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A Vassar girl goes to India in search of the Abominable Snowman. Her father meets a maharajah and arranges a marriage of convenience between his daughter and the maharajah's son. But the girl is an anthropologist, and she insists upon her savage. Her father offers a peasant $100,000 to play the role, and the ersatz savage allows himself to be packed off to Chicago.
All the vanities of North Shore existence are exposed by the horrified savage—action painting and splintered Christianity, electro-dodecaphonic music and beat poetry, capri pants and cocktail parties. The peasant-savage finally flees to the jungle, having become a no-nonsense savage in the crucible of crumbling society. The girl follows on the wings of love: "Now my unquiet heart is at ease," she sings. "Nothing remains but ourselves and the trees." They seal their defection with a kiss—as native bearers carry the appliances of the fat life into their cave.
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