This is a novelization of the life of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. An account of Rilke's baptism gives over to a chronicle of his time in Paris, where he ruminates on life and befriends sculptor Auguste Rodin. From Rodin's residence, the narrative episodically follows Rilke from his days as a sickly military cadet and his meeting the writer Lou Andreas-Salome-his muse with whom he travels widely- and eventually to the double heartbreak of Rilke's father's death and his final parting with Rodin.