Story: 1928: Elcito, a remote, small village in the Marche inland. A dying young man arrives from the woods in need of an immediate blood transfusion, but the local doctor can't help him because of his limited means. So the physician is forced into an exhausting negotiation with the Tartapè brothers, two locals that take advantage from the fear of the other inhabitants in order to profit from the selling of their own, universal blood. In the meantime Guendalina comes: a girl that, according to her parents, has stained herself with a terrible sin...