Baltasar Espinosa -gentleman of leisure, intelligent and charmingly lazy leaves Buenos Aires to spend the summer at his cousins estate in the south. Stranded by floods, Baltasar's only companions are the peculiar, taciturn Gutre Family (father, son and daughter) who over-see the state. Almost animalistic in their expectations of life, the Gutre find Blatasar's kindess to them an act of wonder, and take him to be Christ himself...