Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen

Standing at his side, she looked at him as if to say: “So this is the man.”

Next to her, he could sense her presence without really taking it in, as if she did not really exist, or was miles away from his thoughts. Yet there she was, and he had to say something; so after switching the light on and offering her a seat while he sat on the sofa, he managed to get out:

“So you are Ergueta’s wife? Fancy that.”

He still could not work out what this new being was doing suddenly flung into the midst of his disarray. A spurt of curiosity swept through his mind, but he would have liked the situation to be different, to feel he really knew this woman’s face, its oval curves giving off a coppery sheen, the violet lashes seeming to diffuse her gaze like the rays of watery sun radiating in a thousand beams out of a pinnacle of clouds behind a saint’s head in a popular print.

Erdosain was thinking: “My body is here, but where is my soul?” — and he repeated: “So you are Ergueta’s wife? Fancy that.”

Hipólita crossed her legs and smoothed the hem of her dress well below her knees, the material rustling in her rosy fingers. She raised her head slowly, as if this cost her a great effort in the strange surroundings of an unknown room, and said:

“You have to do something for my husband. He’s gone mad.”

“That’s no great surprise to me,” Erdosain reflected, and, pleased he could remain cool and collected — like one of those bankers in the novels of Xavier de Montepin — he replied, easing into the role he had invented for himself: “So he’s gone mad, has he?” Then all of a sudden, realising he could not keep up the pretence any longer, he burst out with: “D’you know something? You give me this extraordinary news, and yet it leaves me cold. It hurts me to be this way, empty of all emotion; I want to feel something, and yet I’m like a fence-post. You must forgive me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You will forgive me, won’t you? I wasn’t always like this. I can remember I used to be as happy as a lark. Bit by bit, I’ve changed. I can’t explain: I see you, I’d like to feel I’m your friend, but it’s impossible. If you were dying here now in front of me, I doubt I’d even offer you a glass of water. D’you understand? And yet … Anyway, where is he?”

“In Las Mercedes asylum.”

“That’s odd. Didn’t you live in Azul?”

“Yes, but we’ve been here a fortnight …”

“When did it happen?”

“Six days ago. I can’t understand it. It’s like you said before. Forgive me if I’m wasting your time. I thought of you because you knew him, and he was always talking about you. When was the last time you saw him?”

“When you got married … Yes, he told me about you. He called you the Cripple … and the harlot.”

Erdosain felt Hipólita’s soul wash his eyes with a gentle glaze. He was sure he could talk to her about anything. The woman’s soul was curled up there, ready and willing to receive him. As she spoke, her hands were clasped on her lap, and this relaxed position helped increase his sense of ease. That morning’s events at the Astrologer’s seemed far away: the only memories he had were of a fragment of tree and of sky, and as these fleeting images passed through his mind, they left a glowing, unwarranted sense of pleasure. He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, and said:

“Don’t take offence … but I think he was already crazy when he married you …”

“Tell me … d’you know if he used to gamble before we were married?”

“Yes … and I remember he studied the Bible, because he talked about a new age dawning, about the fourth seal, and a whole lot of other things as well. And yes, he gambled. He always interested me because I took him to be a typical hysteric.”

“That’s right. A hysteric. He once even staked 5,000 pesos on a poker game. He sold my jewels, a necklace a friend had given me …”

“What’s that? … Didn’t you give that necklace to your maid just before your marriage? That’s what he told me. That you gave her the necklace and your silver service … and the cheque for 10,000 pesos that other man gave you …”

“D’you think I’m mad too? … Why on earth would I give my maid a pearl necklace?”

“He lied, then?”

“So it seems.”

“How strange! …”

“Don’t be so amazed. He lied a lot. Anyway, he was in another world recently. He had studied a combination he could apply to roulette. You would have laughed to see him. He wrote out a whole bookful of numbers only he could understand. What a man! He was so worried he couldn’t sleep. He left the pharmacy unattended; sometimes when the light was already out in the bedroom and I was about to go to sleep, I would hear a loud thump on the floor: it was him — he’d leapt out of bed and was feverishly scribbling numbers as if afraid they might escape him … So he told you I’d given away my pearl necklace, did he? What a man! It was he who pawned it before our marriage … Well, as I was saying … last month he went to the Real Casino in San Carlos …”

“And he lost, of course …”

“No, he turned 700 pesos into 7,000. You should have seen the state he arrived in … not a word … I said to myself: ‘That’s it, he’s lost’ … but the remarkable thing is how scared he was at his own good luck … until then, he’d been quite sceptical about the combination …”

“Yes … I understand … he preferred to believe in it than to put it to the test.”

“That’s right, he was afraid of failing. But as I was saying … for several days he was in another world. I remember that once during our siesta he turned to me and said: ‘Well, my lady, it looks like you’ll have to get used to being Queen of the World.’”

“Exaggerating as usual.”

“I must confess that after his success, even I was tempted to believe in his combination. The first time around he’d strictly followed the numbers in it, so now he withdrew 3,000 pesos from my account to break the bank with, plus the other 6,500 — he’d used the rest to pay some debts from the pharmacy — and off we went to Montevideo. He lost every cent.”

“How long did it take?”

“Twenty minutes … I thought he was going to pass out on the way back … but, did he really tell you I had given my necklace to the maid? What a man!”

“It was probably to give me a good impression of you. What was the journey back like?”

“All right … he didn’t say a word. His eyes were glazed over though, and his face was terrible, all puffy and shapeless. As soon as we got back to Buenos Aires, he went to bed … that was a Monday. He stayed there till nightfall, then left the house … I don’t know why, but I knew deep down something was going to happen … he wasn’t back by ten o’clock, so I went to bed. At about one in the morning, I was awakened by his footsteps in the room. I was about to switch on the light when he leapt over towards me and grabbed my arm — you know how strong he is — pulled me out of bed in my night-dress, and dragged me along the corridors to the front door of the hotel.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t scream, because I knew that would only make him even angrier. In the hotel doorway he stood staring at me as if I was a total stranger, his forehead creased with pain, his eyes bulging. Outside, a high wind was whipping back the tree branches, and I was trying to protect myself with my arms, but he just stood there in silence staring at me, until a policeman came running up, and the hotel porter, who had been woken by the noise, leapt on him from behind. Then he started shouting, so loudly they could hear him at the corner of the street: ‘This is the Harlot … the one who loved thugs whose flesh is as that of asses.’”