Spots 
Tullio Hermil recounts his history of calculated cruelties, unfaithfulness, and detachment from traditional ethics. His affair with Teresa Raffo satisfies a desire for sensational experience while isolating his devoted wife Giuliana in silent grief. In Tullio's mind, superior intellect excuses emotional destruction, viewing other people merely as instruments for his personal refinement.
Seeking respite from exhausted passions, Tullio retreats with Giuliana to the family estate at Battaia. Surrounded by the tranquility of rural life, he imagines a restored bond with his wife, projecting an aura of saintly renewal onto their quiet days. This sudden tenderness springs not from genuine remorse, but from a fresh appetite for moral drama and emotional possession.
Intimacy dissolves when Tullio discovers Giuliana carries the child of another man, the writer Filippo Arborio. The knowledge that Giuliana harbored a secret passion destroys Tullio's pride and exposes the vanity of his intellectual supremacy. Intolerable jealousy replaces his quiet ideal, as the unborn infant becomes a living sign of his reduced control.
Following the birth of the baby Raimondo, Tullio finds the infant's presence completely unbearable within his household. Every cry reminds Tullio of Giuliana's past secret and his own wounded vanity. Though he attempts to project outward calmness, Tullio fixates entirely on removing the helpless child from his sight, viewing the infant as an intolerable intruder.
During the cold Christmas night service, Tullio steps into the freezing balcony air and deliberately exposes the vulnerable infant Raimondo to the severe frost. The child contracts severe illness and dies shortly after, achieving Tullio's desperate goal through silent murder. Freedom remains elusive, leaving Tullio trapped in profound emptiness alongside a wife who silently understands his horrific act.
An aristocratic egoist destroys his family when his wife's child threatens his illusion of absolute spiritual ownership.