Immanuel Kant has died.

Martin Lampe, once his longtime servant and, after so much daily intercourse, imagining himself to be Kant's intellectual heir, is ready to piece together all the scribblings he'd taped up on his walls, and balled up in his pockets, to assemble his own great philosophical work, a task he feels he has long been tutored for. "Martin Lampe," he thinks. "Asker of Questions."

But his dream is stymied by Andreas Wasianski, Ehregott Andreas Christoph Wasianski, a local pastor, a regular at Kant's table -- who wanted to ride the philosopher's fame by writing a biography of Kant's last years. Jealous, self-protective, Wasianski had taken possession of the obsequies, and controlled all visitation. Martin was kept out, and away. Kant, his corpse, his legacy would not be shared!

A most unequal, unseemly class- and power-struggle is here recounted.