Antonio Carrales, coming back after having visited Doña Leonor, his mother (in the novel La Dama del Silencio, from the same author), in Mexico City, with a deep pain in his soul by the sad omen that he will never see her again, returns to his life in New York City.
The story tells part of the life of Antonio, historical researcher, navigator of dreams and a passionate writer, and in parallel, it's the story of the adventures of an ambitious Spaniard, traveling to San Francisco, attracted by the discovery of the gold deposits in the 1850's. The route to get to San Francisco on the Atlantic side was crossing through Nicaragua. As soon as he disembarks, Diego Ruelas, amazed by the tropical exuberance, changes his plans, stays in Nicaragua and in a short time falls in love, head over heels with a beautiful native girl. They live in the years of tyranny by the freebooter William Walker. His wife and their son disappear when the slave hunt is unleashed. Diego Ruelas, after a tireless search for his family, gives up and totally beaten decides to return to Spain. During the voyage back, the ship is struck by a storm and he dies.
Antonio Carrales sinks into the abyss of disappointed love and decides to take a long trip on his sail boat. He is caught by a storm and the ship is destroyed. When he wakes up he doesn't remember anything about where or who he is. They rescue him, but because of his attitude towards the Coast Guard, they wonder if he has suffered any brain damage that causes him amnesia, and it gets worse, when they discover that he pretends to be someone else, someone who doesn't correspond to the papers that identify him as Antonio Carrales and he insists on calling himself Diego Ruelas.
The case is assigned by the hospital to a doctor in psychology. Things get even more complicated when she falls in love with her patient during the process of clarifying his identity.
