There are seven chapters entitled "O Sobrado" that frame the rest of the action and tell the story of a siege to the Terra-Cambará mansion during the Federalist Revolution.
Initially, he contrasts with his family: his brother Toribio and his father Licurgo are countryside men while Rodrigo listens to operas, reads magazines from Paris, and drinks champagne.
The title of this book refers to a portrait of Rodrigo Cambará painted by a friend of the doctor, Don Pepe Garcia.
The first (Rosa-dos-Ventos) and the last (Uma Vela para o Negrinho) chapters are set in 1945, the present days, showing Dr. Rodrigo back to Santa Fé after the fall of Brazilian's dictator Getúlio Vargas (whom he supported) suffering from a terminal disease.
In O Arquipélago (The Archipelago), after the fall of the Vargas dictatorship, terminally ill, Dr. Rodrigo Terra Cambará returns to Santa Fé with his fractured family.
In flashbacks and conversations, his days as a revolutionary and as a politician in Rio de Janeiro are remembered, just as the remaining members of the decadent family - particularly his son Floriano, a key part of this metafictional novel - try to rebuild their lives free from the influence of the dying patriarch.