, and Sophie planned to study to become a music teacher. Deeply in love with her husband, she thought her sheltered life would go on forever.

Everything changed in September 1939, when the German soldiers entered Cracow. For weeks, the tension built. Sophie, or Zosia as she was called in Polish, was raised strictly Catholic, and one...