A woman travels around the world. Alone. In the 19th century. A hundred years later, in Paris, another woman stands in the kitchen. With her lover. In the living room, mother, husband, and children are waiting. It is Christmas, actually the festival of love. Judith Arlt has intertwined the life paths of these two women into a novel that shifts between times and continents. The literary inspiration for the world-traveling Carolina is Lina Bögli, who came from the Swiss countryside and traveled alone in distant lands around 1900. As the first woman, she ascended the Hawaiian volcano Haleakala on foot. However, she left the love of her life behind in Krakow. Irène, the woman from Paris, also breaks free from the constraints of the petty bourgeoisie and embarks on a quest for traces in Poland.