Tormento

In a dimly lit corner of the once‑glorious Café Lepanto, two strangers collide and launch into a rapid, razor‑sharp exchange. One, a gaunt clerk named Ido, boasts of his new role as a hired scribe for a popular serial author; the other, a flamboyant youth who calls himself Aristo, flaunts a polished coat and a swagger that hints at hidden ambitions. Their banter crackles with humor and a biting awareness of the social hierarchies that swirl through mid‑nineteenth‑century Madrid.

Through their conversation the novel unfurls a vivid portrait of a city where literary gossip, court intrigue, and everyday desperation intersect. Galdós paints a bustling streetscape populated by merchants, clerics, and dreamers, all while exposing the absurdities of power and poverty with a compassionate, if satirical, eye. Listeners will be drawn into a world where the line between performance and survival blurs, and where every spoken word carries the weight of a larger, often unspoken, story.