In a state of permanent tension and relieved moral paralysis, Jean-Marie Thely, an anguished bystander confined to the margins of polite society, has based the whole of his existence upon the idea that he is unlike others. He derives his singularity from his origins as an illegitimate child; bounced from one condescendingly charitable household to another only to be rejected by the bourgeois families that raised him. Restricted to an ordinary education, barred from an officer’s career, he is unable to do what he wants and eventually becomes trapped in a life of utter indecision.