Pereira is an obese, middle-aged widower with a heart condition and a penchant for sweet lemonade and omelettes. A veteran crime reporter editing the Culture Page of a Lisbon daily in 1938, he prints 19th-century French stories and plans to run obituaries on distinguished authors of conservative views. But when he takes on a young assistant, Monteiro Rossi, who, with his girlfriend, is engaged in political activism, he discovers that ignoring the world around him is no longer an available option.