Sandro is a Roman adrift in Venice during the Carnival. After sixteen years of marriage, Sandro can no longer reconcile his spontaneous and lively character with that of his wife Laura, a cultured and composed Venetian woman. Yet another argument prompts him to leave her and seek refuge at the home of a painter friend. Among his many paintings, he notices one depicting a naked woman who bears an incredible resemblance to his wife. Are they two women or one, and in the masquerade of the Carnival, what is real?