Faced with a father that is getting older by the day, a woman who has already passed the normal age of marriage tries for a time to find a partner. She thinks she is doing this because she doesn't want her father to go to his grave filled with worry and regret about her. As it turns out, the true reason she is searching for a husband is that she is growing older as well and finds herself fearful that one day she too will have to deal with the embarrassment and loneliness of being old and living alone like her father. Nonetheless, as he lies paralyzed in bed, her father's spirit is free. He worked his entire life as a railway worker. While the stately spirit of professionalism with which he approached his job was viewed by others as a kind of farcical self-dignity, at the moment of his death, the audience is likely to feel the same as his daughter and find it hard to laugh at his earnestness any more.