A wife wakes at dawn to find her husband at the edge of the bed. He is terminally ill and as he leaves the room to spare her witnessing his sickness so she recalls the man he once was. Later the Lover's make a claim on an insurance policy indemnifying his deterioration. After his Father's funeral William, the central character, returns to work at Augeas Inc. an antiquated financial institution housed in an old gasometer expanding and shrinking on the basis of its fiscal health. Once there, to spite his manager William pleads the Lover's case rather than admit he issued an earlier payment in error. Fatigued by the ordeal and his manager's lack of sympathy with the claimants he resolves to take a week off work. While away he drifts further into a parlous mental state, his mind expanding to take on a separation of Self between a Lesser and Greater William. He finishes the week in nightmares. The Chairman of Augeas Inc. and Wombwell, a psychiatrist, meet in their Club to discuss William who they perceive as an abject example of what may occur if promises made to a generation are discovered to be baseless. The psychiatrist declares he has a solution starting with William as first experiment. William meets with the psychiatrist as instructed and is offered 're-ignorising'; the promise to be returned to enchanted inscience. Amidst the distress William remembers an arrangement to meet an old friend and goes, frantic to recall some part of the past that was hopeful. Instead the experience leaves William aimless and habit returns him to work where he finds the psychiatrist's explanation of what the future holds for his peers has already begun; and with it the decision on whether to yield to Great William or accept Lesser's fate, urgent.
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