Twilight, based on the real life of Madame de Prie, evokes the downfall of a powerful lady who is banished from Versailles by order of the King. She tries to make the best of living on her country estate, but although she takes a lover and invites friends from Paris, she finds her exile intolerable. Life at court, for all its essential emptiness, was the only thing that gave her existence meaning.<BR>The traveller delayed in a French port on his way home to Germany explores the sailors' quarter as night falls, in Moonbeam Alley. Enticed by a voice singing a Weber aria to an insalubrious bar near the harbour, the narrator learns the story of those who run and frequent it: a tale of passion, torment and violence of which he becomes the unwilling witness.