An edition from the "Golden Tattoo" series. Printed in 12pt type with wide line spacing for maximum readability. While in Frankfurt, a young landowner named Dmitry Sanin falls in love with Gemma, the beautiful daughter of an Italian pastry shop owner, and proposes to her. To raise money for their future life, he sets off to sell his estate to a wealthy and beautiful woman named Maria Polozova. However, Maria, a calculating and powerful woman, seduces Sanin and turns him into her slave, forcing him to forget his fiancée and his honor. Thirty years later, the aged and lonely Sanin finds an old gift from Gemma and realizes that that fleeting weakness forever destroyed his only true love.