Since Juan Gallardo was a child wishes to be a bullfighter and he achieves to be come a recognizable figure. He marries Carmen, his childhood friend, but he fall s in love with the widow of a diplomat, a sophisticated woman of the world with whom he starts a relationship that will end up destroying him. While he is recovering be cause he had been severely gored in his sevillian house, Juan receives a visit f rom his great admirer the bandit "Plumitas� who makes him see the parallelism be tween their life experiences. The visit is interrupted with the Civil Guard lying in wait of the bandit. Juan drifts a long time from failure to failure because he is now a fraid of the bull and he is again humiliated by his beloved Mrs. Sol. Finally he gets a bullfight in Madrid and Carmen, his wife, has a bad omen and comes to the bullring.