First installment of The Avignon Quintet, one of the most emblematic works of Lawrence Durrell, The progatonists of this mature novel by Durrell live withdrawn from the world in a dilapidated castle on the outskirts of Avignon, involved in the mysterious plot of a Gnostic suicide club, whose headquarters are in the oasis of Macabru, not far from Alexandria. . Egypt, Provence and Venice are the background of some plot threads that converge, in unexpected ways, in the enigmatic history of the Knights of the Temple and in a strange sect of agnostics. The happiness with which Avignon was associated in the memory of the diplomat Pierre de Nogaret, his sister Sylvie and the impetuous Doctor Bruce is about to collapse, perhaps forever.