In a small remote village somewhere in Europe, disturbing conditions prevail. Crowded trains disappear into nothingness, the roots of fallen poplars rise skyward, garbage litters the sidewalks of the streets, over which darkness descends. Rosi Pflaum, a widowed housewife, fears the worst for herself and the city after a revealing encounter on the train. Frightened, she seeks refuge in her apartment, where the kitsch interior becomes her place of refuge. As an operetta plays, the unpredictable exterior is briefly forgotten.

Georges Esther, who resigned from his prestigious post as director of the city's music school, has also created a refuge for himself in order to devote himself entirely to his research on the piano. Obsessed with the idea that the History of European Music has been distorted since the idea and practical implementation of tempered tuning, he tunes his piano back to “real tuning” and tries to restore his vision of the order of the world in sound.

He threw his wife Angèle Esther out the door and thereby offended her. Madame Esther, former director of a men's choir, is a woman of action. With her clean-up campaign “Sweep the house, we must put it in order”, she wants to return the city to its usual order. But she knows that to convince the people of the city of her plan she needs her husband's reputation. So she blackmails him and threatens to return to the apartment they share. Her plan works: Monsieur Esther joins the action against his will and, in return, hopes to get rid of his wife once and for all.

The link between the estranged couple is Madame Pflaum's son, Valouchka. He is the town Postman and brings Monsieur Esther his food and mail every day and picks up the dirty laundry that his wife keeps washing for him. The childish weirdo is fascinated by the withdrawn scholar. For Monsieur Esther, in turn, Valouchka is not only the only contact with the outside world, but also represents a desirable ideal because of his naivety and admiration for the beauty of the universe.

For Valouchka, who has a strained relationship with his mother, the bar “Le Péfeffer” is his second home. Every evening, shortly before the bar closes, the drinkers ask him to play “Solar Eclipse” with them and thus prolong the evening a little longer. To demonstrate this natural spectacle, Valouchka places three guests in the room as the sun, the moon and the earth and lets them revolve around it... until the moon moves between the sun and the earth and everything goes dark. Valouchka's illustration becomes a pictorial foreshadowing of the dark shadow falling over the small town.

With the arrival of a mysterious group of showmen, a dark and uncontrollable energy is released. A huge whale and a diminutive Duke are the main attractions of the circus. While the townspeople admire the majestic size of the whale, the Duke does not appear. Only his voice is translated by a Phactotum. What he has to say is shattering: he has come to judge and he is not alone. His bizarre appearance radiates a mysterious fascination for the people of the city. They join him and, together with his followers, the Men in Cloth Coats, form a rebel movement that wants to overthrow the existing system. Chaos breaks out, the city is attacked and demolished. What had been brewing for a long time has now happened: the world has fallen apart. And Valouchka is a witness.

Madame Esther uses chaos for her own ends. She overrides the police, ignores the citizens and allies herself with the military. Valouchka's attempt to warn his mother about the rioters fails, because Madame Pflaum does not believe in the seriousness of the situation, blames her son and then has to witness him being taken away by the Men in Cloth Coats. In spite of himself, Valouchka becomes part of the movement and has for the first time in his life a feeling of belonging, regardless of his concerns for his mother and Monsieur Esther.

Both Madame Pflaum and Monsieur Esther go out into the chaos to look for the young man. But Rosi Pflaum falls victim to the violent takeover. Later, Madame Esther would cynically describe her in her coffin as a “heroine” who resisted. Madame Esther finally leaves with the General with her head held high.

Monsieur Esther's search for Valouchka is also unsuccessful. In the end he returns to his piano, exhausted, while Valouchka barely manages to escape.