Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani) proudly praises her husband Rosario to her female neighbors in a shopping market, before revealing that she is pregnant with their second child. Returning home she finds Rosario asleep in bed and whispers to him that she is with child. Emerging from his room she finds a young woman named Estelle (Virginia Grey) at the door who wants her to make a shirt for her lover from some expensive silk material. It transpires that Rosario is her lover as, when Serafina is out of the room, she steals a photograph of him from Serafina's sideboard before departing.