Saverio Luparello is the manager of Sicilian baron Occipinti's estate. The cunning greedy man intentionally lets the land turn into a wasteland, hoping that his employer, discouraged by its low returns, will sell his earth to him for next to nothing. His plans are thwarted by a share cropper, Diego Costa, who farms his lot zealously and to good results.
The noble Pantaleo Di Santa Paola has just died, and the preamble to his will is a confession in which he claims that in his youth he had a relationship with a circus rider that produced twin sons.
