Sebastian Barnack, a 17-year-old London poet and aesthete, is refused a suit of evening clothes by his puritanical, politically radical father. Sebastian then leaves England for Florence, where his Uncle Eustace, the very antithesis of his father, promises the boy evening clothes and presents him with a Degas drawing. Abruptly thereafter, Uncle Eustace dies and Sebastian sells the drawing to buy his suit. The complications that ensue are witnessed by Eustace in limbo, who foresees the future and comments on the action throughout the remainder of the story.