In Botafogo, in Rio de Janeiro, starting in the 1870s, the Portuguese shopkeeper João Romão scrapes together money at any cost and builds, next to his shop, a tenement of little houses for washerwomen and laborers. The novel follows his rise, the envy of his rich neighbor, and the life of the crowd that lives in the tenement, up to the day when, by now the owner of an avenue and engaged to the baron's daughter, he returns to slavery the woman who helped him get rich.
The São Romão Tenement
João Romão inherits the shop from his employer and lives on privation. He makes himself the confidant of Bertoleza, a street vendor and the slave of an old blind man, keeps her savings for her manumission, reads her a letter of freedom that he forged himself, and takes her on as his clerk, maid, and lover (chapter I). With stone stolen from the quarry, he builds little houses and washtubs and opens the "São Romão Tenement," next to Miranda's townhouse. Miranda disputes a patch of ground with him and cannot bear his neighbor's prosperity. Miranda, tied to Dona Estela by her dowry, begins to dream of a baron's title and welcomes into his home the student Henrique and the parasite Botelho (chapter II).
One morning the tenement wakes up and the book shows its residents washtub by washtub, among them the girl Pombinha, who will marry only once she becomes a woman (chapter III). João Romão hires the quarryman Jerônimo to run the quarry, at seventy milreis that will find their way back into his drawer (chapter IV), and Jerônimo arrives with his wife, Piedade, and puts the work in order (chapter V).
Rita Baiana and Jerônimo's Change
On a Sunday in April Rita Baiana reappears, after months with her lover Firmo (chapter VI), and her pagode, with its Bahian chorado, silences the Portuguese fados and takes Jerônimo by storm (chapter VII). The next day he falls ill, and it is Rita who nurses him (chapter VIII). Little by little the quarryman trades his villager's habits for those of the new land, and Piedade, who changes only on the outside, loses her husband (chapter IX). Miranda becomes the Baron of Freixal, João Romão feels for the first time what he lacks, and Firmo, jealous, slashes Jerônimo's belly open with a razor on a night that ends with the tenement united against the police (chapter X). At the same time Pombinha spends an afternoon at the house of the cocotte Léonie and comes back with impressions that will never fade (chapter XI).
The Cabeça-de-Gato and the Revenge
Pombinha marries (chapter XII). Nearby a rival tenement arises, the Cabeça-de-Gato, and the two tenements split into factions. João Romão begins to change his clothes and his pretensions and settles with Botelho the path to Zulmira, the baron's daughter (chapter XIII). Jerônimo returns from the hospital determined to take revenge (chapter XIV): with two companions, he lures Firmo to Praia da Saudade and beats him to death with clubs, and goes to live with Rita (chapter XV). Piedade, who has waited the whole night, fights with Rita, and the fight turns into a brawl between Brazilians and Portuguese (chapter XVI). The capoeiras of the Cabeça-de-Gato invade the São Romão to avenge Firmo, and the battle stops only when the Witch sets fire to the tenement (chapter XVII).
Avenida São Romão and the End of Bertoleza
In the fire, João Romão wrests from old Libório the bottles of money he had been hiding (chapter XVIII). With the insurance and the money, he rebuilds the tenement, raises a townhouse taller than Miranda's, and begins to dine at the baron's house, while Bertoleza stops being his lover and becomes only a slave of labor (chapter XIX). The tenement becomes Avenida São Romão, and Piedade, abandoned, falls into drink (chapter XX). With the marriage to Zulmira settled, João Romão thinks of getting rid of Bertoleza and, advised by Botelho, decides to return her to her owner (chapter XXI). The avenue becomes aristocratic, and Pombinha, separated from her husband, becomes a cocotte with Léonie (chapter XXII). One afternoon the son of her former master arrives with two policemen to take her away. Bertoleza understands that the manumission letter was a lie and kills herself with the knife she used to scale fish, and at that very moment a committee of abolitionists stops at the door to bring João Romão the diploma of benefactor member (chapter XXIII).