Elijah is a promising young lawyer, in love with his work and confident in the potential of the human race.

His law firm’s senior partner gives him his first important assignment. Elijah will have to follow the case of Leonard, an elderly engineer who lives in Montepastore, a small village in the Bolognese Apennines (Italy).

Leonard’s question concerns the supplementary contribution that engineers enrolled in the professional register are required to pay to Inarcassa, the Engineers’ Pension Fund. At first, the case seems simple. It was the subject of a previous ruling by the Court of Cassation. But Leonard is not satisfied with an institutional response. He wants to know why. He wants to know what hides behind the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Leonard’s demands grow meeting after meeting, and the subject of the dispute widens to include ethical, religious, and historical concerns.

As in the previous manuscripts, questions about the human condition are at the center of this philosophical debate. In the absence of answers, what is the point of writing about anything else?