Samuca is only 17 years old and discovers that his girlfriend Alicia is pregnant. The news comes to light at a not very favorable moment in Samuca's life, just when he thought everything was going very well. For having committed the same "slam" as his mother Melina, having a son at the same age as she had him, Samuca feels pressured. Themes such as teenage pregnancy and questions about life gain visibility and are unfolded throughout the plot.

In 1856, the emperor Dom Pedro II lived a marriage of appearances with Teresa Cristina, with whom he was forced to marry at a young age by his parents' political alliance, having two daughters with her: Isabel and Leopoldina. He truly loves Countess Luisa, a cultured and time-ahead woman who fights for the abolitionist cause and women's rights, married to Eugenio, the emperor Napoleon's cousin. At the same time there are sisters Pilar and Dolores: the first went to a convent after her mother's death in childhood, growing up among books and dreaming of studying medicine - inspired by the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first doctor in the world -, while the second stayed at home to take care of her father, Colonel Eudoro, growing up repressed, illiterate and without vanity.