Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval is now thirty-three and "Aurélia" tells of his final descent into the hell of madness and death. Gérard still meets his good friends but they do not understand him any more. God is dead. Aurélia, his great love, the most perfect of all women, is dead as well. But has she ever existed ? The state of permanent delirium Gérard is in will lead him to a cemetery first, then to a police station and a mental hospital before he finally takes his own life.
—Guy Bellinger