The main character is Father Innocenzo, a 39-year old Cistercian monk who is living austerely and working as a ceramist in the abbey where he resides. Since he is endowed with a beautiful voice, in addition to performing with his confrères, he is sometimes asked to sing sacred music in Latin in other churches. The transfer of the parish priest entails new duties for the monk (masses celebration, blessings in homes, confessions of the faithful, church maintenance), which distract him from his perfect solitude, a change that he despises.
The monk is then confronted by the complexity of communal life, which he carefully avoided in the past (including with his relatives) and now he cannot afford to do it anymore. He is progressively becoming aware of his inadequacy, until the desire of committing suicide of one of his relatives (a bankrupt artisan) becomes a turning point in his life, breaking all of his certainties. This will lead him to drastically redefine his identity as a man and a faithful, while standing firm by his choice of spending his life as a man of faith.