A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town's bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena.
Elli and Marco are an unquestionably unusual wedded couple. Due to a damage as a kid, Marco harbors homosexual drives that he represses inside his married life and Elli is a barely surpressed nymphomaniac. The marriage is useful for both of them as it allows them to blend in within the confines of their regular social life in a sanctimonious provincial town. But then a strange woman bursts into their world and Marco's deviant behavior come to light again but now he has a thirst for murder.
In the city of Ostuni in Puglia, the mute seminarian Ercole is designated to be the driver and nurse of Parsifal, the paraplegic son in a rich and sanctimonious family of landowners. Ercole soon becomes the lover of his master's wife, the beautiful Baroness Clotilde. In a familial and social context where only money, sex and power count, everyone tries to take advantage of everyone, but the real saprophyte turns out to be Ercole.