An amateur entomologist goes missing one August on an excursion to the seashore to collect insects. Notices in the newspapers and police investigations turn up nothing. With a murder or suicide, there are typically clues to follow or evidence to examine, but the man disappears without leaving any clues. He was seen at the train station, dressed for insect collecting, which quashes the theory that he ran off with a woman. A colleague of the man’s who dabbles in psychoanalysis believes it was suicide based on his notion that entomology is a questionable pastime and is only pursued by people who are wrestling with abandonment issues or a longing for death. Seven years after his initial disappearance, the man is officially declared dead.

The man arrives at S___, the seaside village where he intends to search for a rare beetle. He can’t see the sea from the village, which seems rather poor. He is struck by how the road rises toward the sea instead of sloping downward toward it. As he walks along, he is surprised to see that the houses remain at the same low level instead of rising along with the road. In fact, the houses rest in great depressions of