[253-254.] por agregarse notas = porque se agregan notas. In Spanish, a noun may be the subject of an infinitive introduced by a preposition.
[478-479.] que sacrifique su inclinación; the change to third person is probably to be explained by Filomena's turning to speak to Don Rafael.
[533-534.] Cesáreo, que vela por la familia; the son is jointly responsible with the father for the maintenance of the family and for the conduct and honor of the individual members. When the father is incapacitated, the son naturally assumes the entire burden.
[548.] a vivir por mí misma, to live my own life. The phrase sounds like Ibsen. For example, Nora's words, "I have just as sacred duties toward myself." (A Doll's House, last scene.)
ACTO QUINTO
[21-23.] querían... valiéranse; this combination of tenses is unusual. We do not have here a contrary to fact condition, as might at first appear. If that were the case, the imperfect indicative could not be employed in the if-clause. This is a simple condition in past time, the irregularity being in the use of valiéranse, an archaic way of expressing a sort of imperative,—debieron valerse, or válganse. Translate, since they wished... they should have employed.
[23.] valiéranse de otros de mi oficio; earlier in his life Galdós was inclined to deal harshly with members of the priesthood of the type to which he alludes here, but the agreeable figure of Don Rafael reveals the writer's growing sympathy for the clergy.
[88-89.] la que se le viene encima, what he's in for; la is the neuter feminine; [see note to II, 86.]
[265.] que, and. See Ramsey, Text-book of Modern Spanish, § 1421.
[314.] Yo soy estoico, y no temo ningún castigo. The philosophy of stoicism is especially attractive to Galdós, and he plays with it in several of his works. Thus, Orozco, of Realidad, strives to attain stoic perfection; and the chief characters of other plays sometimes act like stoics (Paternoy, Los condenados, II, 14; Pantoja, Electra, IV, 10; Berenguer, La fiera, III, 5). That the stoicism of Seneca (a Spaniard) is the fundamental trait of Spanish character, is the contention brilliantly set forth by Ángel Ganivet in the first dozen pages of his Idearium español.