Francesco Esposito and his wife Maddalena are two farmers who raised Mario, their only son, with loving devotion. To help him study, they also incurred debts to the city's loan shark. The boy has since become a brilliant lawyer and in Naples, where he moved for work, he met Nancy, the daughter of an Italian-American industrialist, and fell in love with her; it would seem like a story with a happy ending, if it weren't for the fact that Mario is ashamed of his parents' humble origins.