Joe resigned his job seven months ago in anticipation of the Army's call of induction but has been held in bureaucratic limbo. His wife encourages to use the time productively, but he feels he has no character and no idea how to use his freedom. He goes to help his wife's parents when his father-in-law falls ill, and he asks the man candidly how he can stand his wife's constant jabbering about him on the phone. He responds nonchalantly, and Joe is left depressed at the banality of marriage.

Leaving, Joe reflects on the buildings housing so many kinds of people and their common humanity, the eternal fixation of lives in an imperfect world. A week later, meeting with a friend about a temporary job opportunity, Joe has an outburst when a former friend from his days of communist allegiance refuses to acknowledge him. Not long after, he completely disgraces himself at his brother Amos's house.

Amos is the good child in the family, successful, wealthy, and concerned for his brother's wellbeing. He always urges Joe to make more of himself and offers him money, gesture Joe stubbornly rejects. Amos' wife Dolly and daughter Etta regard Joe derisively, particularly the latter. A dinner together yields unpleasant conversation about Joe's unemployment and simple living. Upstairs Amos offers Joe a hundred-dollar bill, which Joe pointedly rejects, fishing for a pin in Dolly's wardrobe after Amos leaves the room to pin the bill to their bedside. He escapes to the upstairs music room and listens to Haydn, the slow adagio prompting to think of God as possible antidote to his loneliness.  Just then Etta comes up and insists on taking a turn to listen to her records. Their argument devolves into a screaming match, and when Etta calls Joe a beggar, he grabs her by the hair and spanks her. The other adults run up and break up the fight, but Joe snarls that Etta got what she deserved. Back at home, Iva sobs.