A man is sitting on the dock of a restaurant in Spain with a Spanish priest. He watches the sun start to set, and some Spanish people throwing bits of bread to fish. They are on one of many piers. The man thinks about how newspapers those days are filled with shipwrecks and storms, and tales of dying crews. It seems impossible to him as he looks at the quiet ocean, and he notes that newspapers make no one place complete because they force a consciousness of what is going on elsewhere. The Spanish priest asks the man if this bothers him much, and he replies no. The priest replies that clever people accuse humans of making god in their own image. The priest explains that humans live by appearance, and they only pity things in front of them, and not even that if they see it too often. He says that people kill flies because flies are so small that they cannot imagine flies suffering, but would not like to kill a chicken. He remarks that foreigners go pale when they see bulls kill horses in the arenas. It is only a matter of visual repulsion, but they do not die out of sight from God. The priest says that humans have not made God in their image, because he is omniscient and no man could suffer what God knows and sees. The man sees a white pigeon in the water and marvels at its beauty. The priest says that it has fallen in to the water. The people throwing bread to the fish and waiters see the pigeon and shout, and people come to look at it. The water is wetting its wings, and it is trying to beat its wings. A man tries to use a pole to help it, but the pole frightens the pigeon. It starts to tire and moves towards another pier. Another man comes running down the pier with a net. Everyone shouts at the man to not frighten the pigeon and let it get near. The pigeon struggles more and starts to sink. Finally, the man with the net reaches the pigeon. He takes it out and holds it. Everyone cheers, happy that the pigeon is safe. They all start talking, wondering where it came from and marveling at how close it was to drowning. The man who saved the bird looks at it and grins, then he opens the back door of the restaurant and goes inside. The man's waiter remarks, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," and they sit back down at their table. The priest says to consider the story of the white pigeon.