In this simple tale, the novel's hero is the talented heir to a notable family in Lisbon. He aspires to serve his fellow man in his chosen profession of medicine, in the arts, and in politics. But he enters a society affected by powerful international influences French intellectual developments, English trading practices that trouble and frustrate him. In the end he is reduced to a kind of spiritual helplessness and his good intentions are reduced to dilettantism. His passionate love affair begins to suffer a devastating constraint.
"

This novel is set in Leiria, a provincial cathedral in which the hypocrisies of churchmen were not far to seek. Father Amaro, a young man like the author himself, with a priestly rather than a diplomatic vocation, falls into a relationship with a woman, and their tragic story unfolds.

Jacinto, an absentee noble from Portugal, revels in joyous extreme in the latest of French sophistications. Circumstances compel his return to his family estates where he rediscovers the values and pleasures of Portuguese traditional life, but there are doubts about this perfection he finds.