A spectacular wedding, a sudden scandal, a murder to which an entire town appears to be an accessory before the fact, the exotic manifestations of guilt ... Three people are joined in a fatal act of violence -- the bride, returned in disgrace to her parents only hours after the wedding; the bridegroom, who believes himself dishonored; the heedless young dandy, blithely unaware of his central role in the mounting drama. With the eye of an obsessed reporter determined to understand this pivotal event in the history of his town, the narrator, re-creates the testimony of a chorus of friends, servants, shopkeepers, priests, and police, who, by refusing to depart from the routine of their lives, allowed the murder to take place -- in fact, made the murder inevitable.