Late one night in his sad one-room apartment in a crime-filled neighbourhood of Naples, Mr. De Gregorio's attention is drawn to a series of desperate cries from the entryway below. A prostitute has split open the head of a client who tried to do unmentionable things to her, and she asks the old, bedraggled attorney to hide her. He does so, in his bed, only to discover the next morning that he was once a guest at the young woman's wedding. Her husband, a building foreman, was killed on the job, but the accident was covered up, and she received no insurance compensation. Mr. De Gregorio files suit, at first in the hope of making a small fee off the poor woman, but later, after he meets a young prosecutor who restores his faith in both the law and himself, in order to wrong a right and regain his own dignity.