An Italian government agent is assigned to break up a drug smuggling ring on the island of Ischia but his daughter is kidnapped by the gang.
Lucia Spinelli, orphaned by both parents, is taken as a housekeeper in the house of Mrs. Carla Parodi, when she reaches the age of majority, the young woman is almost forced to marry Mrs. Carla's brother. After the marriage and the birth of the first child, Parodi's intrusions on the life of the two spouses continue.
Three friends, a mechanic, a clockmaker, and a night warden are engaged to three sisters but are broke and cannot get married and pay the rent. They convince their future father-in-law to buy three little flats for them but the man buys them from a swindler and the friends run the risk of going to prison.
An old woman's poignant reminiscence of her youth in a convent school, the happy moments and the sad, and her tragic love for a Garibaldian.