At the annual masquerade ball, Fausto is bedazzled by the mature beauty of Giulia Curti (Lída Baarová), his employer's wife. Alberto, in drag and half-drunk, executes a surrealistic dance across the ballroom floor with a goofy carnival head made of papier-mâché. Returning home at dawn, Alberto is devastated to find his sister running off for good with her married lover. Fausto's naive attempt to seduce Giulia results in his being humiliated and then fired by her husband. In revenge, he steals the statue of an angel in gold paint from his former employer, enlisting the loyal Moraldo to help him sell it to a monk. Suspicious, the monk turns down the offer. Fausto ends up leaving the statue with a simple-minded peasant (Silvio Bagolini) who sets the angel on a mound outside his hovel, caressing it.