* Founded in May 1852, the Club del Progreso, which Cambaceres presided over as vice-president in the 1870s, was the cardinal social center of its time. The focal point for the cadre of élite Buenos Aires men, it reached its greatest period of splendor in the 1880s. In addition to all-male social gatherings and political meetings, the Club also held elegant parties and carnival balls. There are other references to the Club in chapters VII, XIII, and XVIII, and the action in chapter XIV takes place there.

* The truth lies within.

* This is a reference to José Hernández’s hugely popular epic poem Martin Fierro, in which the gaucho poet finally smashes his guitar against the ground so as not to be “tempted” to continue his song.

*This biblical expression (Eccles. 1:2) used to express total despair also closes Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, an earlier novel that, like Pot Pourri, took a harsh view of the prevailing, wealthy society of the day.

* One of Argentina’s most important dailies in the second half of the nineteenth century (1853–93). Though it was initially seen as a political organ of Domingo F. Sarmiento, who was also one of the main writers, the paper later began covering broader stories that were free of the partisan struggles of the early days.

* South of Buenos Aires Province, the land on which the farm is located was taken from the indigenous population established there before or during Juan Manuel de Rosas’s 1833 “desert” military campaign. The offensive came to a close in 1879, when the expedition led by Julio Argentino Roca ended in the extermination of virtually all native inhabitants.

* Sur Railways, a new venture in the 1880s, was English-owned.

* Independence Day and Revolution Day.

* The Concepción area, close to the center of the city if one heads south, was a favorite with wealthy families; Palermo, in the very north, became a popular place for Buenos Aires high society after it was turned into a park. As for the two theaters, there is a distinct opposition between them: the Colón was, between 1855 and 1908, a place for European opera performances; the Alegría, which put on comedies and variety shows, was frequented by those with few musical pretensions and by the general public.

* An Argentinian stockbreeding cooperative, the Rural Society was inaugurated in 1866 to help combat the recession affecting the livestock industry.

* Cemeteries in Buenos Aires. The first, wealthier and more traditional, is in the north; the second, not opened until 1871, lies in the northeast.

* The most popular political satire in nineteenth-century Argentina.

* This is a reference to the rosismo period (1835–52), which essentially corresponds to Juan Manuel de Rosas’s second Buenos Aires government. Both the barracks and Rosas’s own estate were located in Palermo, in the north of the city, which was at the time becoming one of the leading focal points for social activities. Manuela, Rosas’s daughter, often organized parties and celebrations for Buenos Aires’ high society there. Red was the federalist color, especially representative of rosismo; emblems and insignia were always red.

* Founded by Manuel Láinez and published between 1881 and 1942, this daily newspaper showed the signs of the press’s modernization. Láinez, a prestigious journalist and national legislator, is mentioned by name, along with some other members of the Generation of 1880, in chapter IX.

* Carlos Guido y Spano (1827–1916), Olegario Víctor Andrade (1839–82), Carlos Encina (1838–82) and Ricardo Gutiérrez (1836–96). Poets of the second Romantic generation, they favored descriptions of landscapes and rural life in their work. Guido wrote the flamingo poem (“gallant flamingo resting on the lagoon amidst green reeds”) the narrator quotes and then mocks. Cambaceres rejected the lyricism and sentimental tone of this pastoral, highbrow poetry, dominant in the 1860s and 1870s.

* Pedro Goyena (1843–92) was a legal adviser and philosophy teacher who also wrote important articles on Argentine literature. As a Catholic militant, he opposed—both in print and in parliament—the laical reforms imposed by President Julio A. Roca in the 1880s. Juan María Gutiérrez (1809–78) formed part of the Romantic “Generation of 1837” and, in exile during the Rosas government, spoke out against Roca in the press. His compilations and the literary criticism he produced throughout his life were particularly noteworthy. Both Gutiérrez and Goyena were distinguished causeurs; the latter was not only a great conversationalist but also quite a polemicist.

* The parade route goes from a square in the west, in an area full of popular cafés and restaurants, to Retiro, in the north. Once a bullring and then, from 1822, a military garrison, Retiro was converted into a train station with a huge square in 1870.

* Political leaders with wide-reaching popular support during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Adolfo Alsina (1829–77) was governor of Buenos Aires and vice-president under Domingo F. Sarmiento (1868–74); head of the autonomous Buenos Aires party that challenged the national government by declaring independence from the provinces, he was in charge of defending the frontier against the Indians in the 1870s. Aris-tóbulo del Valle (1847–96), a noted orator and journalist, held several parliamentary positions; he strongly opposed Miguel Juárez Celman’s liberal government at the end of the 1880s and led the so-called “1890 revolution,” which led to his removal from office.

* Reference to the period when Juan Manuel de Rosas governed Buenos Aires, and Uruguayan President Oribe laid siege to Montevideo and Buceo, the capital and port of Banda Oriental, a Spanish territory. Oribe, who ruled only from 1835 to 1838, tried to regain power with the help of his ally Rosas by laying siege to the capital from 1843 to 1852, but he never managed to take the city.

* From Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro.

* Arroyo del Medio forms the natural border between Buenos Aires and Santa Fe Provinces; the Salado River begins nearby, in the northeast of Buenos Aires, and runs down toward the center. Being stuck between the two, therefore, leaves little leeway.

* The fall of tyranny refers to Justo José Urquiza’s forces defeating Rosas’s army at the Battle of Caseros on February 3, 1852. Urquiza, governor of Entre Ríos Province, became the head of the Argentine Confederation a few months later. On September 11, 1852, as a result of political measures he adopted, liberal Buenos Aires factions rose up against him, took control of foreign affairs, and refused to recognize the Constituent Congress’s legislative authority. The result was Buenos Aires’ secession. Almost ten years later, on September 17, 1861, the federal army fought the Buenos Aires army and lost at Arroyo de Pavón, leading to Urquiza’s withdrawal from political struggle, the fall of the Confederation and the formation of a nation-state under Bartolomé Mitre, who had been Buenos Aires’ governor.

¹Me, under my breath: which of the two?

² One of them.

³ And what the devil is your wife doing all this time?

⁴ Don’t be so sure …

⁵ Get that on record.

⁶ María, huh?

⁷ and she like a snake

* How changed from what he once was!

* I want to get to the bottom of this.

* A young man full of hope but without means.

*“The baritone is ill; you must sing his part today.”

“What do you mean today?”

“House rules.”

“But, for Christ’s sake! Macbeth! I haven’t sung that since the Cremona fair … ten years ago!”

“That’s not my concern; house rules.”

“Is this any way to treat an artist? I’m not a puppet on a string! There, just like that, without even an orchestra or piano accompaniment?”

“You better believe it, buddy; do you think you’re getting paid for running around doing nothing?”

* Martín García Island, strategically located where the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers flow into the River Plate, was used repeatedly in the first half of the nineteenth century to launch military campaigns and to blockade the ports of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

* Juan didn’t have a clue.

* Spanish catechism written by the priest Gasper Astete in question-and-answer format. During most of the nineteenth century it was a bedside book used to educate women in the River Plate.

* I’d rather be a cuckold than be killed. A line from Molières The Imaginery Cuckold.