Karen Blixen recalls her life in Africa where in 1913 she, as an unmarried wealthy Danish woman, is spurned by her Swedish nobleman lover, and moves to Nairobi, East Africa Protectorate to complete a marriage of convenience with her lover's brother, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke. Bror has gone through his money and is reduced to seducing the servant girls; the couple plans to establish a dairy cattle farm. En route to Nairobi, she meets Denys Finch Hatton, a local big-game hunter.