Jason is a clerk at a shop that sells used blouses to women. He lives in a shabby apartment because most of his money goes toward his sophisticated wardrobe. For a few months now, he has focused on this pursuit of refinement to refrain from indulging in what he calls "his weakness." In the past, he would follow women and wait until they were in a vulnerable position before cutting off a handful of their hair and sneaking away with it. He opens the large chest in which he keeps his "trophies," admiring his favorite "prize" – a lock of flaming red hair. The red-haired woman had caught him as he cut off enough hair to make a wig. When he came home with it, Jason wept and masturbated until the shame was enough to make him swear that he would never take hair again. A knock sounds at the door, and Jason is paralyzed with the fear of discovery. He tells the visitor he’s unable to entertain and leaves quickly, deciding that the hair must be disposed of so that no evidence of his unnatural obsession exists. As he walks in the snow, Jason remembers an incident from his childhood in which bigger, meaner children picked on him. The soft fur-covered mitten of one of his bullies had pushed him into this obsession with hair. Feeling numb, he follows a mysterious cloaked woman to the station and vividly imagines pushing her onto the tracks and seeing her crushed corpse left behind. He is startled out of his fantasy as the train approaches – and then he shoves the woman onto the tracks. Jason walks home in silence. He slips in the snow and stays on the ground for a long time. His urges are gone, and he feels only indifference.