[16], 14. Sábado de Gloria. Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, [p. 140] when music reappears in the Mass after its omission during Holy Week, and bells are rung at the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis, resumed after its suspension during Lent.
[17], 1. Más feo que Picio is the most common Spanish colloquialism for extreme absence of personal beauty in men. The origin of the phrase I have not been able to find. There is a story of a cobbler of the name, who was more than ugly, and so lives; but the obvious resemblance of Picio to pez, pitch, and to the adjective píceo, suggest that the man was invented after the fact, and named from his wax. For other expressions of the same kind, see Ramón Caballero, Diccionario de modismos, frases y metáforas, Madrid, 1898-1900.
[18], 20. Quevedo. Francisco Gómez de Quevedo Villegas, born 1580, died 1645; one of the greatest names of Spanish Literature—essayist, satirist, poet, wit, politician. His life and personality are not less interesting than his very varied literary work. Consult E. Mérimée, Essai sur la vie et les œuvres de Francisco de Quevedo, Paris, 1886.
[19], 9. broma. For a similar use, recall Hamlet's speech: "a fellow of infinite jest," etc. (Act V, Scene I).
[20], 4. palillos, originally drum-sticks, here and familiarly in Andalusia, castagnets (castañuelas, postizas). Brisca and tute are two-handed games of cards popular in Spain; in brisca three cards are dealt to each player, a trump is turned, and as the play goes on the hands are kept full by drawing from the pack; tute is a rather more developed game of the same kind, similar in essentials to sixty-six.
[20], 6. el que; sc. resultado in its secondary meaning, fact.
[20], 16. tenía algo de ingeniero: had some of the qualities of an engineer, was something of an engineer.
[21], 4. jaraiz, lagar. jaraiz is primarily the wine-press, lagar the wine-pit, where the must is preserved before the drawing off into the skin or cask.
[21], 8. reales. The real at par was worth about five cents. It is no longer coined, but is still a favorite unit for reckoning in many parts of Spain, as the sou is here and there in France. The coinage at the time of our story was the system renewed and simplified by King Charles III, about 1770. It comprised copper coins: maravedi (34 to the real); ochavo, cuarto, dos cuartos, worth respectively two, four, and eight maravedis; silver coins: real, dos reales, peseta (four reales); medio duro (ten reales); duro (twenty reales); and gold coins: duro, dos duros, doblón (four duros); media onza and onza, (eight and sixteen duros respectively). The present decimal system, with the unit one peseta = 100 centimos was introduced in 1868. It is modeled on the system of the Latin union.
[22], 24. The reference throughout this passage is to Othello, though there is no one passage in the play where the qualities here suggested are enumerated or directly ascribed to the Moor; see, however, specially, Act II, Scene 3, Act III, Scenes 3 and 4, and the Acts IV and V. It has been suggested, in view especially of line 25, that Alarcón may have had in mind Hamlet's characterization of his father (Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2): "He was a man, take him for all in all," etc. This seems to me to come of erroneous reading both of the lines of the play and the passage here in the text.