In early 20th-century Spain, Urbano, an idealistic liberal young man arrives in Cenciella, a small village, to be a secretary at the town hall.

The Sunday prior to his wedding to Estrella, while the couple are in the forest enjoying an idyllic moment, everything changes with the presence of the chief, who comes to take revenge.

At another point the mayor is extending its personal view of what happened: "Women and the laws are to be violated, provided that cause us problems."

Bewildered, Urbano's response is visceral but rational, without resorting to wash his honor and take immediate revenge, as would be more suitable to the melodrama of the time.

Eventually, the couple, along with the child, moved to live in New York, which represents in the film that ideal world, very missed by his grandfather, that rural life amid beautiful scenery could not provide for the ambitions of a local chief.