Giacomo Menegatti, a left-wing magistrate from a weii to-do family, carries out his profession in a northern Italian town. Anna, his wife, is younger than him. She is a beautiful woman with a shy and inhibited nature, who was broug h t up in a very bourgeois family. In spite of numerous attempts, she has not been abie fo give him a child. And this only goes fo worsen her aiready precarious mentai equiiibrium. The couple iives in what was Giacomo's famiiy home, a famiiy that stili makes itseif felt through the disquieting presence of his elderiy, wheel-chair ridden mother. Also Living in the house is Angelo, a Servant giri of peasant extraction. The giri is a strong contrast with her mistress; with her extroverted, disinhibited, sensuai nature, with exception fo her one fear: to faii pregnant... This wouid mean she wouid have to go back to the country...