East Java in the last year of World War I. He, Milian, an internee there for three years, was caught off guard by the outbreak of the war during his second world trip. His return to his home in Franconia, where his Swedish wife is waiting for him, is thwarted. Milian increasingly finds paradise in Java turning into hell. Illness begins to overshadow his life. Writing, he reflects on it, as he is considered one of the most important German-speaking authors of his time. He writes about himself as both a He and an I, about his childhood in Würzburg, his father who introduced portrait photography to Russia, and about the magic of the diverse and, above all, feminine beauty to which he succumbed early on. His memories become optical illusions during his internment; it becomes increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between imagination and reality.