The innocent calm of life in a turn-of-the-century provincial city fools everyone-characters and viewers alike-in this small-scale picaresque tale. Damián, a saintly fifteen-year-old peasant boy, is the darling and the hope of his village; funds are raised to send him to Medellin to enter the seminary and become a priest. There he is taken in by the women of his boarding house, who buy his clothes and enjoy his company of a sacred evening. But just who has taken in whom becomes the question as Damián begins returning home later and later each evening, and the halo begins to tarnish.