1913. Corrado Corradi, son of the wealthy Leopoldo Corradi, directs hundreds of quarrymen in the Carrara marble quarries owned by his family, ignoring the rights of the workers who work there. He is married to Silvia, a woman of humble origins, madly in love with him and confident of her husband's good intentions. When she meets the quarryman Brando Prizzi and falls in love with him, her life changes unexpectedly.