Through the childhood and adolescence of Signor Giacomo Casanova (from his memoirs), this is a description of how people lived in 18th-century Venice: their customs, habits, medicine, religion, and--most of all--the omnipresence of hypocrisy.
A man is delighted to hear that his wife is pregnant and he begins to prepare for the wonders of fatherhood. As time progresses along, the family grows larger with each successive child and the father feels his importance in the family has been lessened with all the children. This man's quiet desperation to hold onto his position is an interesting lesson in the family dynamic and how everyone is an important part of the whole.
The love affair between Andrea, laborer from the italian northern area called Bassa Lombarda and apulian single mother, Rosaria, is grafted on the background of the inconveniences of poor commuters who must go to work in Milan by train.
