Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen

Erdosain smiled: “That’s amazing!”

“I spent my first month’s wages on buying books to try to find out. That was a mistake, because almost all of them were stupid, pornographic books … they weren’t about selling yourself, but the sadness of pleasure … And, believe it or not, none of my friends could explain to me properly what it meant.”

“Go on … I’m not surprised that Ergueta fell in love with you. You are an extraordinary woman.”

Hipólita blushed with pleasure.

“Don’t exaggerate … I have common sense, that’s all.”

“Tell me more, delicious creature.”

“What a child you are! Well then …” — Hipólita pulled the lapels of her coat across her chest, and went on — “I was working the whole day as before, but the work seemed increasingly strange to me … I mean that while I was scrubbing or making a bed, my thoughts were far away, or buried so deep inside that sometimes I got the feeling that if they got any bigger they would burst through my skin. But still I couldn’t solve my problem. I wrote to a bookshop asking if they could sell me a manual on how a woman should sell herself, but I had no reply. Then one day I decided to see a lawyer about it. I went to the court district, and looked at plaque after plaque until finally I came to Juncal, where I stopped in front of a fine building. I talked to the doorman, and he took me up to see a qualified lawyer. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. He was a thin, serious-looking man who looked like a wicked bandit, but he had the smile of a little kid. Thinking it over afterwards, I decided he must be someone who suffered a lot.”

She sipped the maté, then gave him back the gourd, and said:

“It’s so hot in here! Couldn’t you open the door?”

Erdosain half-opened one side of it. It was still raining. Hipólita went on:

“I didn’t hesitate, but told him straight out: ‘I’ve come to see you because I want to know how a woman goes about prostituting herself.’ He sat staring at me in amazement. After a few moments, he asked: ‘For what reason do you wish to know this?’ I calmly explained my reasons, and he listened carefully, frowning and pondering on what I was saying. Eventually he said: ‘For a woman, selling her body means to engage in sexual acts without love and for money.’ ‘You mean,’ I replied, ‘that by selling your body you can free yourself from it … you can be free.’”

“That’s what you told him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so remarkable!”

“Why?”

“And then?”

“I left his office almost without a word of goodbye. I was happier than I had ever been before. To sell your body, Erdosain, that meant freeing yourself of it, having your mind and will free to achieve whatever you wanted. I felt so happy that when a nice-looking young guy came past and propositioned me, I went with him.”

“And then?”

“I got such a surprise! Once the man … I’ve already told you he was a good-looking young fellow … once he had had his fill, he collapsed like a pole-axed steer. At first I thought he must have been taken ill — I never imagined anything like that. But once he’d explained to me it was natural in men, I couldn’t stop myself laughing. So men, who seem as strong as bulls … well! D’you remember that story about the thief in a room full of gold? At that moment I, the maid, was the thief in the room full of gold. I realised the world was mine … afterwards, before I became a real prostitute, I decided to study everything about it … yes, don’t look so surprised, I read all I could get my hands on … from all the novels I read, I came to the conclusion that men thought educated women had extraordinary powers of love … I don’t know if I’m making sense … what I mean is that culture was simply a veneer to increase the value of the goods for sale.”

“Did you ever enjoy being possessed?”

“No, but to return to what I was saying: I read everything.”

Erdosain felt a wave of sympathy for her uncompromising attitude, and said softly: “Would you give me your hand?” She did so, gravely. He took it gently, and raised it to his lips. She stared at him in silence, but Remo suddenly remembered the chained-up prisoner, who by now must be awake in the stables. This image could not dispel the gentle sweetness lulling his senses, and he said:

“Look, if you … if you were to ask me to kill myself here and now, I’d do it with pleasure.”

She stared at him through her red eyelashes.

“I’m being serious. Tomorrow … today … it’s better … ask me to kill myself … tell me, don’t you think it’s better if certain people just cease to exist?”

“No, that isn’t right.”

“Even though they become criminals?”

“Who can judge another person?”

“Then there’s no more to be said.”

He drank the maté in silence as before. Erdosain suddenly saw how sweet many things could be. He stared at her, then said:

“What an extraordinary creature you are!”

She smiled with pleasure, and his soul rejoiced.

“Shall I make some more?”

“Yes.”

Hipólita stared at him solemn-eyed.

“Where did you get that soul of yours?”

Erdosain was about to tell her of all he had suffered, but a sense of shame held him back. Instead, he said:

“I don’t know … I’ve often thought about purity … I would have liked to be a pure man …” — then, warming to his words — “I’ve often felt sad at not being one. Why? I’ve no idea. But can you picture a man with a spotless soul falling in love for the first time? And for everyone to be the same? Can you imagine how great the love must be between a pure woman and a pure man? Before they gave themselves to one another, they would kill themselves … or rather, she would give herself to him … and then the two would commit suicide, knowing it was pointless to live without hope.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“And yet it does happen. Haven’t you seen how many shopkeepers and seamstresses commit suicide together? They are in love … but cannot marry … they go to a hotel … she gives herself to him, then they kill themselves.”

“Yes, but they do it without knowing what they’re doing.”

“Maybe.”

“Where did you eat last night?”

Erdosain told her about the Espila family, explaining how they had fallen into abject poverty.

“Why don’t they work?”

“How are they supposed to? They’re always looking for work, but there is none. That’s the worst of it. It seems to me that misery has destroyed their will to live. Eustaquio — he’s the deaf one — has a great talent for mathematics … he can do infinitesimal calculus; and yet it’s no use to him. He also knows ‘Don Quixote’ by heart … although there is something not quite right about him … I’ll just give you one example: when he was sixteen they sent him to buy some maté tea and instead of going to a grocer’s store he went to a chemist’s. After a lot of arguing, he said it was because maté is a medicinal herb … he’d studied it in botany.”

“You mean he has no common sense.”

“That’s right. And he’s also a serious gambler … and he’s capable of going without his supper just to solve a riddle. Whenever he has a few cents he goes down to the shops and stuffs himself with cakes.”

“He sounds weird!”

“Emilio, though, is a good sort. He’s convinced … he told me so himself … that their strange lack of will is because of hereditary reasons, and that thought dominates his life — he moves about as slowly as a tortoise. He can take two hours to get dressed: it’s as if everything he does throws him into a state of total indecision.”