Máximo Manso, a cultured man, methodical, and wise, is an inveterate bachelor. Yet, his quiet routine is ruined when his brother and large family from Cuba arrive. Unexpectedly, Máximo falls in love with Irene, the girl he used to know as a young girl. Now she is a governess of his nephews. Now his solid heart is touched with feelings that until then he had not experienced. The whole novel is full of oppositions: ideas and reality, action and contemplation, sincerity and dissimulation.