Silvio Astier is a teenager scientific genius and repressed poet. He lives his poverty in humiliation, vainly trying to escape from it at all costs, falling deeper into a dark pessimism as he fails in his attempts to thrive. In an environment saturated with sinister and vile characters from a Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century, crowned with grotesque and desperate situations, the young man is a target of contempt and indolence. And despite everything, there will be a climax that will both liberate and condemn his soul: redemption and punishment in order to transcend. The story, narrated by the now elderly protagonist, reflects the energies and chaos of the Argentine society at the beginning of the 20th century.