Moments of human humiliation link together the fates of six characters, located in a luxury country estate, an urban environment, and a quarry, respectively: the rape of a young woman; a suicidal man caught up in medieval fantasies; an unmarried daughter’s pregnancy, her blind father only concerned about the racial purity of his family; a bigoted judge; a little boy desperately demanding mutton for a sacrificial feast banned by the king; and the shoe that hit George W. Bush on the head in Iraq.