At the foot of the fire-spitting Vesuvius, Susan Sontag brought together a couple of characters, who perform the drama of upheaval in Europe with aesthetic pleasure. In superlatives: the most beautiful woman in Europe, Goethe in transit and the one-legged, one-eyed Lord Nelson.

Lila and Elena could hardly be more different and yet they are are inseparable, Best friends when they were, they go on like that all their lives, over six decades, until one disappears without a trace and the other tries to get behind the enigma of her disappearance.