Naples, 1969. Enrico Gargiulo, a travelling salesman renting a small room in the humble home of Mr. and Mrs. Coppola, having returned early from a business trip to Milan, learns that Mr. Coppola had died the day before his arrival from a massive heart attack and that his funeral had been held a few hours earlier.

The people of a little village somewhere near Naples are true country bumpkins, no interest in anything but their own village lives. One day the government calls on farmer Esposito. He's told to sell his farm to make space for a new motorway linking northern and southern Italy. He has no intention of complying. His son Francisco is in love with village-beauty Maria but it all ends in tears. Frustrated and fed up with country-life he moves to Milan and fucks a few beautiful women. His doomed love to Maria and the death of his father push him into marriage with a woman he doesn't really love. In his twilight years Francesco starts an investigation as to what might have become of Maria and he finds out that she ended up in a convent. There she spends her days as a frustrated nun, grieving for her lost love.