A qualified surgeon is urgently called by a party in a small and inadequate private hospital to operate a man in critical condition because of a suicide attempt. This is the protagonist of the film, Benedict Parisi, whose first name seems prophetic of his story. In the waiting room is the companion Joan Micheli, pregnant with him, which—Benedict being alone in the world—gives consent to the risky operation. Her mother, Immaculate, however, hovers in the wings like a vulture, hoping he will die, because she aspires to marry Giovanna off to a lawyer friend of the family, as a better social and economic proposition.