The novel opens on the Sunday of Pentecost in a Caribbean city at the deathbed of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, the long-time friend of eighty-one-year-old Dr. Juvenal Urbino del Calle. Urbino recognizes the smell of almonds as gold cyanide poisoning, which his friend vaporized in order to kill himself and to avoid the pain of old age. While Urbino makes plans for his friend’s funeral, he finds an eleven-page letter that Saint-Amour wrote the night before his death. In the letter, Saint-Amour confesses that he has had a long-time lover, a woman of unspecified mixed race who lives in the old slave quarters; she will inherit his meager estate. Urbino visits the woman, and along the way to her home, he reflects on the colonial history of his beloved city and the putrid, deathly scent of the nearby swamp. Urbino’s lover is grieving; she knew that Saint-Amour had planned to kill himself once he reached sixty years old.

The visit with Saint-Amour’s lover troubles Urbino; he does not want to think about his own marital happiness or past love affairs. He returns home to prepare for a gala for a beloved pupil, only to find his house in disarray.