Fleeing his work in a coal mine, his marriage and children, the War's destruction of his homeland and its burgeoning industrialisation, Aaron Sisson seeks new adventures in Italy. Making his living as a flutist and mixing in intellectual and artistic circles, Aaron meets a succession of people, including an affair with an aristocratic lady, that show him what is possible in his life. But is there a price to pay for such freedom? This imaginative, philosophical work is rich in symbolism and full of spontaneity. Written in the years following World War I, the novel continues Lawrence's meditation on love between the sexes, and the political and religious ideology that have shaped Western civilisation.