"Cornelie De Retz Van Loo, a twenty-three-year-old divorcee from an upper-class Hague milieu, tries with mixed feelings to begin a new life in Italy in 1900. After some time in Rome, she discovers that Italy itself can never bring her the consolation she seeks. She meets the Dutch painter Duco van der Staal, and they move in together, flouting convention. Almost their only acquaintances are an ...