A narrator tells a novel he read a few days before. Anna and Lucia are two girls of Italian origin, who after having spent a childhood and boyhood, serene and happy in Borneo discovered a love affair between their parents, disgusted then decided to leave and reach Italy. Here, they find themselves in trouble, due to the habits and customs completely different from them, and they meet a very closed society, resulting in great difficulty in entering and get to know people. Nonetheless they managed to find a permanent job, but it soon proves a real torture. Each of them also find a partner, but with the help of a marriage agency. Here begin the visits to some monuments and places most important and famous of Sicily, but also in Rome, Florence and Venice, where Anna passes her honeymoon. This is illustrated from several images and accurate historical reconstructions. When, for the two friends finally everything seemed to go for the best, something happens ... The narrator, disappointed and unhappy with his life, has only one love: the sea. Built a boat, he decides to venture alone away from the coast. All of a sudden, appeared to him a beautiful mermaid who invited him to go and live in her amazing underwater world. The conclusion of the novel highlights all the weaknesses, but at the same time all the "forces" of the human being.