On the night of the 14th of July 1933, the writer Raymond Roussel closes the door of his room at the Hotel Des Palmes in Palermo. He swallows pills, drags the mattress to the centre of the room and lies down on it. The next morning his companion, accompanied by a valet, finds his corpse. But is he really dead? Or did he cross a border that he considered unacceptable, that between reality and imagination?