A philosophical allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life. The story focuses on the fictional Segismundo, Prince of Poland, who has been imprisoned in a tower by his father, King Basilio, following a dire prophecy that the prince would bring disaster to the country and death to the King. Basilio briefly frees Segismundo, but when the prince goes on a rampage, the king imprisons him again, persuading him that it was all a dream.

A work of Valle-Inclán, the story takes place in Galicia in the early twentieth century. To escape poverty, the wife of a sacristan uses a hydrocephalic child as a sideshow attraction. This causes a confrontation with her sister-in-law.

After the death of his parents, Juan goes into an adventure to find Captain Escalaborns to whom he must deliver the map of a treasure to be searched together.

The story revolves around Goya's womanising and the mysterious death of the Duchess of Alba at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Centuries, at a time when Madrid was wobbling through a difficult time and setting the scene for the following Prim vs Crown uprising.