finished translation final! any commentary is welcome.
Delita wanted to fly. She dreamed of flying. And she was very beautiful. If you could see the photo. Afterward, if you want, I'll show it to you. I'll pass it underneath the door. But only if you promise me that you won't get it dirty or tear it, it is the only one I have. She was gorgeous, Delita, everyone who knew her said that. And so young.
Delita, my mother.
No, please.
I listened to you shout for a very long while, without interrupting you, from the kitchen table, and now I've hardly started and you go back to interrupting. I believed we had reached an agreement.
It's fine. It's not as though it were an agreement. But at least I thought that you had understood me, that after your tantrum letting out shouts and pounding against the door, which you tortured me with while I had my tea, I was going to tell you about my mother.
Yes, of course.
Listen to me, learn, and that's it.
Good. Well then. I told you that Delita wanted to fly. And that she was very pretty, extraordinarily pretty. And I did not say this because I am her daughter. No. I never knew her. That was what everyone in her circle said, everyone who knew her. Not me. I had bad luck. I was born fairly ugly. Just like my father, the poor dear. You know, I hardly knew my father either. I grew up with an aunt. Aunt Alcira. My father died right away after Delita died. That I told you he was ugly, and I took after him, is from what those who outlived him told me. And I only have the one photo. If you want, afterward I will pass it below the door too. But only if you promise me that you will not dirty them or tear them, neither of them.
No. I'm not going to beat around the brush again. My father's picture, you have to see. He died of shame.
Yes, of shame.
For what happened to my mother.
Don't laugh, those were different times, all of the people had honor and could suffer from shame to their limits, and finally die. And this, precisely, was what happened to my father. A great man. They broke the mold with him. A gentleman of the type that we don't have around now. He went and died of shame when what happened to my mother happened.
It's fine. You don't believe me. But it was like that, nevertheless: the man died of shame. He locked himself in his room, he got in bed, he pulled the blanket up to his ears, he cried all day and he didn't want to eat a bit nor talk with anybody. Nor did he want to see me, his only daughter, the light of his eyes.
He died barely a few weeks after Delita. Because you've seen yourself how things are. It's quite certain that the matter of my mother was kept quiet, that it didn't appear in the magazines nor was there any judicial investigation, but in Belgrano, the neighborhood where we lived, all of the people or, at least, all of the people who mattered, the friends of the family, those that were in our circle, those of our same social station, knew perfectly well what had happened in Longchamps and did not quit talking about the matter. On the sly, I suppose. What they did was they gossiped. And as for my father they watched him as if they watched a young bull that they prodded into the truck that was going to carry him to the matador. They made it so he felt like an absolute disgrace, they treated him poorly, they made him into a nothing. And you see, my father was not sufficiently strong so as to endure it. Underneath it all, he was still a man. I don't know if you understand me, a man like you, a boy, a weak one. He wasn't a woman, like Delita and like me, I want to say.
Excuse me, but you don't have to do that.
Where you shout and beat on the door as if you were an orangutang.
I'm not referring to that kind of weakness: everybody knows that a man is physically stronger than a woman.
You don't have to prove anything to me.
Nevertheless, here we have it, it ends up reliably demonstrated that I have the right in what I've ended up saying to you: the beastliness with which you flaunt does nothing more for you than express your complete weakness in front of me, who, though I am old, have ascended as the queen of the story. I am referring to this weakness. That of character. To the absolute weakness that men display when they must confront the world in general or a woman in particular.
Good, now you're fine.
Let me continue, please, so that this won't go on so interminably.
Here I'd like you to see that, although you're a man, you're rather less weak than my father was in those autumn days of nineteen hundred and seventeen. You're much stronger.
I am not pulling your leg. Why would I do something like that? I'm telling you the truth.
Best if you calm yourself and let me go on.
We were on how my father died of shame because of what happened with my mother or because of how the people in his circle reacted to what happened with my mother, you know you never know, what is more important to a person, what happened or what people say about what happened. But. What was the thing that happened to Delita? This is the story I want to tell you.
Patience. I'm getting there.
Delita, my mother.
No, please.
I listened to you shout for a very long while, without interrupting you, from the kitchen table, and now I've hardly started and you go back to interrupting. I believed we had reached an agreement.
It's fine. It's not as though it were an agreement. But at least I thought that you had understood me, that after your tantrum letting out shouts and pounding against the door, which you tortured me with while I had my tea, I was going to tell you about my mother.
Yes, of course.
Listen to me, learn, and that's it.
Good. Well then. I told you that Delita wanted to fly. And that she was very pretty, extraordinarily pretty. And I did not say this because I am her daughter. No. I never knew her. That was what everyone in her circle said, everyone who knew her. Not me. I had bad luck. I was born fairly ugly. Just like my father, the poor dear. You know, I hardly knew my father either. I grew up with an aunt. Aunt Alcira. My father died right away after Delita died. That I told you he was ugly, and I took after him, is from what those who outlived him told me. And I only have the one photo. If you want, afterward I will pass it below the door too. But only if you promise me that you will not dirty them or tear them, neither of them.
No. I'm not going to beat around the brush again. My father's picture, you have to see. He died of shame.
Yes, of shame.
For what happened to my mother.
Don't laugh, those were different times, all of the people had honor and could suffer from shame to their limits, and finally die. And this, precisely, was what happened to my father. A great man. They broke the mold with him. A gentleman of the type that we don't have around now. He went and died of shame when what happened to my mother happened.
It's fine. You don't believe me. But it was like that, nevertheless: the man died of shame. He locked himself in his room, he got in bed, he pulled the blanket up to his ears, he cried all day and he didn't want to eat a bit nor talk with anybody. Nor did he want to see me, his only daughter, the light of his eyes.
He died barely a few weeks after Delita. Because you've seen yourself how things are. It's quite certain that the matter of my mother was kept quiet, that it didn't appear in the magazines nor was there any judicial investigation, but in Belgrano, the neighborhood where we lived, all of the people or, at least, all of the people who mattered, the friends of the family, those that were in our circle, those of our same social station, knew perfectly well what had happened in Longchamps and did not quit talking about the matter. On the sly, I suppose. What they did was they gossiped. And as for my father they watched him as if they watched a young bull that they prodded into the truck that was going to carry him to the matador. They made it so he felt like an absolute disgrace, they treated him poorly, they made him into a nothing. And you see, my father was not sufficiently strong so as to endure it. Underneath it all, he was still a man. I don't know if you understand me, a man like you, a boy, a weak one. He wasn't a woman, like Delita and like me, I want to say.
Excuse me, but you don't have to do that.
Where you shout and beat on the door as if you were an orangutang.
I'm not referring to that kind of weakness: everybody knows that a man is physically stronger than a woman.
You don't have to prove anything to me.
Nevertheless, here we have it, it ends up reliably demonstrated that I have the right in what I've ended up saying to you: the beastliness with which you flaunt does nothing more for you than express your complete weakness in front of me, who, though I am old, have ascended as the queen of the story. I am referring to this weakness. That of character. To the absolute weakness that men display when they must confront the world in general or a woman in particular.
Good, now you're fine.
Let me continue, please, so that this won't go on so interminably.
Here I'd like you to see that, although you're a man, you're rather less weak than my father was in those autumn days of nineteen hundred and seventeen. You're much stronger.
I am not pulling your leg. Why would I do something like that? I'm telling you the truth.
Best if you calm yourself and let me go on.
We were on how my father died of shame because of what happened with my mother or because of how the people in his circle reacted to what happened with my mother, you know you never know, what is more important to a person, what happened or what people say about what happened. But. What was the thing that happened to Delita? This is the story I want to tell you.
Patience. I'm getting there.