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[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Chapter 5

My brothers don't like me. They never invite me to play with them because they say I don't know how. And they are right, I don't understand their games, and I don't like to play them. I don't like to play with other boys because I've noticed I'm very different from them. They forget themselves and everything else and can play freely. While I can't do that, and never pay attention to the games and I always lose and make my team lose too. That's why my grandmother says I'm a poor creature, that I'm too thin and too pale, that my legs look like sticks and that she feels sorry for me. Well, I feel sorry for her! her hands are all vein-y, her face is the same colour as dry dirt, her lips are pale and her teeth yellow, she doesn't know how to play the piano like mom, and all she does all day is fight with the servants. If I was grown up, I would do a lot of different things. And what if I'm a sensitive boy? why should anyone care? Furthermore, I've always been like this; except that before I only felt sad in occasions, in random days. But nowadays I tend to feel much more sadness, and it's because of Angélica, but it's a sadness that I like. When will she be back? My Angélica of my soul...! I thought I would be able to write in this notebook every sweet nothing that I dedicate to her in my mind; but now I see that even if no one reads this, it's embarrassing to externalise those words I dedicate in thought alone to her or to her portrait. Last night, before going to sleep, I stole her portrait from the living room. I brought it to my bed, and I kept kissing it, and I told it all the things I'm too embarrassed to write here. I wanted to keep it forever in my notebook, but suddenly I got too scared of the thought that someone might find out that it's missing, so I got up in my pyjamas and returned it to the family album. Of course! Someone might have found out it was me because as soon as they asked, I would have gotten too nervous, and my face would have given it away. Tomorrow is Sunday, maybe I'll see her at church, and if I don't, I'm going to ask my mom if we can go visit my cousins. Angélica goes there on Sunday's afternoons, and I can stay in the balcony the whole afternoon with her and my auntie Carmencita, who loves me a lot because she says I'm very affectionate. She is kind and very pretty, her hands are soft and chubby, and she reads me stories with her calm and soft voice.

[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Chapter 4

Time passes and I get worse. I go to bed very early, but I pretend to be asleep so the lights get off, and I can be alone and cry. Because is so good to cry when I feel like this... I cry with such joy! I have to bite my pillow, so my brothers don't hear me. But you can't cry for so long, why is it? Without meaning to you calm down, and your chest feels really light, and although you want to continue crying, you cannot. I say it shouldn't be like that because you are left with a bit of sadness stuck inside of you. Then I think about her and in a lot of things regarding her and me. Last night I remembered the first time she came to my house. She was wearing a reddish-purple dress, and the colour reflected on her skin, and her eyes, they had two tiny reddish-purple dots in them. She was very pretty! So so so pretty! She gets prettier every day! Her eyes, they shine like brand new and blink in such a strange, beautiful way: very fast, making you happy. And her hair, it curls and at the ends it turn blonde...That day I just kept stared at her, and if she caught me staring, I had to take my eyes off her, because I started feeling very strange inside. But then I felt her gaze in my face, it was a warm thing that drained all the strength from my body. My God, how terrible! I think my mom noticed because she said: “It looks like this boy has fallen in love with you, Angélica. He can't keep his eyes off you.” My mom said it laughing, without any other intention, but since that day I haven't stopped thinking about her. About Angélica, and what my mom said. Oh, and the other day she asked me if I loved her, and I told her I loved her more than anyone in the world. Good heavens! I couldn't help it; I just blurted it out. Then my mom stared at me, and I had to correct myself and tell her that I loved her, but not more than my mom and grandmother and brothers. But it's not true, I love her more than them! More than anyone and anything! How I love having this notebook to say it freely! They are telling me to go to bed. I didn't have time to do my homework. I'll apologise and excuse myself with having a headache. They will believe me because I did have a headache at school, and they were aware of it. And even if they punish me, I have to keep writing in this diary because there's no one I can talk this things with. I can't talk about it with my mom or grandmother, I don't dare to, and my brothers are savages.

[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Chapter 3

I'm sad and I wish I was sadder. Angélica came to visit this afternoon, and asked my mom if I could accompany her to shop, and in the street a young man approached us.  He didn't even look at me and did nothing the entire time except talk with her. We didn't enter any shop; we walked around the streets, and they made me walk in front of them when it was too crowded. I wanted to look behind me, but I didn't dare. Then he said goodbye and soon he returned home. She was very happy. The faster we walked, the sadder I got. Until around the corner near my house, the tears came out. When she saw me crying, she got very scared, and asked me why I was crying.

I told her it was because that unpleasant man approached us in the street, and then, laughing, she said: "Such a sweet boy!" And asked me if I wanted to be her boyfriend. I, of course, stood there, silent. What was I supposed to say? She suddenly got serious and comforted me. I'm always sad...and I wish I was sadder.

[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Chapter 2

Angélica came this afternoon, and once again I dumbly lost more than half an hour trying to approach her. It's always the same with me! I wish to see her, and hear her, and touch her, and feel her so close to me. I waste my time daydreaming about her… It makes me so angry…! Why am I so nervous? As soon as I know that she has come to visit, I get so distracted. What can I do! As soon as I know it, I feel like something hits me in the chest. I feel all the blood rushing to my face, my knees get weak, my body feels cold, and I start shaking and instead of going to see her, without wanting to, I find myself running to the back of the house. Why do I do that? I ask myself. I go there to wait... I do not know what for.  I get so frightened, and I lose the courage to go to her. I feel like if I go so suddenly to her, they are going to find out, or something is going to happen to me. And I keep beating around the bush, until slowly and afraid I go towards her... It's so hard for me to get to the living room, just like that, as if by chance. It’s also because, she loves me so much, that as soon as she sees me, she calls my name, and kisses me and hugs me. If it was only a peck in the cheek, it would be nothing, it wouldn't be such a torture. But she embraces me, and I can't bear that. I don't know why; It's just that I feel her pressed against me and I feel despair. I choke and I feel the need to sob and scream. I would squeeze her, of course! with all my might, and confess to her how much I suffer and adore her, and a thousand other things. However, in those moments I get desperate and just run all the way to the courtyard again. I escaped today too; I couldn't handle it. Then I didn't know how to go back. Gladly she called me. She made me sit in the sofa, right next to her. And there I sat, looking at her, hearing her talking with my mom and smelling her sweet scent... Sometimes, when I'm like this, right beside her, I wish I was sick, so she could talk about me and no one else, and cuddle me... It's not that I didn't enjoy her visit this afternoon; it’s just that I got sad... I always get sad. I think I get sad at the fact that I love her so much, while she only sees me as a child. It’s natural. How could she love me? What a disgrace, my God, a disgrace! What could I do?

[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Chapter 1:

Mr. Carlos Romeral came to eat at my house today. He is the most intelligent man I know. When he talks, everyone listens and thinks he is right. Me, specially. I always think he is right because he says things I can relate to, and things which I have never noticed before, but he had and are pure truth. This night he told me, after praying, that the swallows fly by the church bells. And it is true, they fly by them! After that he told me, “That means that children, like the swallows, have to start getting ready for bed”, which no longer seems right to me. If only he knew, how hard it is for me to fall asleep! He also told me at the table that he keeps a personal diary. After dinner, he gave me lots of cuddles and I asked him what that thing about the personal diary was all about. “It's a notebook” He explained “Where some people like to write daily about things that happen in their life, because sometimes you cannot talk about certain things with other people” I told him that he was right, and that precisely, those things were the most important, the things that we most want to talk about and that we could not, as he said, talk about with anyone. He stared at me for a long time, deep in thought, and then asked me a lot of questions that made me very nervous. I felt so embarrassed… I almost cried, as if I had done something bad. Then I left. Even after a while, I kept staring at him across the hall. He was deep in thought, alone, smoking in the sitting room… I think he loves me dearly, more than my own mother. He comes once in a while, but I think about him every day. I love him very, very much. And from today onwards, I will keep a personal diary too, just like him. I'll keep it well hidden under the rug, so I can write everything about Angélica.

[lost-myself-in-translation]

The boy who went madly in love, by Enrique Barrios (1915)

Prologue: Have you ever heard a bird singing at night? Sometimes a sliver of golden moonlight spills between the mysterious foliage, reaches the branch where the little bird is nestled, and wakes her up. The bird may think is the dawn, but it's not. And still, she sings. Then, if the little bird is poised and strong, once she discovers that it was all a trick, she will bury her beak between her feathers and fall asleep once more.  However, there are a lot of different birds. Restless and fragile, to whom the sliver of moonlight had put under a spell. Who after singing, stunned, they jump and try to fly. But as the sun has not risen yet, they become lost in the darkness, or they drown in the lake illuminated by a pale golden sliver of light, or they get their chests embedded with the thorns of a rose bush which could have heard their bests songs and ignite their most delirious joys in the morning. What is the poisonous beam of light that awake some souls in the night, robs them of dawn and drowns them in an existence of darkness? I am about to reveal you the secret of a boy who went madly in love. Outside of myself, no one —not even his mother, turned into his slave— ever possessed the truth behind the madness of this child. I would not reveal yet how this painful and naïve notebook fell into my hands. I can only tell you that I am publishing this because it cannot hurt anyone anymore. I respected for years the secret of that child. Of that little bird who sang in the night and lost his dawn. Fate brought this notebook to me, and I have kept it dutifully. With the respect a saddened and sentimental child deserves. A victim of the poisonous beam that sheds a light into hearts before their time and throws them into that blazing and dark vortex; sweet and terrible, called love.

[lost-myself-in-translation]

Welcome to my blog

Hello! I'm a senior translation major from Chile. I'm starting this blog in the hopes to share my work with the world! I also want to make Chilean literature more known to the world.

Even thought I have my own personal projects in mind, if anyone in this site needs or wants a translation (English-Spanish or Spanish-English) you can talk me in this blog or reach me through my mail.

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