Standing on the parapet of a bridge, in the heart of Paris, a little boy is afraid; his cousin Claude is holding him by the ankles above the murky waters of the Seine. This scene will become a backdrop to his subsequent memories as a young man of a childhood marked by sadness. The apartment in which he lives, his dreams and his yearnings, his friendship with his cousin, who sees everything through cruel eyes: everything is tinged with a haunting melancholy. Within Denis, the protagonist, a constant struggle is taking place between the sheer wild joy of being alive and the despondency of existence; the suffering brought about by the sexual deprivation that he imposes upon himself, and the certainty that the pleasures of the flesh await him. And it is in Paris, a Paris exquisitely etched that his unspoken passion for Claude gradually unfolds.