A decade of association begins in a provincial Russian town between a university scholar and a diplomat's daughter. Over numerous years, their innocent beginning evolves into a mix of intrigue and devotion that would find fulfillment in a later time. A prestigious Leningrad professorship then separates the couple until they reunite years later in Paris. There she's a beautiful young woman who works in her father's office at the Russian embassy. She begins to draw her former tutor's affection, putting him under a spell of love and desire.

Later, mysterious crimes against the state gradually manifest, forcing the young couple on a fateful train journey to Moscow. A remote country home offers them temporary refuge, but eventually they realize their only hope is to abandon the charming house and seek a new life beyond Soviet borders.

A sensual story that illuminates a couple's affections to deeper significance over pure desire, Meetings with Sylvia Ionnescu elevates the love story to a new spirituality. Such impassioned themes find fulfillment in Paris where a couple's physical devotion repeatedly consummates in an alluring apartment filled with antiques and art. Nevertheless, such sumptuous fidelity cannot offer them deliverance as the story moves beyond lust, drawing mercilessly to a memorable conclusion.