Written by future Nobel-prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, this is the story of Patsy, a wealthy debutante with an acute sense of living and boundless curiosity. She falls in love with an older man (Julio Alemán) whom is married and mediocre, and thus learns the hard way about unhappiness, marring her rose colored world.

When a young boy steals billiard balls from a local saloon, a stranger is charged with the crime. The local layabouts find there is no reason to hang out at the bar without being able to shoot pool, and the boy entertains thoughts of forming a gang to steal more billiard balls in hopes of making money.

A young architect returns from Europe to live in the house of his uncles and cousins, where someone pretends to be the Devil.

Several lives intertwine: those of a group of vandals, a drug addict, and a girl who works as a waitress in a restaurant where her mother cooks.