On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, our unnamed protagonist - an undistinguished journalist and lifelong bachelor - decides to give himself "the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." The virgin, whom and old madam procures for him, is splendidly young, with the silent power of a sleeping beauty. The night of love blossomes into a transforming year. It is a year in which he relives, in a rush of memories, his lifetime of (paid-for) sexual adventures and experiences a revelation that brings him to the edge of dying - not of old age, but, at long last, of uncorrupted love.