In the 18th century in Madrid, the Marquess of Esquilache, King Charles III of Spain's former minister, bans on wearing the popular wide collar with a long coat and brimmed hat. Along with other measures provoke a massive riot in the city.

In an institution for the blind, a man rails against his misfortune, his energy and thinking distorted by a need to fight his blindness. Unhappy and unable to come to grips with his condition, he stirs a sympathetic chord in another blind inmate. She in turn, slowly enters into a relationship with him that starts to transform the ways he perceives himself and his blindness.

A rich and famous painter dies leaving a secret that kept him apart from the woman he loved. Suspecting a family plot, she will try to unveil it keeping his death from the greedy relatives who are called in the middle of the night. She will try to find the truth before the dawn comes at last.