Baltasar, a young man in his twenties, is sent by his father to live with his aunt Dolores, an elderly widow and childless widow, on the Las Pataguas farm. There he meets his neighbors, the Araneda family, owners of the El Pantano farm and parents of the beautiful Humilde, with whom Balthazar falls in love. But the girl is "bewitched" by Saúl Araneda, her seductive cousin, whom the locals consider dangerously jealous.
A love story in the midst of historical accidents in Chile, through the revolution of 1891, the Valparaiso earthquake of 1906, the centenary celebrations of 1910 to the present, in 1944.
