A summer weekend. The writer G.Z. finds himself in the Peloponnese where he is to give a lecture at a literary meeting. As his fortieth birthday dawns he is plagued by personal problems and his spirits are further dampened by the reaction of the audience to his work. He escapes to the island opposite where he was born and visits his mother. He learns that Alcestes, the love of his youth, is on the island after an absence of many years. In the search for Alcestes which follows, the writer will relive the changed places and people of the island, he will form an attachment with Anna, a young woman, and he will be driven to extreme mental anguish, reaching untrodden and barren islands. Under the blue Ionian light the cycle of his odyssey will come to an end. The writer will find his inner balance and the face of Alcestes will slowly assume its proper dimensions: an idea within which the writer has encompassed all the beauty and vivacity of youth.