Constantine Ostas, a University professor is spending his holidays at his home village with his family. One very hot noon on August the 13th, he gets his books and archives and lies down in the garden under the shady pergola. There, he is overwhelmed by thoughts that turn into vivid memories and bring him back exactly twelve years ago at the same place. His memories begin from the day that he, as a graduate of the University, visits the house of his fellow villager Helen, who is a student at the School of Philosophy in the University of Athens and to whom he had been closely acquainted two years ago. Back then a mutual respect had developed between them which eventually evolved into mutual love, but without any continuation. The son of a big landowner of the village, John Kostoula was madly in love with Helen, but she rejected him discreetly. After that John tried to establish relations with Helen's sister, Alexandra, a schoolgirl, who also rejected him. This behaviour of Helen and Alexandra turned his love for Helen into hatred against Constantine when he learned that when Constantine came to the village, he went straight to her house and then went with her for hiking tours to the rocks... The memories of the professor of his love for Helen, the behaviour of John and his shepherd, (the sly Mitros) and the deep discussions with intense lyricism and metaphor about his love for Helen are covering the first nine chapters of the novel. And so it is a kind of 'boxing' ...