Two young men from Paris bring "wonderful civilizing ideas" into the brain. But, as they returned without pity, they began to call for an auction of the furniture and objects of art that garrison their "garconiére", last vestige of the passage of opulence. The great idea would be to install a cabaret in the favela for tourists in search of new sensations and also for the inhabitants of the city. On the hill, one of the boys experiences the greatest surprise: he found there, living among the humble, teaching to read to the children, Rosinha, an enchanted little princess, queen of the hill.
Arriving in Lisbon from London, Basílio falls in love with his cousin Luísa, but he must go to Brazil, promising he will eventually marry her. As time goes by, he sends her a letter ending the relationship and she marries Jorge, an engineer. One of Jorge's rich aunts dies, leaving him a small fortune and her former maid Juliana. Juliana gets hold of love letters between Luísa and Basílio and starts to blackmail her employer.
In the 1950s, Lurdinha and Marcos fall in love at the first sight. She studies at the Institute of Education, and he studies at the Military College. Two traditional educational institutions in 'Tijuca', in the North Zone of 'Rio de Janeiro'. But Lurdinha's conservative parents reject Marcos because he is son of separated parents and try, in every way, to keep him away from her.
