Orpheus Komninos, a successful journalist and author, meets the sisters Nausicaa and Alcyone Manta during his vacation. He immediately feels an inexplicable familiarity with Nausicaa but falls in love with Alcyone.

The two young people decide to get married, something that does not excite the girls' father at all. Christoforos Mantas, a proud man, behaves strangely, and Orpheus feels an underlying hatred and aversion towards him without understanding why.

Mantas seems determined to prevent his daughter's marriage to the journalist. And that's where it all begins. A deluge, a storm of characters and events begin to parade through the book. They have their roots in the distant past but irrevocably affect the characters and their relationships. Until, at some point, catharsis comes.