Lesson of a Dead Language

A young lieutenant of the Austro-Hungarian army is the commander of a staging point in the rear of the army in the small Galician town of Turka. He was assigned here because of advanced tuberculosis. These are the last months of World War I. The commander considers himself an aesthete, he is interested in symbolism and the theme of death, he collects objects of exceptional significance or origin and sends them to his mother to his family home. He tries to make sense of his last days of life.