A.M.D.G.

The novel opens on a stark, red‑brick Jesuit college perched on a hill near the fictional town of Regium. Its plain façade, pointed door and iron bell tower give the building an austere, almost oppressive presence, suggesting a place where discipline and doctrine dominate. The narrator uses this stone edifice as a meditation on the tension between the noisy world of the road and the quiet refuge of faith.

Just beyond the college lies the sleepy hamlet of Arriares, where a ramshackle farmhouse shelters the childhood friends Gonzalfáñez and Dorín. Their lives have been marked by loss and obscurity until a gaunt, cap‑claded stranger arrives, seeking Dorín and unsettling the simple rhythm of the countryside. As the stranger's questions echo through the empty rooms, the story hints at hidden histories and moral dilemmas that will test the characters’ loyalty and belief.