A strident, unblushing portrayal of Italy's ferments, disorders of 1919-21, in the microcosm of Livorno, and the representative characters living there. From lowest to highest brackets, unionists, the military, revolutionaries, workers, anarchists, reactionaries, etc. from the degeneracy of the wealthy to the of thieves. A portfolio of the characteristics of the period, which follows the stories of some dozen people as they are swayed with political and social shifts leading up to fascism... A mirroring, in swift-moving episodes, of people against a period of chaos, in personal and public life.