In South America, Artemio, a young knife sharpener, joins a revolutionary movement whose members include Bragueton, an unemployed soldier; Domingo Acevedo, a compulsive gambler; Don Bachetta, a retired anarchist; and Eva, a young French woman with whom Artemio falls madly in love. This small group secretly plans to launch a terrorist attack. Love and friendship sustain the illusion, but passions soon run high in the closed environment of their cohabitation, giving way to the worst of human baseness and proving the ineffectiveness of collective action.