The narrator of this short novel, Smyroff, is exactly the archetype (according to Max Weber) of what we today call the "spectator." The "spectator" is the being who, overwhelmed by a powerful sense of inability to act, confines themselves to merely watching, commenting on what they see, magnifying or shrinking it, avoiding as much as possible the terrible (for them) dangers of even the most minuscule action.

Smyroff is one of the wretched victims of this modern disease that we tend to call alienation. He is different, he thinks he is different, and he wants to be different.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]