Pierre ruins everything-friendships, love, fatherhood-in his headlong race against time. As he rushes through life, he fails to appreciate those things that are of true value-the tendernesses shown to him by his wife, Hedwige, the poetry of the world. He burns himself up, and burns up those around him, in a constant striving for goals that change as soon as he reaches them. Too late, he will realize that in his haste, he has been hurrying only to arrive more quickly at a meeting with death.