After saving Arturo, a young scion of the industrial middle class, from a beating, the sailor Martin Eden is invited to the boy's family home. Here he meets Elena, Arturo's beautiful sister, and falls in love with her at first sight. The cultured and refined young woman becomes not only the object of Martin's affections but also a symbol of the social status he aspires to achieve. At the cost of enormous efforts and overcoming the obstacles represented by his humble origin, Martin pursues the dream of becoming a writer. Under the influence of the elderly intellectual Russ Brissenden, he gets involved in socialist circles, bringing him into conflict with Elena and her bourgeois world.
Zhenia, a Russian-speaking immigrant from the East enters the lives of the rich residents of a bland, walled off community as a masseur. Despite their wealth, the residents emit an inner sadness, a longing. The mysterious newcomer's hands heal, his eyes seem to penetrate their souls. To them, his Russian accent sounds like a song from the Communist past, a memory of their seemingly safer childhood. Zhenia is able to change their lives.
The year is 1950. Classical piano prodigy Eurídice dreams of studying at the Vienna Conservatory. Her sister, Guida, however, is the first of the siblings to make it to Europe, albeit fleetingly: after having eloped with a Greek sailor, Guida soon returns to Rio de Janeiro pregnant and alone, unbeknownst to Eurídice. Kept apart by a terrible lie, years pass as the two sisters forge their respective paths through their city's teeming bustle, each believing the other to be half a world away.