Spanish · Part Two

La vida interior

The Inner Life

55 sentences · 55 notes

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1
Yes, she had dreamed!
Síyessí · adverbemphatic adverb modifying soñado
habíahadhaber · auxiliary verb, imperfect, indicative, third-person, singularauxiliary of soñado
soñadodreamedsoñar · verb, past, participle, masculine, singularmain verb of the sentence
GrammarPluperfect: «había» + participle «había soñado» is the pluperfect ('she had dreamed'): the imperfect of «haber» plus a past participle. It names something already complete before the present of the narration, opening the chapter on a life looked back upon.
2
There were days when she imagined a sensational encounter, some man who would speak to her of the jungles and keep a tamed lion in his house.
GrammarImperfect subjunctive after an unreal antecedent «hablara» and «tuviera» are imperfect subjunctives. They follow «algún hombre que…» ('some man who…') because the man is only wished for, not real — Spanish uses the subjunctive for a person or thing whose existence is hypothetical.
His embrace would be tireless and she would love him like a slave; then she would take pleasure in shaving her armpits for him and painting her breasts.
GrammarThe conditional for an imagined future These «-ría» forms are the conditional ('would be', 'would love', 'would find'). Spanish uses the conditional to paint a daydreamed, never-realized future — exactly the imaginary life Hipólita keeps rehearsing in her head.
GrammarPronominal verbs of grooming «depilarse los sobacos» and «pintarse los senos» use the reflexive «se» for acts done to one's own body: 'to shave her armpits', 'to paint her breasts'. Spanish takes the reflexive and a plain article where English would say 'her' — the body part is understood to be the subject's own.
Disguised as a boy, she would roam with him the ruins where the centipedes sleep and the villages where the black men keep their huts in the forks of the trees.
GrammarImperfect for a recurring daydream «recorría» is the imperfect ('she would roam / used to roam'). The imperfect carries habitual, repeated, or open-ended past action — here the endlessly replayed fantasy rather than a single trip.
But nowhere had she found lions, only flea-bitten dogs, and the most adventurous gentlemen were crusaders of the fork and mystics of the cooking pot.
Grammar«no… sino» = 'not… but rather' «sino» corrects a negative: «no… leones, sino perros pulguientos» = 'not lions, but rather flea-bitten dogs'. Use «sino» (not «pero») when the second part replaces what the negative denied.
She turned away in disgust from these stupid lives.
GrammarPreterite for the finished act «se apartó» is the preterite ('she turned away'), a single completed action that breaks off the long imperfect daydreaming of the paragraph. The pronominal «apartarse» means 'to move away / withdraw'.
3
As the days passed, the strange novelistic figures she had met were not as interesting as in a novel; rather, the very traits that made them vivid in a novel were precisely the hateful aspects that turned them repulsive in real life.
Word«tornar» = 'to turn / make' «tornar» here means 'to turn (something into) / make': «los tornaban repulsivos» = 'made them repulsive'. It is a more literary synonym of «volver» or «hacer», and Arlt favors it.
And yet she had given herself to them.
GrammarReflexive «entregarse a» «entregarse a alguien» is 'to give oneself to someone'. The reflexive «se» is Hipólita giving herself; «les» marks the men she gave herself to. The pluperfect «había entregado» places it before the disillusion just described.
4
But, once sated, they would draw away from her as if they felt humiliated at having offered her the spectacle of their weakness.
Grammar«como si» + imperfect subjunctive «como si» ('as if') always takes the imperfect (or pluperfect) subjunctive: «como si se sintieran humillados» = 'as if they felt humiliated'. The clause states something contrary to fact or merely apparent.
Word«mas» = 'but' (literary) «mas» (no accent) is a literary 'but', equivalent to «pero». It is not «más» ('more'), which carries an accent. Arlt uses it to lift the register of the narration.
Now she sank into the sterility of her living, like a sand flat already mapped by geographers.
5
Just as it was impossible to transmute lead into gold, so it was impossible to transform the soul of man.
Word«así como… así» = 'just as… so' «Así como X, así (también) Y» sets up a parallel: 'just as X, so Y'. Here lead-into-gold mirrors changing the human soul — both pronounced impossible, an alchemy metaphor that runs through Arlt.
6
How many times had she fallen naked into the arms of a stranger and said to him: "Wouldn't you like to go to Africa?"
Grammar«gustar» in the conditional «gustar» works backwards: the thing liked is the subject and the person is an indirect object. «¿No te gustaría ir…?» = literally 'Would going not be pleasing to you?', i.e. 'Wouldn't you like to go…?'. The conditional «gustaría» softens it into a wistful invitation.
The other man flinched as if a rattlesnake had hissed at his side.
Grammar«como si» + pluperfect subjunctive «como si» plus the pluperfect subjunctive «hubiera silbado» = 'as if a rattlesnake had hissed'. The pluperfect subjunctive sets the imagined event before the man's flinch — a vivid contrary-to-fact comparison.
And then she had the impression that those bodies armed with bones, wound about with muscle, were weaker than those of tender infants, more easily frightened than children in the forest.
GrammarComparisons with «más… que» «más + adjective + que» is the basic 'more… than': «más débiles que los de los infantes» = 'weaker than those of infants'. «los de» stands in for the repeated noun ('those of'), avoiding repeating «cuerpos».
7
Women were hateful to her.
Grammar«ser odioso a alguien» Like «gustar», this is built backwards: «las mujeres le eran odiosas» = 'women were hateful to her', with «le» marking the person to whom they were hateful. The adjective «odiosas» agrees with «mujeres», the grammatical subject.
She watched them sink under the sensuality of the males, only to display everywhere the ugliness of their swollen bellies.
GrammarPerception verb + infinitive «ver» (to see) takes a direct object plus an infinitive: «las veía abatirse» = 'she saw them sink / collapse'. The reflexive infinitive «abatirse» means 'to be cast down, to give way'.
They had a capacity for suffering and nothing else; this was a world of weary people, ghosts barely awake who stank of earth with their heavy drowsiness, as in the first ages of the world the lazy, gigantic monsters did.
Grammar«apestar a» = 'to reek of' «apestar a» means 'to stink / reek of (something)': «apestaban a tierra» = 'they stank of earth'. The preposition «a» introduces the smell, as «oler a» ('to smell of') does.
Hence her whole soaring soul felt crushed by the uselessness of her fellow creatures.
Grammar«de allí que» + subjunctive «de allí que» means 'hence / that is why' and triggers the subjunctive: «de allí que… se sintiera aplastada» = 'hence her soul felt crushed'. The construction draws a consequence from what came before.
8
For Hipólita would have liked to move in a less dense universe, a world light as a soap bubble where matter was not subject to gravity, and she imagined the laughing joy of wandering all the sidewalks of the planet transformed at her will and giving the days the reality of a game to make up for the one her childhood had lacked.
Grammar«hubiera querido» = 'would have liked' «hubiera querido moverse» is the pluperfect subjunctive used for an unreal wish: 'she would have liked to move'. It marks a longing that reality never allowed — the keynote of Hipólita's whole inner life.
Word«vereda» = 'sidewalk' (River Plate) In Argentine and Uruguayan Spanish a «vereda» is the sidewalk (called «acera» elsewhere). The River Plate vocabulary roots this cosmic daydream in the concrete streets of Buenos Aires.
9
Everything had been denied her when she was little.
GrammarPassive in the pluperfect «le había sido negado» is a passive ('had been denied to her'): «ser» + past participle, here in the pluperfect. «le» marks the person deprived; «negado» agrees with «todo». The phrasing keeps the denier faceless — life itself withheld everything.
She recalled that one of the chimeras of her childhood was to dream she would be the happiest creature in the world if she lived in a wallpapered room.
GrammarConditional sentence: «sería» + «si» + imperfect subjunctive This is the unreal conditional: «sería… si viviera» = 'she would be… if she lived'. The «si» clause takes the imperfect subjunctive («viviera»), the result clause the conditional («sería») — a wish framed as never likely to come true.
10
She had seen in the windows of the hardware shops wallpapers that, in her narrow imagination, she fancied would make dreamlike the life of those who surrounded themselves with them — wallpapers that were like transplanting the Forest of Enchantments into a house, with their arbitrary flowers of blue, twisted on grounds striped with gold; and this dream of her seventh year was as intense in her as, later, when she was a servant, the idea she formed of the pleasure she would feel if she could own a Rolls-Royce, whose leather upholstery was as precious in her imagination as those impossible wallpapers that cost a mere sixty cents a roll.
Word«vidriera» = 'shop window' A «vidriera» is a shop window (River Plate usage; «escaparate» elsewhere), and a «ferretería» is a hardware store. The longed-for luxury is glimpsed through glass she can only look through, never past.
GrammarAnother unreal conditional «el placer que experimentaría si pudiera tener un Rolls-Royce» = 'the pleasure she would feel if she could have a Rolls-Royce': conditional «experimentaría» paired with imperfect subjunctive «pudiera». The grammar itself signals that the car, like the wallpaper, stays forever out of reach.
11
It had all declined in days gone by.
She recalled now, with the man's head on her knees, those Sunday evenings when the weather suddenly clouded over and the cold breeze drove her mistresses from the garden into the parlor.
Word«ama» = 'mistress (of a servant)' «ama» is the female head of the household, the mistress a servant works for — Hipólita's own status as «criada» (maid) is built into the word. «sus amas» are 'her mistresses', the ladies of the houses where she served.
GrammarImperfect for weather setting the scene «se encapotaba el tiempo» = 'the weather was clouding over'. «encapotarse» (from «capote», a cloak) is the pronominal verb for the sky overcasting. The imperfect paints the recurring backdrop of those remembered Sundays.
The rain pecked at the windowpanes, she took refuge in the kitchen gleaming with cleanliness, and through the rooms came the voice of the visitors; the ladies talked while the girls leafed through magazines, lingering on the photographs of wedding ceremonies, or played the piano.
GrammarStrings of imperfects Every verb here is imperfect — «picoteaba», «se refugiaba», «llegaba», «conversaban», «hojeaban» — because all describe habitual, simultaneous action filling a remembered scene. The imperfect is the tense of 'how things used to be'.
12
And she, seated at the table, the hem of her apron twisting between her fingers, her bust slightly bowed, let herself be filled by the sounds, which were always sad to her, even when they spoke of cheerful things.
Grammar«dejarse» + infinitive = 'to let oneself be…' «se dejaba penetrar de los sonidos» = 'to let herself be penetrated / filled by the sounds'. «dejarse» plus an infinitive expresses passively allowing something to happen to oneself.
Grammar«aunque» + subjunctive «aunque hablaran de cosas alegres» = 'even though they spoke of cheerful things'. With the imperfect subjunctive «hablaran», «aunque» concedes the point as hypothetical or downplayed — the cheer never reached her.
Like a leper she felt herself cut off from happiness.
The music brought her a vision of distant places, hotels among the mountains, and she would never be the newlywed who comes down to the dining room on the arm of her handsome husband, while the tableware tinkles and the birds flutter around the windows through which one can make out the falling of a waterfall.
GrammarConditional + «jamás» «no sería jamás la recién casada» = 'she would never be the newlywed'. The conditional «sería» projects a future life, and «jamás» ('never, ever') slams it shut — the daydream named only to be denied.
13
She slowly twisted the hem of her apron between her fingers, her forehead bowed, her legs crossed.
GrammarAbsolute participle construction «inclinada la frente» = 'her forehead bowed' — a participle plus its noun, with no verb, describing posture. Spanish uses this compact absolute clause where English often adds 'with': 'with her forehead bowed, her legs crossed'.
14
She would never have a husband like Marcelo, nor spread her mantilla over the velvety rail of a theater box, while the diamonds sparkle in the duchesses' ears and the violins before the proscenium creak softly.
WordThe world of the opera box A «mantilla» is a fine lace shawl worn over the head and shoulders; a «palco» is a private box at the theater or opera. The pair sketches a high-society evening Hipólita serves at but can never belong to.
15
Nor would she be a lady, one of those young ladies she had served, whose husbands fondle them sweetly as pregnancy swells their long-suffering bellies.
Grammar«cuyo / cuya» = 'whose' «cuyos» is the relative 'whose', and it agrees with the thing possessed, not the owner: «esas señoras… cuyos esposos…» = 'those ladies whose husbands…', masculine plural to match «esposos».
Grammar«a medida que» = 'as' «a medida que la preñez avanza» = 'as the pregnancy advances'. The phrase links two things changing together over time; here the tenderness grows as the belly does.
And her sorrow grew softly, like the darkness at dusk.
16
To serve... always to serve!
17
Then a rancor seeped into her anguish, her forehead grew heavy, and her reddened eyelids fell, sealing a resignation.
GrammarDative of the affected person «la frente le pesaba» = 'her forehead felt heavy to her' — Spanish names the body part with a plain article («la frente») and marks the owner with «le». English instead says 'her forehead', folding owner and part together.
18
And in the parlor the piano made distant countries pass through her drowsy attention, and she imagined that the upbringing of those young ladies must make their souls more beautiful and more desirable to a suitor's longing, and her head grew heavy as if her skull had been transmuted into a helmet of leaden bones.
Grammar«como si» + pluperfect subjunctive «como si el cráneo se le hubiera trasmutado» = 'as if her skull had been transmuted'. «como si» takes the pluperfect subjunctive for a contrary-to-fact comparison set before the present feeling. «trasmutado» revives the alchemy image of lead and gold.
19
Everything around her — pots and stoves and the clean wood of the kitchen shelves, and the bathroom mirrors and the red lampshades — seemed to her to stand for a worth that set these objects forever out of her reach, and the dishcloth like the carpet, just like the children's tricycle, seemed to her to have been created to give happiness to beings of a different clay from the one she was made of.
Grammar«parecer» + infinitive «le parecían representar un valor» = 'seemed to her to stand for a worth'. «parecer» plus an infinitive means 'to seem to (do something)'; «le» marks the person to whom it seems. The verb agrees with the plural subject («todo lo que la rodeaba», felt as many things).
Word«de distinta pasta» = 'of a different clay' «ser de distinta pasta» literally 'to be of a different paste/dough' is the idiom for being made of different stuff, a different kind of person. It crystallizes Hipólita's conviction that wealth belongs to another species than her own.
20
The very dresses of the girls, the light fabrics with which they adorned their lovely bodies, the lace edgings and ribbons, seemed to her of a different nature from those she could buy for the same money.
Grammar«figurársele a alguien» «figurársele algo a alguien» means 'for something to seem / appear to someone (in the mind)'. «se le figuraban de distinta naturaleza» = 'they appeared to her to be of a different nature'. The «se» is impersonal, the «le» the person imagining.
This sensation of living for a time among people set in a world unlike the one she belonged to unsettled her, to the point that hopelessness appeared like a stigma on her face.
Grammar«al extremo que» = 'to the point that' «al extremo que la desesperanza aparecía…» = 'to such a degree that hopelessness appeared…'. The phrase introduces the result of an intensity just named — here how completely the feeling marked her face.
21
What could she be, but a servant, always a servant!
Word«sino» after a question of denial «¿Qué podía ser… sino sirvienta?» = 'What could she be but a servant?'. «sino» here means 'except / but', narrowing every possibility down to the one bitter answer.
22
Sullenly there rose up from her heart a muffled refusal, an answer to the invisible phantom that tormented her.
GrammarPostponed subject after «se» «se levantaba de su corazón una negativa sorda» = literally 'there rose up from her heart a muffled refusal'. The subject «una negativa» comes after the verb, a common Spanish order that lets the sentence open on the action and the place.
Her life was a resistance standing upright against domesticity.
She did not know how she would escape such a chain of misfortunes, but she never stopped repeating to herself that this state was temporary — unaware, however, of what was bound to befall her.
Grammar«dejar de» + infinitive «no dejaba de repetirse» = 'she did not stop repeating to herself'. «dejar de» plus an infinitive means 'to stop / cease doing'; negated, it means 'to keep on doing'. The reflexive «se» shows she repeated it to herself.
And she continually watched the manners of the young ladies and studied how they tilted their heads, and how they took leave of their friends at the doors of their houses, afterward reproducing before a mirror the greetings and gestures she remembered.
WordPlural body part, plain article «inclinaban las cabezas» = 'they tilted their heads'. Spanish uses the article «las» rather than a possessive because the subject is plural and each owns one head; the ownership is understood, not spelled out as 'their'.
And these acts, which she performed in the solitude of her wretched little room, left on her lips and in her soul, for a few hours, a sense of ladyhood and refinement; and then she would reproach herself for her earlier clumsy manners, as if those earlier manners told against her true, present self as a young lady.
GrammarPronoun on the end: «dejábanle» «dejábanle» is «le dejaban» ('they left her / for her') with the pronoun attached to the end of the verb — an older, literary placement Arlt favors. The modern order would be «le dejaban una sensación…».
Word«cuartujo» = 'wretched little room' «cuartujo» is «cuarto» ('room') with the scornful suffix «-ujo», turning it into a mean, shabby little room. The word itself drips with the contempt Hipólita feels for her servant's quarters.
23
For a few hours her life was inflamed with a refinement penetrating and soft as the fragrance of a perfumed cream, with vanilla, and she seemed to feel in her throat the mellifluous voices of the "yeses" and the "noes", until she fooled herself into thinking she was answering a delightful companion who wore a blue-fox stole around her neck.
Grammar«hacerse la ilusión de» = 'to fool oneself into thinking' «hacerse la ilusión de (que)…» means 'to let oneself believe / to fool oneself into thinking'. «hasta hacerse la ilusión de que…» = 'to the point of fooling herself that…', marking how far the daydream carried her.
24
Her servant's room filled up again with insinuating phantoms; seated in an armchair upholstered in crocodile-colored silk, she received her friends who came to say goodbye before leaving for "Paris in France", and she talked of engagements.
"Her mother would not allow her to go and summer at X... this summer, because they would run into S..., that indiscreet man who besieged her too much".
Word«veranear» = 'to spend the summer' «veranear» is a single verb meaning 'to spend the summer (on holiday)', from «verano» ('summer'). «ir a veranear a X» = 'to go and summer at X' — a leisured custom of exactly the class Hipólita imagines herself into.
Or she would cross the sea — a sea as still as the lakes of Palermo — seated in a wicker basket as she had seen it in the photographs of the decks of luxury steamers, when she passed through the streets on her way to do the shopping at the market.
25
She would have a Kodak lying forgotten in her lap, while a young man, cap in hand and leaning toward her, would speak to her shyly.
GrammarConditional sustaining the daydream «Tendría… la hablaría» ('she would have… he would speak to her') keep the whole scene in the conditional, the tense of the imagined. «la hablaría» uses «la» for 'to her' — a regional «laísmo» where standard Spanish would write «le hablaría».
26
Her servant's soul was flooded with happiness.
She understood that all this was so lovely that, had she been able to enjoy it, her charity would have been infinite.
Grammar«de» + infinitive = 'if/had…' «de haber podido gozarlo» = 'had she been able to enjoy it'. «de» plus an infinitive is a compact conditional clause; with the perfect infinitive «haber podido» it points to an unreal past, completed by «hubiera sido infinita» ('would have been infinite').
And she saw herself on a winter evening, walking down a darkened little street, wrapped in a coat of petit-gris, in search of an orphan girl, the daughter of a blind man.
Word«petit-gris» «petit-gris» is French for the soft gray squirrel fur used in luxury coats. The French label, like «París de Francia», marks the dream as borrowed wholesale from a world of imported elegance Hipólita knows only from pictures.
27
She brought her relief, made her her adopted daughter, and one day the orphan made her debut in society; she would be by then a delightful young woman; her shoulders bare amid down of gauze, and, over her clear forehead, a wave of blond hair would harmonize with the delicacy of her almond eyes.
Grammar«presentación en sociedad» = 'debut' «hacer su presentación en sociedad» is the set phrase for a young woman's formal debut, her coming-out into society. The imperfect «hacía» keeps it inside the unfolding fantasy, which then slides into the conditional «sería / concertaría» for what would follow.
28
And suddenly a voice called her:
Grammar«de pronto» = 'suddenly' «de pronto» means 'suddenly, all at once'. It snaps the long daydream shut, the imperfect «llamaba» ('was calling') breaking in just as the fantasy reaches its height.
29
Hipólita... serve the tea.
GrammarFormal command «sirva» «sirva el té» is a formal (usted) command of «servir», 'serve the tea'. The curt order, in the polite form the mistress keeps with a servant, drops Hipólita back from her dream of being served into the work of serving.

The particulars

The text: Los siete locos, Roberto Arlt. Part Two.
Reading aloud: Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
Words: Every word of the text, by letter.
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