A famous tenor has a car accident and asks the owner of a pharmacy for hospitality. The pharmacist’s wife is fascinated by the singer and follows him to Rome. Hovewer, she is sent back home.

Martino Lori, widowed by his own wife, does not seem to recover from that mournful event. He has a daughter, Palma, entrusted until the age of eighteen to a guardian, Senator Manfroni: this, having reached the age of majority, will marry Flavio, leaving his father, toward whom he has a deep contempt, alone and abandoned.