The novel follows a humble country priest who is summoned to his bishop and rebuked for lacking social polish, then dispatched to minister among affluent circles. Encounters with ecclesiastical functionaries, a worldly doctor friend, and upper-class households expose tensions between pastoral duty and social pretension. Through episodes of satire and gentle comedy, the narrative contrasts rural sincerity with urban wealth, probing clerical adaptation to changed postwar attitudes and the compromises demanded by status, money, and institutional authority.