As the book shows, its central subject is what money, vanity and desire do to a man who received a fortune without having earned it. Around him revolve ambition, madness, and the distance between what people appear to be and what they are.
The money comes by will and immediately attracts those who surround it. Palha, who has guided Rubião since the train, reflects on hearing the size of the inheritance and only then asks for discretion; later he dissolves the partnership over a bank that, according to the narrator, did not exist. When Rubião is moved to Rua do Príncipe, the dinner guests do not follow him, and Camacho, who had offered him a candidacy, begins to receive him coldly. The narrator sums up the lesson of the doctrine of Humanitas: Rubião understands it only after inheriting, because "the best way to appreciate the whip is to hold its handle."
Appearance comes with the money. At the funeral of Freitas, which Rubião pays for, his coupé stands out among the old calashes, and he hears people say: "He seems to be a senator or a judge, or something of the kind..." Sofia's eyes are compared to the lantern of an inn with no rooms for guests, and the story of the coachman that supports Rubião's suspicion against her, the narrator says, did not even "tell a true anecdote."
Madness appears in the beard cut to the bust of Napoleon III and ends with a man who dies placing on his head a crown that only he sees. In the end, the narrator leaves it to the reader to weep or laugh.