The story published in 1921 follows Corkan, general scapegoat in Visegrad, a figure of fun who himself joins in the mockery. The object of his obsession is physically inaccessible: a tightrope walker in an Austrian circus company visiting Visegrad.
A war disabled lieutenant colonel, who did not make it in the society, after many years of loneliness meets happy woman who loved him in the past, and not forgotten him despite the fact that she married meanwhile.
