The novel, Jarry's last, revolves around a race between a train and a team of cyclists fuelled by perpetual-motion food and the exploits of a "supermale" capable of prodigious feats of endurance and sexual athleticism.
A large part of the novel takes place on Andre Marcueil's estate, Chateau de Lurance.
During a dinner party at the mansion of Andre Marcueil, the main character, several guests discuss the nature of love.
The men begin speculating about how many times a person can have sex in one day, and Andre tries to demonstrate his strength by breaking a dynamometer.
As the dinner party ends, Andre and Ellen have a sexual conversation and she admires the roses on his property.
At another dinner party at Andre’s mansion, the police appear and announce that they have found a girl who was raped and murdered on the estate; the matter is taken very lightly.
Andre, trying to see how many times the girl can endure sex with him, is the culprit; this dents his heroic reputation.
Bathybius, in the study, returns to his notes to find something unusual he had written, and considers the potential of God compared to man.
After he sees Ellen apparently dead (although she is asleep, he writes a poem for her about Helen of Troy and the carnage she caused).