Pedro de Alarcón - El Capitán Veneno

¡vaya si pesa…! my but you are heavy! cf. ¡Vaya que susto me has dado! Oh, what a scare you gave me! Una carta de tu tío, y ¡vaya si es gorda! A letter from your uncle, and my but it's big! Alarcón in Moros y Cristianos . ¡Vaya si me lo llevaré! Surely I'll take it ( the secret ) to the grave with me! Moros y Cristianos. Novelas Cortas , Giese ed., p. 109.

amostazarse: from mostaza, mustard : cf. pepper , ginger , in familiar parlance.

tiráronle un tiro, they shot her a shot : cf. English "killed him dead"; poor rhetoric again.

perdone: asking him to pardon her for frightening her mother, seems far-fetched, a false note; but it does inform the captain of the facts in the case; queis omitted here as often with words like suplicar, pedir, rogar, etc.

os: this second person plural is not always familiar.

hazmerreír, make-me-laugh , laughing-stock ; a whole sentence become a word, like hand-me-down for ready-made and like Hoosier (if from "Who-is-yer") and forget-me-not . Spanish has also corre-ve-i-dile, tattle-tale ; va-i-ven, pendulum motion ; gana-pierde, give-away (at checkers).

faltaba= faltaría: a common idiomatic use of the imperfect indicative for the conditional.

mismo: in mañana mismo, ahora mismo, the adverb is used as a neuter noun.

después de acostada, after you are in bed : very common usage; no suppressed word need be assumed. The form has become idiomatic. Cf. the English usage of certain localities: he wants in , he wants out , for he wants to get in , he wants to get out , where we no longer think of the omitted verb.

tila con flor de azahar, lime tea and orange flower , a soothing concoction for the nerves.

aunque Dios no quiera, even though God be unwilling : an allusion to the usual phrase "God willing", Deo volente . Lorenzo Dow said: "I shall preach, God willing; no, I will anyway".

Angustias: he hasn't heard her name yet; not in the story.

número…: the dots, puntos suspensivos, are read as tal, so-and-so .

Veneno , Venom : about like Spitfire , if it were for a woman.

el enviar, the sending : infinitives and past participles are an abundant source of nouns in Spanish.

Buenos días, Good day : much more usual at meeting or passing, and by day, than at leaving and at night, although it was of course, by this time, about four o'clock in the morning.

de demonio, devilish : this is the nearest Rosa comes to oaths. In the Diario , Alarcón speaks of the mil votos y ternos, thousand oaths and curses , of the soldiers.

de punta, on end : a fine example of deused to make an adverb; we use of similarly for time ( of a morning, of Sundays ); Spanish uses defor adverbs of time, place, or manner. Six of the clock, of necessity, born of woman, of a truth, said of old, live of milk alone, all of a sudden , in English are of a vanishing type.

cervata: usually only masculine cervato, but Rosa follows the general principle. Her háceme temblaris rather provincial for me hace.

como el dolor, as well as sorrow : our style would be rather sorrow as well as happiness . It is notable how often the order is reversed in Spanish, e.g. antes como después, before as afterwards , tarde o temprano, late or soon ( i. e. sooner or later ).

hallábase: Alarcón, as well as Rosa, puts the pronoun last.

A éste le había dado… por callar, He had taken to silence, he didn't feel like talking : dar(impersonal) for some other verb as often; cf. le dio por ahí, he (or she ) took to that .

Cristo: a strong oath. Usually Cristois covered by some innocent word beginning with the same sound, as we shall often see. Captain Veneno later says por Jesucristo vivo, 135, 20.

balazo de la frente, bullet wound in his forehead : in the Diario I, 168, Alarcón tells of a captive Moor who had a terrible scar in his forehead: nos mostró una larga cicatriz que le atravesaba toda la frente. ¿Cómo no moriste? – La bala se deslizó sobre el hueso, – respondió, He showed us a long scar which crossed his whole forehead. Why didn't it kill you? – The ball glanced on the bone, he answered .

por estar la tibia muy destrozada, because the tibia was shattered . The subject of the infinitive is the post-placed noun tibia.

a solas, alone, privately : as feminine -menteis universal for the adverb ending, and as cosais so often understood, it has come about that the fashion is to make adverbial expressions with a feminine form: cf. apenas, a duras penas, a ciegas; and even where the feminine is illogical, as in a ojos vistas, a pie juntillas, a ojos cegarritas: two constructions are confused, the adverb from a noun: a ojos, a pie, a la vista, and the adverb from an adjective.

tres Marías: reference to the three Marys at the crucifixion, Matthew 27:56. The phrase has become common with the legend that the three Marys came to Provence together.

¡cáspita…!and (20) ¡caracoles…!: note the disguised [ encubierto] oath, how it starts as though to say Cristoand switches off to ca-something, any word beginning with ca-( canastos, caminos, canales, calles, culebrines, etc.), or even caalone, or que. The commonest is caramba. In the Diario I, p. 32, and elsewhere several times, Alarcón speaks of the great amount of swearing: Valiéndose de distintas interjecciones y muletillas, usando de diverso género de oratorio, declaman, votan, refieren, arguyan, se insultan, se reconcilian… Using different interjections and gags, using a varied kind of oratory, they declaim, swear, quote, argue, insult each other, make up … Cf. our disguised forms for Jesus: By Joe , by George , Gewhiz , Jerusalem , Jehosaphat , Jimminy , and many more.