Giulios Schlaf tells of a young man who returns to Rome, the city he left as an adolescent together with his parents. In Rome the time of summer heat begins, and while the capital empties out, the ritual of the last presidential elections of the Second Republic unfolds. Giulio remembers an afternoon at the sea where he first met Gabriella. The chance encounter lies more than ten years back, yet the unredeemed erotic promise of that moment has never let go of him. He manages to find Gabriella again, who has long since had a family of her own.