Serafin Skoko grew up on a lonely lighthouse island off of the coast of the Adriatic Sea, with nothing more than birds, the sea and the rocks to keep him company and with his parents constant arguing being the only inkling of human contact. After he reaches adulthood, desperately seeking a way out of his monotony, he enlists into the Austro-Hunagarian army and is stationed in a small continental Croatian town, where he falls in love with Crvena, a beautiful local spendthrift. However, as the shadows of the First World War begin closing in over Europe, he decides to fake insanity in order to avoid military service and is put through the horrors of his homecountry's mental insititutions.