Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, his working-class values collide with the bourgeois trappings of modern life.
Anastácio lives in Lisbon and is fanatic for Sporting, one of the city's football teams. When the team travels to face Porto, he follows it with the family, staying in house of his friend, Mr. Barata, pretending to be rich.
When a businessman's car crashes and burns, inspector Moisés of the criminal brigade is given the case, as the body has been stabbed. He'll try to reconstruct the financier's personality by the mirrored impressions on those who knew him.
The fatalism caught up and the amorous tragedy between Teresa de Albuquerque and Simão Botelho, who survives the intolerant litigation of her noble families.
