Giovanni Alberti, a small building contractor in the years of the boom, is heavily in debt because of his poor skills in business but above all because of his high standard of living, which he strives to maintain at all costs, even pressured by his beautiful and frivolous wife Silvia (Gianna Maria Canale), whom he loves deeply.

After calls on family and friends for financial support, suddenly the wife of a rich manufacturer, Mrs. Bausetti, gives him a private appointment advancing an attractive deal.

They could afford to, the woman calmly explains, obtain the cornea implant from a dead stranger, but it is preferable to propose such an arrangement, though obviously illegal, to a young and healthy man in need of money.

Silvia, feeling betrayed and forced to give up prosperity, never considers the idea of making sacrifices to help her husband, but returns to the family home with her two-year-old son.

With the money, which he claims to have won in a lucky deal, Giovanni organizes a lavish reception in his splendid apartment in the EUR district, to revenge himself on acquaintances who had humiliated him and to regain the esteem of Silvia, who, removed from the spectre of poverty, does not hesitate to make up and to declare herself proud of him.