Henry Levin, a dandyish, “handsome thirty,” leaves New York City for Europe in search of romance, adventure, and beauty. To multiply his “possibilities,” he begins calling himself by the non-Jewish name of Henry Freeman. Bored by Paris and its women, he boards the Milan Express but impulsively gets off at Stresa upon glimpsing the majestic Lake Maggiore. Urged by the padrona of his hotel to visit the lake’s most verdant island, Isola del Dongo, he rents a rowboat and reaches the island in the misty early evening. In the lush gardens near the water’s edge, he has a beatific vision of a statue coming to life: a shapely young woman in a white dress moving among the flowers. Forced by a sudden change in the weather to row back to Stresa, he returns the next day by vaporetto and joins a guided tour of the lavish del Dongo estate. The tour guide is an aging, petulant, “sad-faced clown” named Ernesto who screams at Henry for touching the coverlet of a bed that Napoleon supposedly slept in.

In the dizzying fragrance of the del Dongo gardens, Henry slips away from the tour and follows the sounds of lapping water.