A woman arrives with her twelve-year-old daughter at the apartment where her husband wants them to live while he is away on his unusually long business trips. Very soon, they discover that they are alone in the building except for an angry and taciturn doorman, her husband’s strange employee who visits them repeatedly, and the cleaning lady. Such is the cast of this sociological ghost story, or this ghostly exploration of society.

Maids, chauffeurs, housekeepers, servants, cooks, waiters, horse caretakers, gardeners, butlers, footmen, horse trainers, nannies, ladies-in-waiting, indendants, laundry women, janitors, administrators, carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, doormen, language tutors, thinks Mother Clara, the book open in her lap to the same page it’s been on for two days, in the end the world will devour and dominate us.