Age has estranged two wives and outdated David Lurie's sexual charm. A professed critic of language and lover of romantic poetry, that is to say of Opera, Eros and History, Lurie has been reformed by academic rationale into an uninspired teacher of communications. Against pre-stabilised meaning constructed of agreed signs he posits a vital language of immediate significance.
Language sounds in the grandeur of dirge.
Dispirited in person and profession, Lurie's meaningless soul opens before another world. A ready plea of moral turbidity is too ambiguous. At wit's end he dumbly refuses. He will not intone the required text. In silent disgrace he is driven from the university and onto the wider stage of history.