Galleguita, the lovely one
Who arrived on Argentine shores
One April afternoon
With only the clothes you had on and nothing more
Than your dark moorish eyes
And your attractive little body.
Being good, you were respectable
But it meant nothing to you.
Others fell just the same.
You were pretty, Galleguita
And after the first date
You were going to keep away from the Pigall*

Alone and in foreign lands
Your fall was so brief
That like a snowball
Your virtue melted away...
You were obsessed with the idea
Of getting together a lot of money
For your poor old mother
Who had stayed there in the village.

But an evil countryman
Mad from his failure to win
Your caresses and your love,
Having lost all hope
Returned to your village, the traitor,
And poisoned the life
Of your beloved mother,
Telling her of your downfall,
And thus it was that the following month
You received an envelope of grief
And your heart mourned.

And now I see you
Galleguita
Sitting sad and alone
In a corner of the Pigall
And the pain that is killing you
Is clearly portrayed
In your deathly pallor
Your sadness
Is infinite...
You're no longer the Galleguita
Who arrived one April day
With only the clothes you had on
And nothing more
Than your dark moorish eyes
And your attractive little body.

*Galleguita - dim. of Gallega - a female from Galicia, Spain.
*Pigall - a well-known cabaret club of that time in Buenos Aires

English translation by Paul Bottomer ©