 He returns from a three-years' journey abroad as a merchant, to find that the personal lives of his friends and family are strangely disordered.He had previously kept up a chivalrous, courtly, and platonic affection with Marcellina, the wife of his friend the Count Vaumont.She missed Vandome so intensely, once he'd left on his travels, that her husband was provoked to a jealous outburst; and as a result, the offended countess has retreated into a life of seclusion, sleeping by day and waking by night.