Stephen, living in a troubled family, breaks into a grocery store and wreaks vandalism. He is sent to a reform school. Later he works in a cleaning brigade and accidentally meets József Draskóczi, who denounced him. Draskóczi lives in an unloving, troubled atmosphere with his barren daughter and cynical son-in-law, ascetic about his youthful communist beliefs. He feels responsible for Istvan's fate, offering him a human voice and love. Despite his daughter's hysterical jealousy, he sends Istvan to school and then, through his previous connections, provides him with an apartment...
"Who is Pom Pom? How come you don't know me? Hoo! Nobody really knows me, because sometimes I'm like this, sometimes I'm like that. I can change my shape amazingly: if I want, I am like a fur patch, or a wig, or one-finger fur gloves turned inside out, or a room-painting scrub, or a cotton tassel on the toe of a slipper. Now I look most like a fur hat, sitting on the branch, a nice long branch, up-heh-heh-heh, down-heh-heh-heh, as a breeze sways the branch..."
