The story is about Keats, a tight-rope walker, and the narrator, a woman. Keats is a performer in crisis, restlessly awaiting inspiration. The woman is confused by their meetings, striving to make sense of the fragments of information he has given her about himself. Keats point-of-view is told in the third person, in the second part of the book, making it, as it were, a closed chapter to the narrator. The basic theme of the book is a question: whether it is possible ever to know another person. The story as such, with its meanders, impasses and blanks, may be read as an allegory of love.