Hubertus Hold is a writer and poet. The bachelor alternates between his small apartment in Munich and his summer house not far from Lake Garda. The house, built of natural stone and located in a valley surrounded by vineyards and fascinating nature, particularly attracts him during the warm season, and he affectionately refers to it as his summer wife. When the seventy-year-old bachelor loses friends who have fallen ill with cancer, he decides to go for a check-up. Of course, he waits until winter, as the summer wife takes precedence. Even in the doctor's waiting room, his imagination runs wild. He feels threatened by viruses and bacteria. He ignores the elevated PSA level diagnosed by the doctor for a long time, as he fears the biopsy that is standard in cases of suspected tumors even more than viruses and bacteria. But it must be done. He travels to Heidelberg for it. When it turns out that he has an aggressive carcinoma, he undergoes surgery in Munich. The robot-assisted surgery using the DaVinci method is successful. He leaves the clinic healed but plagued by incontinence. He processes his experiences lyrically in poems. In one of these poems, he describes how the carcinoma ends and how he comes to enjoy his health again. Here are the first lines: "A carcinoma sits all alone / In the bar 'At the Lively Hare' / 'Mr. Host, this can't be right! / Where are the metastases?'" The entire poem is printed in full at the end of the novel.