The time in which the tale takes place is the year 1869 and the location is Rio de Janeiro. Narrated in third person. Camilo, 26 years old, is described as inexperienced and without intuition. He works as a civil servant. Rita, on the other hand, is presented as a 30-year-old woman, curious, graceful, silly and with lively gestures. Vilela, the husband, is a 29-year-old man, a lawyer, who, despite his age, appears to be older than Rita. The fortune teller is a woman with big eyes, in her 40s, Italian and thin.