We learn quickly that Giuseppe Corte is on his way to a sanatorium, a "famous nursing home," and he is immediately impressed by the building. It has a "vague resemblance to a hotel" and is surrounded by mature trees. His room is "cheerful" and the furnishings are "bright and shining." The narrator tells us that Giuseppe's view is of a beautiful region of the city and all is "peaceful, hospitable, and reassuring." All of these descriptions seem to be positive and pleasing and to present no cause for concern. The mood is serene, tranquil even.

However, Giuseppe's illness does not improve, even after ten days. He is told that a family will move into the nearest rooms, but they require one more, and Giuseppe agrees to move rooms, but he must go down a floor. He is on the top floor, the seventh, where the healthiest patients reside; on each floor down, the patients get sicker and sicker. Thus, he is nervous to be moving down, even temporarily as the nurse promises him. After spending some time on the sixth floor, he learns that he is to be transferred to the fifth floor, evidently as the effect of some miscommunication or accident on the part of hospital staff. They continue to tell him that he is actually rather well compared to the others, but then he ends up begging to be moved down so he can get a certain treatment is apparently only available on the fourth floor. His condition actually continues to worsen, as evidenced by his increasing fever. The more he is moved, the more the mood becomes positively menacing and foreboding; we get the sense that he is being lied to and manipulated, and this dramatically affects the mood.