Written as an introductory story to The Piazza Tales, the protagonist of The Piazza, idealizes a radiant spot on the mountain he looks upon from his piazza. Traveling to the spot he realizes it is a house, occupied by the unhappy girl Marianna, who longs to see the lucky individual who lives in the white house she looks upon from her window. The narrator realizes he has been the object of a fantasy alike to his own, and leaves thinking how all idealism is an illusion.