"I am a changed man! I have 60,000 marks and I'm going to decide for myself what is and isn't pointless so to hell with you!"

Knocked for six by his lust for an exotically perfumed woman from Florence, a trusted bank clerk of 25 years' standing shoves a stolen fortune in his pocket and runs to her hotel, where his ludicrous advances are rejected. But, he's broken free and there's no turning back.

He ditches his family and their bourgeois existence to embark on a roller-coaster odyssey, scouring the city's senseless entertainments in an increasingly disillusioned search for an experience worth buying and a reason for living.