A child is witness to an assault on a monk by the gang of Lorenzo the Fifth. The monk escapes and takes refuge in the estate of Doña Carlota, a countess who lives with her son Juan and daughter Beatriz. Basilisa, the maid, conjures the devil to free her son from an irreversible illness, but to do so the evil must be transmitted to an innocent soul, and for that she chooses Beatriz. The child begins to be the victim of a possession, for which everyone blames the monk.

In Santa Fe de Tierra Firme, an imaginary Latin American country, the indigenous dictator Santos Banderas rules with an iron fist. A group of rebels trying to seize power by force while some liberals try a change of government legally.

A work of Valle-Inclán, the story takes place in Galicia in the early twentieth century. To escape poverty, the wife of a sacristan uses a hydrocephalic child as a sideshow attraction. This causes a confrontation with her sister-in-law.

In the empty house of his family, Ramon, a poet, remembers the last day of the life of his master: the last time he went out with his friend don Latino de Hispalis, his talk with a minister and his dinner with Ruben Dario.

In the fall of 1824 Javier Montenegro, Bradomin Marquis is spared death hanging by Captain Casares, and in return, the Marquis agrees to help him escape to America. Adaptation of "Sonata de Otoño" and "Sonata de Estío" of Ramón María del Valle-Inclan, which included elements Bardem later works of the author.