Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen

And Erdosain thought: “We’ll never have sexual contact. To make our love last, we’ll keep our desire in check; I won’t even kiss her on the mouth, only on the hand.”

He went on to imagine the happiness that would purify his life if something impossible like this were to happen: yet he knew it was easier to stop the earth turning than for such an unlikely event to take place. So he would say to himself with a sudden flash of resentful pride: “Well then, I’ll become a pimp.” At this thought, a terror far worse than any other unhinged his mind. He felt as though blood was pouring from every cranny of his soul — as if it was being torn into by a drill. With his powers of reasoning numbed, stunned with anguish, he set out on a wild search for a brothel. It was then he experienced the horror of empty nothingness, that luminous horror like the dazzling brilliance of the sun as it bounces off the curved surface of a salt-flat.

He gave in to the kind of impulse that grips those who for the first time in their lives realise they may be at the prison gate, blind impulses that lead the wretched to stake everything on a card or a woman, searching perhaps for some sad, shocking confirmation of their existence, hoping to find in all that is vile and low some affirmation of purity that will save them for ever.

So beneath a yellow sun during the sweltering afternoon hours, Erdosain roamed the scorching pavements in search of the most disgusting brothels.

He preferred those whose porches were full of orange peel and trails of ashes, the ones with windows covered in red or green cloth and protected by wire netting.

He went in with death in his soul. Usually there was a single dull brown bench out in the patio with its square of blue sky up above. He would collapse exhausted on to it, enduring the madam’s icy stare until the girl, inevitably either excessively fat or skinny, came out to him.

Then the whore would shout to him from the half-open door to the bedroom, from where the sounds of another man getting dressed could be heard: “Are you coming, sweetheart?” And Erdosain would go into the other room, his ears ringing and a mist swirling before his eyes.

Then he lay back on the bed varnished the colour of liver, on top of a bedcover soiled by one pair of boots after another.

All of a sudden he felt like bursting into tears, and asking this ghastly slut what love was, that angelic love the celestial hosts sang of at the foot of the throne of the living God — but he could not bring himself to do so, because anguish gripped his throat while a wave of revulsion made his stomach clench like a fist.

And while the prostitute’s hand paused in its movements among his clothes, Erdosain thought again to himself: “What have I done with my life?”

A ray of sun slanted down through the cobweb-smeared transom, and the whore, on her side on the pillow with one leg crossed over his, slowly moved her hand while he gloomily reflected: “What have I done with my life?”

Suddenly a feeling of remorse stiffened his soul; he was remembering how being penniless forced his sick wife to wash all her own clothes, and so in a rush of self-loathing he leapt from the bed, paid the prostitute, and fled without having touched her to the next hell to spend money that was not his, to sink ever deeper into the madness howling without respite around him.

At ten in the morning Erdosain was on the corner of Peru and Avenida de Mayo. He knew there was no way out of his dilemma but gaol, because he was sure Barsut would not lend him the money. All of a sudden he got a shock.

Sitting at a café table was Ergueta, the pharmacist.

His hat was pulled down over his ears; his thumbs stuck out across his huge belly, and a sour, bloated expression filled his sallow, nodding face.

The glazed look in his bulging eyes, the flat hooked nose, pouched cheeks and drooping lower lip all went to create the impression of a congenital idiot.

Ergueta’s enormous bulk was stuffed inside a cinnamon-coloured suit, and from time to time he lowered his face and rested his teeth on the marble pommel of his cane.

This eccentric gesture and the generally loathsome air his boredom conferred on him gave Ergueta the appearance of a white-slave trader. By chance, the pharmacist’s eyes met Erdosain’s as the latter walked over to him, and a childish smile lit up his face. He was still smiling as he shook hands, and Erdosain thought: “How many women have loved him for that smile!”

Unable to stop himself, Erdosain blurted out the question:

“So, did you marry Hipólita …?”

“Yes, but you can’t imagine the fuss it caused at home …”

“What? … Did they find out she was on the game?”

“No … she told them that herself later on. Did you know that before she was a streetwalker, Hipólita worked as a housemaid?”

“So?”

“Soon after our wedding, my mother, Hipólita, my sister and I went to visit a family. You can’t imagine what good memories they had! Even after ten years they recognised Hipólita as one of their maids. Unbelievable! She and I came back one way, my mother and Juana another. The whole story I’d invented to explain my marriage was ruined.”

“Why did she confess she’d been a prostitute?”

“It was in a moment’s anger. But she was right, wasn’t she? Hadn’t she made a new life for herself? Wasn’t she putting up with me — me, who had always brought them nothing but heartache?”

“Apart from that, how are things?”

“Fine … the pharmacy brings in sixty pesos a day. There’s no-one in Pico who knows the Bible the way I do. I challenged the priest to a debate, but he wasn’t having any of it.”

“Are you still gambling?”

“Yes, and thanks to my great innocence, Jesus has revealed the secret of roulette to me.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You can’t imagine … the big secret … the law of static synchronicity … I’ve been to Montevideo twice and won a lot of money, but tonight I’m taking Hipólita, and we’ll break the bank.”

All of a sudden he launched into a complicated explanation:

“Listen, say you place a certain sum on the first three balls, one in each line of twelve. If none of the three groups come up, then there’s an incredible imbalance. So you score one point to each twelve that didn’t come up. For the next three balls, your first twelve stays the same. Obviously zero doesn’t count and you play the groups in series of three balls. Then you add another point to the dozen that doesn’t have any crosses against it, you take off one or rather two points from the group that has come up three times, and on this basis you can calculate the greater or lesser probability, so you bet all you’ve got on the dozen or dozens that are left.”

Erdosain had not understood a word. As his hopes grew, he stifled his desire to laugh — there was no doubt about it, Ergueta was completely mad. So he replied:

“Jesus only reveals such secrets to pious souls.”

“And also to holy fools,” Ergueta retorted, fixing him with a mocking smile while he winked his left eye: “Ever since I’ve been caught up in these mysteries I’ve made huge mistakes — like marrying that slut, for example …”

“But aren’t you happy with her?”

“… believing in people’s goodness when everybody is simply trying to do you down and spread the word that you’re mad …”

Erdosain frowned impatiently and said: “How can you expect them not to? You yourself have said you were a great sinner. Then suddenly you become religious, you marry a prostitute because that’s what the Bible says, you talk to people about the Fourth Seal and the Pale Horsemen … of course people will think you’re crazy, because they haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Don’t they reckon I’m mad because I say there should be hair salons for dogs, and that it would be a good idea to make metal shirtcuffs? But I don’t think you’re crazy. I really don’t. What you have is an over-abundance of life, of charity and of love for your neighbour. But I must say that the idea of Jesus revealing the secret of roulette to you does seem a bit far-fetched to me …”