Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen

“What about the two sisters?”

“The poor things do what they can … they sew … one of them looks after a friend’s hydrocephalic boy — his head is swollen as big as a melon.”

“How terrible!”

“What I don’t understand is how they came to accept all that. That’s why after I’d seen them in their hovel I was determined to give them some hope … and since I’m a good talker, I managed to convince them. Now they’re all enthusiastic about my copper rose.”

“What’s that?”

Erdosain explained his talents as an inventor. It had all started soon after his marriage, when he dreamt at night of discovering something that would make him rich. His imagination filled the night with extraordinary machines, huge blocks of machinery turning on their greased cogwheels …

“So you’re an inventor?”

“No … not any more … but it used to be important to me. I used to be hungry, terribly hungry for money … maybe I was crazy in a way I no longer am … when I mentioned the copper rose to the Espilas, it wasn’t because of the money I might make, but because I needed to offer them some hope; I needed to see with my own eyes how those two poor girls dreamt of silk dresses, of handsome boyfriends, of a car at the door of a mansion they would never own. And now I’m convinced they believe every word.”

“Have you always been this way?”

“No, only sometimes. Have you never felt the urge to perform works of charity? I can remember this other instance. I’m telling you this because you asked me what kind of soul I have. I remember now. It was a year ago. It was at two o’clock early one Saturday morning. I remember I was feeling sad and went into a brothel. The salon was full of people waiting their turn. All at once the bedroom door opened and the girl appeared … just picture it … she had the round face of a sixteen-year-old … bright blue eyes and a schoolgirl’s smile. She was wearing a green robe and was quite tall … but she had the face of a schoolgirl … She looked round, but it was too late … a ghastly negro with coal-black lips stood up, and so after giving the rest of us a look that offered a promise, she went sadly back inside while the madam glared at her.”

Erdosain paused for a moment and then, with a clearer, slower voice, went on:

“Waiting in a brothel like that fills you with shame, believe me. There’s nothing sadder than to be there, surrounded by pale faces trying to hide their dreadful lust beneath false, evasive smiles. And there’s something even more humiliating … it’s hard to say what it is … but time rushes through your ears, and you can’t help hearing a bed creaking inside, then a silence, and later, the sound of the washbasin … But before anyone else could sit in the black man’s seat, I got up and sat there. I waited with my heart pounding, and when the girl appeared in the doorway I stood up.”

“That’s how it always is … one after the other.”

“I stood up and went in. The door closed behind me; I left the money on the washstand, but when the girl started to open her robe, I took her by the arm and told her: ‘No, I haven’t come here to do that.’”

Erdosain’s voice had taken on a warm glow.

“She stared at me, and it was obvious she must be thinking I was some kind of pervert; but I looked at her with only pity in my eyes, believe me, and I said: ‘Look, I came in here because I felt sorry for you.’ By now we were sitting next to a dresser with a gilded mirror on it, and she was scrutinising my face. How I remember! As if it were happening right now. I said to her: ‘Yes, I felt sorry for you. I know you must earn two or three thousand pesos a month … and that there are families who would be delighted to live on what you splash out on shoes … I know that … but I felt sorry for you, so sorry, when I saw how you were destroying all that’s good in you.’ She stared at me silently, but there was no smell of wine on me. ‘So then I thought … as soon as that black guy came in, I thought I should leave you something nice … and the nicest thing I could think of leaving you was this … to come in but not to touch you … so that you’ll always remember my gesture.’ While I was talking, the girl’s robe fell open, revealing her breasts, and above her knee … all of a sudden, she saw in the mirror what had happened, and quickly smoothed the robe down over her knees and covered her chest. Her gesture had a strange effect on me … she was looking at me without saying a word … heaven knows what she was thinking … then the madam rapped on the door, she glanced towards it in dismay, and turned back to look at me … stared at me for a moment … stood up, took the five pesos and tried to stuff them back into my pocket. She said: ‘Don’t come here again, or I’ll have the doorman throw you out.’ Both of us were standing … I was about to leave by the other door, when I felt her put her arms round my neck … she was staring me in the face, and kissed me on the mouth … how can I possibly describe that kiss? … she drew her hand across my forehead and as I was stepping out of the door, called after me: ‘Good-bye, noble-hearted man.’”

“And you never went back?”

“No, but I still hope that one day I’ll meet her … who knows where … but I’m sure she, Lucienne, will never forget me. Time will go by, she’ll end up in the foulest brothels … turn into a monster … but I’ll always be with her just as I had hoped, as the most precious memory in her life.”

The rain was beating on the door-panes and on to the patio tiles. Erdosain was slowly sipping his maté. Hipólita stood up, went over to the door and stood looking out at the darkened yard. Then she turned back to him and said:

“You’re a strange man, d’you know that?”

Erdosain hesitated for a moment.

“I’ll be honest with you … I don’t know what’ll become of my life … but believe me, it was not in my power to be a good man. Dark forces pulled me away … dragged me down.”

“What now?”

“Now I’m trying an experiment. I met a genius of a man who’s firmly convinced that lies are the basis of human happiness, and I’ve decided to throw in my lot with him.”

“And does that make you happy?”

“No … for a long time now I’ve felt I can never be happy again.”

“But don’t you believe in love?”

“Don’t even mention that!” But then suddenly he realised what the point had been of all his confused attempts to explain, and said: “What would you think of me if tomorrow … or some day … if some day you learnt I had killed a man?”

Hipólita had sat down again. Leaning her head against the sofa back, she looked up at him slowly, that cold look of hers spreading once more from behind her red eyelashes. She said:

“I’d think you were a tremendously unhappy man.”

Erdosain got up from his chair, put away the burner, the maté tea and the gourd in the wardrobe drawer. Hipólita said: “Come here … lie at my feet.” He felt an enormous sweetness inside him. He sat on the carpet, leaning against her legs, and let his head drop into her lap. Hipólita closed her eyes.

He felt wonderful. He was curled up in her lap, and could feel the warmth of her body on his cheek through her dress. It all seemed so natural to him: just as he had always wished, life had become like the cinema; and it never occurred to him in the slightest that Hipólita, sitting stiffly on the sofa, was thinking how weak and sentimental he was … in the pauses of its movement, the ticking of the clock let fall a drop of sound that dripped like water into the room’s hollow silence. Hipólita said to herself:

“He’ll spend all his life whining and suffering. What good’s a man like that to me? I’d have to keep him. And I bet the copper rose is so much junk. What woman is going to want to wear heavy metal ornaments on her hat, especially if they turn black? That’s how all men are. The weak ones are intelligent but useless; the others are brutes and a bore. I’ve never found one capable of slashing all the others’ throats, or of becoming a dictator. They make me sick.”