The tycoon Dr. Fisher, setting up a kind of experiment, finds out what the limits of greed are and to what degree of humiliation and danger people can go in order to get luxurious gifts. Dr. Fisher is struck not by the predicted vices of the guests, since he knows well the peculiar nature and immense appetites of rich people, but by the refusal of his daughter’s husband, a poor man, from the imposed mocking game. The ending of the novel is ambiguous; the author wanted the reader to think about the deepest philosophical problem: what is the essence and meaning of human existence.