Estefânia is an old, rich, strict catholic woman, and when she sets her eyes on a couple of servants who have no means to bring up properly their youngest son, António, she decides to move her influences in order to make a priest out of him. The parents accept it, the local priest and even the Seminar's rector accept it, and António accepts it - if not for piety, for obeyance to his parents. Once time goes by, and António is out of rural misery and into the prison-like system of a seminar, doubts and anguishes mount within him.

Ti Miséria has a supernatural power. When Death comes to take her, she traps her in a pear tree. But without death the world doesn't work. Those whose work depend on Death, want it to be freed from the tree. It is then that Death makes a deal with Ti Miséria.