It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.
Argumenturik gabeko nobela bat zen, eta pertsonai bakarrarekin; izan ere hala baitzen, besterik gabe, gazte paristar baten estudio psikologikoa, hemeretzigarren mendean bere bizitza osoa eman zuena, bere hura ez zen beste mende guztietako pentsamenduaren modu eta grina guztiak aurrera eramateko ahaleginetan; eta nolabait esan behar, munduko izpirituak inoiz iragan zituen gogoaren jite ezberdin guztiak bere baitan laburtu nahian, batzuk bezain besteak maite zituela, bai bere artifizialitate hutsa zela kausa, gizonek arinaren arinez bertute deitzen zituen ukazio haiek, eta baita ere, gizon zuhurrek oraindik ere, pekatu esaten dieten naturazko errebelamendu haiek.