In a town in Southern Italy, on the border between Campania and Lucania, a baron reduced to poverty, in his dilapidated palace, tries to give order to events: what has happened in recent years? How did the crisis, now irreversible, of his rural world begin? Everything seems to have started with the disappearance of a woman during a magic show, and with the search for her by her elderly husband, Mr. Tarullo, who has also disappeared. The Baron’s memories are grafted onto those of Mr. Tarullo himself and his attempt to find the woman he loves, on those of a father and son, who are trying to survive the end, and on those of an investigator in charge of getting to the bottom of the story, while all around there are delusions of power increasingly petty on the part of microscopic state bodies, who believe that magicians bring ruin. Stories and memories stratify and interpenetrate each other, until they lead to the political and temporal collapse of that magical world, which fades into an indistinct memorial abyss and fades into an underground escape, in time. Here, perhaps, it will be possible to find oneself again.