The conflict that rages within every man?s soul is the gap between his ideals and his actions. This is the story of one man, who aided by his friends and lovers, bridged that gap, and how he did it. The narrator, a genius and yet an Everyman, has again suffered the loss of the love of his wife, the wife who embodied all he desired in a woman, as she has fallen into the darkest of depressions. He, himself, is forced into depression and cannot help but remember old lovers, lovers who had comforted him in the long ago past. He despises his weakness and seeks answers to his sorrows in the lives of his friends, but those friends are suffering the same torments. They also seek the return of old lovers, lovers whom they remember in their youth and vigor. There is one exception, an old man who seems perpetually happy. He is a mystery, whom no one seems to know. The narrator?s chance encounter with him leads to a friendship, in the course of which the protagonist learns the secret of his happiness in a dramatic revelation. This is a philosophical novel about the significance of love and its overriding importance to happiness. It is a novel by a man, about men and for men, though by reading it, women may come to a better understanding of the men with whom they are acquainted, but whom they don?t really know.