Frau Elisabeth Morozova-Erdman-Berenstein/Frau Anna G./The Young Woman

Lisa Erdman is born Elisabeth Morozova to a Polish Catholic mother and a Ukrainian Jewish father. She grows up in Odessa, Ukraine. When her mothered dies in a hotel fire, she is left in the care of her wealthy but distant father and a number of maids and governesses. Lisa is able to attend a prestigious school, but at 15, is scarred when a group of men harass her on the docks in Odessa and forces her to perform oral sex on them because she is Jewish. At 17, she leaves home for good and travels to St. Petersburg to attend ballet school. On the way there, she is raped by a young soldier on the train. In the city, she meets and falls in love with a young revolutionary named Alexei, and becomes pregnant with his child. Alexei later leaves her...