The story follows the life of a prototypical early 20th-century everyman after he enters a city. It is by turns comic and tragic: a sick woman cared for by the man loses her life; the man breaks wind at a group of businessmen; the man is rejected by a prostitute with whom he has fallen in love. He also takes trips to different locales around the world.^[1] In the end, the man leaves the city for the woods, raises his arms in praise of nature, and dies. His spirit rises from him, stomps on the heart of his dead body, and waves to the reader as it sets off across the universe