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Four stories about short or long relationships between men and women in Italy and France.

Stefano, a young restorer, is commissioned to save a controversial mural located in the church of a small, isolated village.

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna, and they plan to get rid of her older husband.

Her name is Mina, but she is called Bambola (Doll). Upon her mother's death, she and her homosexual brother Flavio open a pizzeria. A man named Ugo loans Bambola the money, but is then killed in a fight with another boyfriend of hers, Settimio. While visiting him in jail, she meets sadistic Furio and they begin a relationship.

When peasant girl Nives is deserted by smuggler Gino Lodi, she betrays him to the police. Police officer Enzo Cinti, who loves Nives, traces her to the Po River cane-fields, where she is working as a cutter to support herself and an infant son, and warns her that Gino has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge. She rejects his offer to protect her. Gino finds Nives, mourning the drowning death of their son. He surrenders himself to the police and then walks at Nives' side in the funeral procession.

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

The time is the Twenties. Dr. Carlo Rambelli, inspector for the Ministry of Health, is sent to the Ravenna area to investigate a presumed epidemic of malaria. Once he has reached his native Romagna, Rambelli finds he has to grapple with the elementary life in ghost towns and with the strange deaths of two doctors: the province doctor and the country doctor. The story, which began with a self-possessed, elegiac narration, starts being tinged with suspense and mystery. In the end it will take on the distinct colours of the splattered nightmare. This novel of Baldini's is well constructed, a 'visual' cinema narration. In particular, the description of the horizontal Ravenna countryside is suggestive, with the open plains, the silence, the fog. The characters are vivid: aside from Dr. Rambelli, a gentleman who lent himself to medicine, there is Elsa, the woman of the people full of sensuality and primitive charm, whom the lead character falls in love with, questioning his own marriage relationship; Bellenghi, the federal ignoramus, bossy and violent, symbol of local power and muscular Fascist squad member; Giuseppe, a sensitive, solitary, intelligent child, capable of seeing dead people. Malaria, Fascism, medicine are the topics tackled by the author in the book, and also the explosive mixture that can come from the combination of corruption with a primitive, backward, superstitious mentality extraneous to the scientific rationalism of medicine and the codified rules of civil living.

Gemma Mirtilli is a depressed secretary of a top model agency who sees herself as not very charming. To make her react, her hairdresser friend offers her an unusual color that will change her life.