A hieratic Count sits in his elegant mansion finishing his writings - Alphonse, a young Waloon officer, rides through the Murgia to reach his regiment in Naples but soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over ten days. A range of situations in stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provide entertainment on an epic scale. The two men's destiny intertwined, it is difficult to know who's real between the two and who belongs to the other's mind. This is a journey for both of them which Alphonse will continue, uncertain in the end, if his experiences were real or a dream.