Ted and Bettina are a young married couple on vacation in Europe in the year 1959. Ted works as a lawyer, while Bettina is a poet. Bettina is recovering from her recent miscarriage, during which she lost twins. Ted is sad to see Bettina down, but he was secretly happy to have not been burdened with kids at such a young age. He spends time in France alone, given Bettina’s recent inclination towards sitting in solemn silence. They leave France and arrive in Spain’s Costa Brava. Ted takes another solitary swim, during which he sees a thin young woman with an older man. He’s attracted to the woman. Bettina comes to the pool and sees Ted’s reaction to the woman; she asks him to return to their hotel room and they have sex. Suddenly, Bettina feels a lot better: she mentions Ted’s attraction to the young woman honestly and speaks about the miscarriage as she hadn’t before. They go out to dinner. She resolves to restart work on the poem she’d left behind following her miscarriage; he contemplates the history of Spain and realizes how little he knows.