What is "una trempera vespertina"
Page 296 of my particular copy of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's La sombra del viento finds the hero "todos oidos" as his friend recounts news. The friend, "lanzó su mirada de intriga internacional." and starts into a long-winded explanation of how he happened upon important information regarding their communal investigation.
"...me acometió un arrebato de insomnio por aquello de la trempera vespertina."
I understand that our fellow was overtaken by a fit of insomnia...but I do not understand why? "...por aquello de la trempera vespertina"..I don't have a clue what a trempera is, even though I can imagine that is is something that happens in the evening. Vespertina is an adjective that means
happening in the evening
Any ideas of what was keeping this fellow awake?
8 Answers
It is an erection. From catalán.
¨Trempera´ is not showing up in any of my spanish resources.
Books do have typos now and then.
Aha! I had started looking for catalán dictionaries, but without much success (home from work after long days, not much time, either).
Your translation, Agora, fits the sense -- not just of the sentence, but the whole conversation. I had begun to think that this had something to do with the evening tryst our protagonist had returned from because he had stressed that he had left his one-true-love's virtue intact.
Thank you very much. Agora . When Fermín (Romero de Torres) could not sleep that evening, he went out and continued the investigation for his young friend, Daniel. My investigation now over, too, I, too, can now sleep.
Thank you, pacofinkler - I did not even find a verb that seemed similar enough to derive a noun...
As far as I can tell, it means a temperate evening, like weather. Why that's keeping him awake, though.....
An example for the use of the word "vespertina" is edición vespertina to mean the late edition, as in the evening newspaper (nocturna), so, edición matutina would be early edition, as in morning newspaper.
I checked for "trempera" in French, hoping that this might shed some light on what is meant in the passage in my book. However, I only found verbs - no noun "trempera".
I am beginning to wonder if I should be looking in a dictionary of the Catalan language...??
Thank you, kiersten11. You wrote
As far as I can tell, it means a temperate evening
...but I hesitate because the noun is "trempera". V"Vespertina" is the adjective in our case here, describing trempera, or?? That leads me to think that this must an evening "something-or-other"
...But perhaps you have found a translation for trempera?
