In Sicily, mine worker Carmelo "Mimí" Mardocheo votes in the Communist Party candidate instead of in the Mafia's one believing that the suffrage is secret. After the elections, he loses his job and cannot find another in his village that is controlled by the mobster Don Calogero. He leaves his wife Rosalia with his family and travels to Turin expecting to find a job. He finds an illegal position in the civil construction that is also explored by the Mafia, and when a coworker dies in an accident, he finds that the mobsters have dumped his body on the road. However, he does not report the crime to the police and lies to mobster Salvatore Tricarico telling that he belongs to the family of a powerful mobster. Mimi gets a metallurgic position and joins the Communist Party. Then he fall in love with virgin Trotskyite street vendor Fiorella Meneghini and they have a son. When Mimi witnesses mobster Vico Tricarico executing several men in a hotel, he survives but he does not report to the police. Mimi is transferred to Catania in a supervisory position against his will. He brings Fiore and their son to Sicily, but he is still married to Rosalia; claiming to be ill, he doesn't have sex with her. When he learns that she's pregnant, he find that he is a cuckold and plots to seduce and impregnate Amalia Finocchiaro--the wife of Rosalia's lover. But his revenge does not work as planned.