In a rich and fascinating Ferrara, yet burdened by fascism, the path of a young Jewish student—the novel's narrator—crosses with that of Athos Fadigati, a renowned yet elderly doctor. Their burgeoning friendship reveals to the narrator Fadigati's emptiness and loneliness, a consequence of his perceived homosexuality. A sexuality that was neither tolerated nor forgiven in the Italy of that time. The respected doctor's golden spectacles become the symbol of an increasingly unacceptable diversity—much like the narrator's Jewishness—a diversity that inevitably leads to a tragic climax.