ON A SMALL ISLAND in the Tyrrhenian Sea there lives a boy as innocent as a seabird. Arturo's mother is dead; his father away. Black-clad women care for him, give him the freedom to come and go as he likes. Then the father returns with a new wife, Nunziata, a girl barely older than Arturo. At first hatred and contempt are all the boy feels for his stepmother. In time, Arturo and Nunziata re-create the tragedy and passion that are as old as the history of men and women.