The novel is a review of the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis and some of the main personalities of the last decades of the 19th century.

Lou Salomé, who was involved with Friedrich Nietzsche, has written a letter stating that the future of the philosophy of Germany is at stake and that Nietzsche needs help desperately. The plot develops into a therapy in which Doctor Josef Breuer needs to have his soul treated to help him get over a patient whom he treated for hysteria and with whom he has fallen in love, while Nietzsche needs help with his migraines. Influenced by the revolutionary ideas of his young disciple Sigmund Freud, Josef Breuer starts the dangerous strategy that will become the origin of psychoanalysis. Thanks to their unusual relation, both of them will see how their perspective of life changes completely. The story also explains how Friedrich Nietzsche received the inspiration to write his famous book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.