In a lost African leper colony, for some unknown reason, a European appears. The small society of his compatriots (doctors, missionaries, colonists) is confused, intrigued, excited. What does this unexpected guest want, what does he carry within himself, what will he receive and at what cost will he regain his taste for life? The novel accurately documents the leper colony and the stages of the disease. However, the writer gave the image of leprosy a moral and philosophical meaning, which was clearly ambiguous. Leprosy is the curse of painful self-expression of the individual, and the worship of false idols, and the snare of spiritual oppression, and the limitations of human nature...