At 7:30 on the evening: Ibid.
It belonged to Trinidad: Ibid.
he wasn’t nearly as involved: Patricio Mason discovered nearly eighty legal documents from Chile’s National Archives showing all manner of transactions between Charles Mason and his Candia in-laws and his sons-in-law, but absolutely none involving José del Carmen. The sole historical document kept at the National Archives involving José del Carmen shows him, in 1894, buying at auction a piece of property on behalf of José Rudecindo Ortega.
the barefoot, semiwild son: As described by Bernardo Reyes, Rodolfo’s own grandson, in Neruda: Retrato de familia.
He brought his son Neftalí: Loyola, Hernán. El joven Neruda (Barcelona: Lumen, 2014), 30.
Trinidad had a certain equanimity: Neruda, Pablo. “Infancia y poesía,” Salón de Honor of the University of Chile, January 1, 1954. Available in OC, 4:918.
CHAPTER TWO: WHERE THE RAIN WAS BORN
“The Frontier (1904)”: “La frontera (1904)” (1950), Canto general.
“guardian angel”: CHV, 405.
“gentle shadow”: CHV, 416.
“tools or books”: CHV, 401–408.
all lived on the same block: Author correspondence with Patricio Mason, 2017.
six children: Ibid., and Mason, “History of the Mason Family in Chile.” Charles Mason also had a son with a Peruvian woman before he met and married Micaela Candia. This son, the eldest of the Mason siblings, also settled in Temuco.
Rudecindo Ortega, who had fathered: Author correspondence with Patricio Mason, 2017.
Incomplete staircases led to floors: “Infancia y poesía,” OC, 4:917.
“Below the volcanoes”: CHV, 399.
“The essential Neruda was a human being”: Author interview with Alastair Reid, 2004.
“terrestrial core”: Neruda, Pablo. “El joven provinciano,” Las vidas del poeta. Memorias y recuerdos, O cruzeiro internacional (Rio de Janeiro), January 16, 1962. Quoted in Escobar, Alejandro Jiménez, ed. Pablo Neruda en O cruzeiro internacional (Santiago: Puerto de Palos, 2004), 28. Most of the rest of the details of the trips into the forests with his father are from CHV, 402–403.
“in the middle of green”: Neruda, “El joven provinciano,” in Escobar, Pablo Neruda en O cruzeiro internacional, 27–29.
as Neruda would later lyricize: “Las cicadas,” Las uvas y el viento.
“La Casa”: Canto general.
By the time he was ten years old: CHV, 402–404.
“I lived with the spiders”: From “Where Can Guillermina Be?” in Neruda, Pablo. Extravagaria, trans. Alastair Reid (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974).
Neftalí’s explorations piqued: From the poem “Las cicadas,” Las uvas y el viento; words from “Infancia y poesía,” OC, 4:917–918; and a talk given at the University of Chile around his fiftieth birthday. Much of the text would find its way into his memoirs.
“Along endless beaches”: CHV, 413.
“just a sack of bones”: CHV, 403.
They had a cook: Neruda mentions the presence of a cook in CHV, 409. As Patricio Mason explained, “Having a local lady come in to prepare meals was certainly a service a railroad conductor could afford” (author correspondence, January 2017).
it had a dignifying presence: Neruda, Pablo. “Viaje por las costas del mundo,” lecture, 1942. Available in OC, 4:505.
One evening when Neftalí: “La copa de sangre,” OC, 4:417.
“like a man in mourning”: “Infancia y poesía,” OC, 4:922.
The blood fell into a basin: “La copa de sangre,” OC, 4:417–418, and “Infancia y poesía,” OC, 4:922.
“The Heights of Macchu Picchu”: Canto XII, Canto general. My translation builds upon earlier versions by John Felstiner and Stephen Kessler.
“where the rain was born”: CHV, 400.
Neftalí was always the last: Author interview with Inés Valenzuela, widow of Neruda’s childhood friend Diego Muñoz, July 2003. She and Neruda instantly formed a strong friendship upon Diego’s introduction.
“He wanted to give me his cup”: Valle, Juvencio. “Testimonio,” Aurora, nos. 3–4 (July–December 1964): 248.
When he was confined to his bed: From an interview with Neruda’s sister, Laura, in a compilation of his letters to her: Cartas a Laura, ed. Hugo Montes (1978; Santiago: Andres Bello, 1991), 12–13.
“an imperceptible vibration”: Valle, “Testimonio,” 247–248.
They took “refuge”: Ibid., 249.
“Poetry”: Memorial de Isla Negra, in Neruda, Isla Negra.
“a kind of anguish and sadness”: CHV, 416.
The original Spanish: Jofré, Manuel. Pablo Neruda: De los mitos y el ser Americano (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Ediciones Ferilibro, 2004).
the beginnings of a cosmic vision: From the text of the poem “Poetry,” Memorial de Isla Negra, Neruda, Isla Negra.
CHAPTER THREE: AWKWARD ADOLESCENCE
“Where Can Guillermina Be?”: Neruda, Extravagaria. Translations of poem in this chapter by author; translation in appendix by Alistair Reid, as noted.
“Desperation”: Collected in a text entitled Los cuadernos de Neftalí Reyes, available in OC, 4:65.
it was precious: From an expanded edition of Neruda’s memoir Confieso que he vivido, ed. Darío Oses (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2017), 44.
When he grew bold enough: Ibid., 45.
his detour to touch it: Ibid., Neruda mentions the frequency. Gloria Urgelles writes that he stopped to pet its nose on his way to school on a daily basis in “Las casas de Pablo Neruda,” El Mercurio (Santiago), September 15, 1991. Available at http://www.emol.com/especiales/neruda/19910915.htm.
Orlando was young and unruly: Particular credit goes to Bernardo Reyes for his description of Orlando throughout Neruda: Retrato de familia.
“Orlando Mason protested”: “Infancia y poesía,” OC, 4:923–924.
between eight and sixteen years old: Danús Vásquez, Hernán, and Susana Vera Iturra. Carbón: Protagonista del pasado, presente y futuro (Santiago: RIL Editores, 2010), 95.
“With a glance, the penetrating eyes”: Lillo, Baldomero. Sub-Terra: Cuadros mineros (Santiago: Imprenta moderna, 1904), 21–22.
“A deplorable neglect continues”: Venegas, Alejandro. Sinceridad: Chile íntimo en 1910 (1910; repr., Santiago: CESOC Ed., 1998), 250–251.
“These two are the factors”: Neruda, Pablo. “Entusiasmo y perseverancia,” La Mañana, July 18, 1917. Available in OC, 4:49–50.
Neftalí was reflecting on: Victor Farías notes the sense of responsibility for what Neruda witnessed in the prologue to Neruda, Pablo. Cuadernos de Temuco: 1919–1920 (Buenos Aires: Seix Barral, 1996), 19.
In broad, abstract terms: Colón, Daniel. “Orlando Mason y las raíces del pensamiento social de Pablo Neruda,” Revista chilena de literatura 79 (September 2011): 23–45.
“a very beautiful woman, dark skinned”: Author interview with Inés Valenzuela, July 2003.
verses of Garcilaso de la Vega: Author correspondence with Tina Escaja, poet and director of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at the University of Vermont, 2011.
“historical cadences” of Francisco de Quevedo’s: Ibid., Much of this information and analysis, including the “historical cadences” wording.
“the way the poem
