The narrative opens at a masked ball where an enigmatic woman approaches a nostalgic, romance-prone traveler and asks for help to prevent her estranged husband and an accomplice from abducting her young son that night. The request pulls the wanderer out of his reveries about old houses and bygone pleasures and into a tense, improvised scheme that turns observation into action. Lyrical descriptions of atmosphere, music, and winter light alternate with suspenseful plotting and episodic encounters, examining themes of memory, longing, moral responsibility, and the clash between romantic fantasy and concrete danger.