拿破仑战争时期，一个军官发现的一本旧书上记载着跟他祖父阿方索·范·沃登有关的故事，沃登是瓦龙部队的队长，他要寻找通往莫雷纳的捷径。在小酒馆里，他邂逅了两个伊斯兰公主，她们引诱他，但他醒来却发现自己已身在绞架。他被神秘人拯救，回家家乡之后，等待他的是更惊人的消息……

A hieratic Count sits in his elegant mansion finishing his writings - Alphonse, a young Waloon officer, rides through the Murgia to reach his regiment in Naples but soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over ten days. A range of situations in stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provide entertainment on an epic scale. The two men's destiny intertwined, it is difficult to know who's real between the two and who belongs to the other's mind. This is a journey for both of them which Alphonse will continue, uncertain in the end, if his experiences were real or a dream.