The life of the main character of the novel, Raimund Gregorius, a teacher of ancient languages in Bern, proceeded calmly and measuredly, until he one day met a mysterious stranger on the bridge, who turned out to be Portuguese. Gregorius is fascinated by her, but she suddenly disappears from his life. Now all his thoughts are about her and about... Portugal. He, deciding to find out more about this country, goes to a second-hand bookstore, where he buys a book by Amadeu di Prado. Both the meeting with the woman and the book, whose thoughts are unusually consonant with Gregorius’s soul, radically change his life: unexpectedly for himself, he leaves for Lisbon, trying to understand himself and immerse himself in the attractive world of people unfamiliar to him...