Beautiful Joaquina (later known as Genoveva) who leaves her husband and child in Portugal and flees with a Spaniard to Spain, where she becomes a courtesan, eventually marrying a French Senator and moving to Paris. With the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and the death of the husband, she returns to Lisbon where she attracts considerable attention both for her beauty and because of her mysterious history. She becomes a paid mistress of the unattractive, but rich, Dâmaso while, at the same time, falling in love with a young man called Vítor da Silva. Only after their love has been consummated does she learn that she is Vitor's mother, and this leads to her suicide so that Vitor will not discover the truth.