Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.

Matilda is an unlucky girl: her boyfriends keep dying in strange accidents. The last of them, Torquato, a shy filing clerk, is a little afraid of this situation and doesn't know how to continue the relationship.