El Lápiz del Carpintero plot
Herbal has always carried a woodworker's pencil with him since the year Spain was divided in two. Shortly before that, he had volunteered to shadow Daniel Da Barca, a young physician and Republican intellectual, and his fiancée, Marisa Mallo, a daughter of a noted opportunist reactionary. Herbal, invisible to the eyes of the couple, changes into their shadow and is fascinated by Daniel's knowledge, Marisa's beauty and the couple's mutual love. He soon begins to confuse hate with passion, admiration with jealousy, and obligation with obsession. Daniel is imprisoned for his ideas, but he is not just any prisoner. Because of his well-bred, his imagination and his sense of duty, he is very popular with his comrades and is focused by his guards. Outside of prison, Marisa battles her father's bigotry and desperately tries to get her fiancé out.