A framed narrative opens when a botanist-traveler recounts events in a pashalik of Asia Minor, centering on Baïla, a seventeen-year-old odalisque who wanders luxuriant gardens with her attendant Mariam, haunted by longing and the sight of an unfamiliar footprint. The tale follows her emotional life within the pasha's household, depicting captivity, desire, and the ritualized textures of Ottoman domestic space through vivid scenes and cultural detail. An appended brief tale about the narrator's great-aunt, who died at sixteen, complements the principal novella with another intimate portrait of youthful fate.