A young man and a young woman meet by chance in a cafe. She is reading "The Sound and the Fury," and he, hoping to strike up an acquaintance, is desperately searching his memory for anything he can recall about William Faulkner. After each of his attempts a bell rings, time hops backwards, and he starts over again — hoping to erase the conversational gaucheries of his earlier efforts. And, in time, he does get it right.