The protagonist of the novel, Kolen, is a very sweet young man of twenty-two years old, who so often smiles with an infantile smile that even makes a dimple in his chin, preparing for the arrival of his friend Shik. Nicolas, his cook, conjures in the kitchen, creating masterpieces of culinary art. Chic is the same age as Kolen and also a bachelor, but he has much less money than his friend, and, unlike Kolen, he is forced to work as an engineer and sometimes ask for money from his uncle who works in the ministry.
Knee's apartment is remarkable in itself. The kitchen is equipped with wonderful appliances that perform all the necessary operations on their own. The sink in the bathroom supplies the Knee of the living eels. Lighting from the street does not penetrate the apartment, but there are two suns in it, in the rays of which a small mouse with a black antennae plays. She is a full occupant of the apartment. They feed her and touchingly take care of her. Knee also has a “pianotail” - a mechanism created on the basis of the piano and which allows one to obtain excellent cocktails from alcoholic drinks by playing this or that melody. At dinner, it turns out that Aliza, the girl Shik recently fell in love with, is Nicolas's niece. She, like Schick, is fond of the work of Jean-Sol Partr and collects all his articles.
The next day, Kolen goes with Skik, Alisa, Nicolas and Isis (a common acquaintance of Kolen and Nicolas) to the rink. There, through the fault of Kolen, rushing towards his friends across all the other skaters, a heap-mal takes place. Isis does not invite the whole company on Sunday to her party, which she hosts on the occasion of the birthday of her poodle Dupont.
Looking at Shik, the knee also wants to fall in love. He hopes that at the reception at Isis, he smiles at happiness. He really meets a girl named Chloe there and falls in love with her. Their relationship is developing rapidly. It's about the wedding. Meanwhile, Alisa begins to be sad, since Shik believes that her parents will never agree to their marriage because of his poverty. Kolen is so happy that he wants to make his friends happy too. He gives Shik twenty-five thousand inflans of the one hundred thousand that he possesses, so that Shik can finally marry Alize.
Knee's wedding is a success. Everyone admires with admiration the performance that the Superior, the Pyanomar and the Priest give in the church. For this event, Kolen pays five thousand inflans. Most of them Abbot rakes himself. The next morning, the newlyweds in a luxurious white limousine drive south. Nicolas this time acts as a driver. He has one very unpleasant, from the point of view of Kolen, peculiarity: when he wears the uniform of a cook or a chauffeur, it becomes decidedly impossible to talk with him, as he begins to speak exclusively in a ceremonial and official language. At one point, Knee’s patience bursts, and, being in his room in some roadside hotel, he throws shoes at Nicolas, but he gets out the window. A winter cold enters the room through a broken window from the street, and in the morning Chloe wakes up completely sick. Despite the careful care of Knee and Nicolas, her health is deteriorating every day.
Meanwhile, Chic and Alisa most zealously attend all Jean-Sol Partra's lectures. To squeeze on them, they have to go to all sorts of tricks: Shiku - to dress up as a doorman, Alize - to sleep in the backyard. Kolen, Chloe and Nicolas are returning home. From the threshold, they notice that the apartment has changed. Two suns no longer fill the corridor, as before. Ceramic tiles faded, walls no longer sparkle. A gray mouse with a black mustache, not understanding what was happening, only spreads its legs. Then she begins to rub the faded tiles. The corner shines again, as before, but the legs of the mouse are worn into the blood, so Nicolas has to make small crutches for her. Kolen, glancing into his safe, discovers that he has only thirty-five thousand inflans left. He gave Chik twenty-five, a car cost fifteen, the wedding cost five thousand, the rest went to the smallest detail.
Chloe feels better on her return home. She wants to go to the store, buy herself new dresses, jewelry, and then go to the rink. Chic and Kolen immediately go to the rink, and Isis and Nicolas accompany Chloe. When, during skiing, Kolen finds out that Chloe is bad and she fainted, he rushes headlong home, thinking with fear about the worst that could have happened.
Chloe - calm and even enlightened - lies on the bed. In the chest, she feels someone's unkind presence and, wanting to control it, coughs from time to time. Dr. d'Ermo examines Chloe and prescribes her medicines. A flower, a nymphaeum, a water lily appeared in her chest. He advises surrounding Chloe with flowers so that they dry the nympha. He believes that she needs to go somewhere in the mountains. Kolen sends her to an expensive mountain sanatorium and spends huge amounts of money on flowers. Soon, he had almost no money left. The apartment is becoming increasingly dull. For some reason, twenty-nine-year-old Nicolas looks at all thirty-five. The walls and ceiling in the apartment are shrinking, leaving less space.
Chic, instead of marrying Aliza, spends all of his inflations given to him by Kolen for the purchase of Partr's books in luxurious bindings and old things that supposedly belonged to his idol once. Having spent the last thing he has, he informs Alisa that he cannot and does not want to meet her anymore, and puts her out the door. Alisa is in despair.
Kolen asks Nicolas to go work as a cook to Isis' parents. It is painful for Nicolas to leave his friend, but Kolin can no longer pay him a salary: he has absolutely no money. Now he himself is forced to look for work and sell his piano to an antique dealer. Chloe returns from the sanatorium, where she underwent surgery and removed the nymphaeum. However, soon the disease, spreading to the second lung, resumes. Kolen now works in a factory where rifle barrels are grown using human heat. The trunks at the Knee come out uneven, a beautiful metal rose grows from each trunk. Then he enters the bank as a security guard, where he has to walk all day on the dark underground corridor. He spends all the money on flowers for his wife.
Chic was so carried away by collecting the works of Partr that he spent all his money on them, in particular those that were intended to pay taxes. A police seneschal leaves with his two assistants. Alisa, meanwhile, goes to the cafe where Jean-Sol Partr works. He is currently writing the nineteenth volume of his encyclopedia. Alisa asks him to postpone the publication of the encyclopedia, so that Chick has time to save up money for her. Partr refuses her request, and then Alisa rips out his heart from his chest with a heartbeat. Partr is dying. In a similar way, she acts with all the sellers of books who supplied Shika with the works of Partra, and sets the shops on fire. Meanwhile, the police are killing Shik. Alisa is dying in a fire.
Chloe is dying. Knee only has enough money for the funeral for the poor. He has to endure the bullying of the Superior and the Priest, for whom the amount offered by him is not enough. Chloe is buried in a distant cemetery for the poor, which is located on the island. From this moment on, Knee-N begins to weaken hour by hour. He does not sleep, does not eat, and spends all the time at Chloe’s grave, waiting for a white lily to appear above her to kill her. At this time, the walls in his apartment close, and the ceiling falls to the floor. The gray mouse barely manages to escape. She runs to the cat and asks her to eat.
