Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen

What had happened was more unreal than anything written in a novel, but there he was, a man of flesh and blood. A man who did not know what to say. A minute earlier, he had owed 600 pesos and seven cents. Now he didn’t, and this marvel had been achieved by a single gesture from the Thug. According to everyday logic, what had just happened was impossible, and yet it had all seemed so perfectly natural. He wanted to say something. He took stock again of the man slumped in the threadbare velvet armchair. The revolver bulged under the grey jacket while Haffner nonchalantly leant his cheek on three glittering fingernails. He wanted to thank the Thug, but could not find the words to do so. The other man understood; he turned to the Astrologer, who had sat on a stool next to the desk, and said:

“So obedience will be one of the main pillars of your society?”

“And industry. We need gold to capture men’s imaginations. Just as in the past there were the mysticisms of religion and chivalry, so now we have to make industry mystical. To show people it’s just as noble to be in charge of a blast furnace as it was in the past to discover a continent. My politician, my political disciple in the society, will be someone who aims to conquer happiness through industry. This revolutionary will be as much at ease talking about a process for fabric design as about demagnetising steel. That’s why I thought so highly of Erdosain when I met him. His mind worked along the same lines as mine. You remember how often we talked about the way our ideas coincided? Creating a proud, fine, inexorable man who can dominate multitudes and show them a future based on science. How else can a social revolution come about? Today’s leader has to be a man who knows everything. And we shall forge this prince of wisdom. Our society will ensure it creates his legend and spreads it. A Ford or an Edison are a thousand times more likely to bring about a revolution than any politician. Do you think that dictatorships in the future will be military? No, sir. Soldiers are worth nothing compared to industrialists. They may be their tools, but nothing more. Nothing more. Our future dictators will be the kings of oil, steel, of wheat. And our society will prepare the ground for this. We’ll spread our theories everywhere. That’s why we need to study propaganda thoroughly. We have to use men and women students. We have to make science seem attractive, to familiarise people with it so that …”

“I’m leaving,” Erdosain said.

He was about to say goodbye to Haffner, when the Thug said:

“I’ll go with you.”

“In that case, I need a word with you.”

The Astrologer took him outside, while Erdosain waited. Then the two men came back in, and when Erdosain turned to look back from the gate to the house, he could see the gigantic figure of the Astrologer waving in a gesture of farewell.

After they had turned the street corner outside the house, Erdosain said: “I don’t know how to thank you for the tremendous favour you’ve done me. Why did you give me the money like that?”

Haffner, whose shoulders twitched nervously as he walked along, turned to him coldly and replied: “I’ve no idea. You caught me at a good moment. It’d be a different matter if one had to do it every day … but like this … and anyway, remember that I’ll get it back within the week …”

Erdosain could not help asking: “But how is it that with the fortune you have already, you’re still out there pimping?”

Angry, Haffner turned to face him, then said: “Look, pimping isn’t something anyone could do. And why should I leave three women who between them bring in 2,000 pesos a month in the lurch? Would you? No. Well then?”

“But don’t you care for them? Isn’t there anyone of them you’re particularly attracted to?” As soon as he had asked the question, Erdosain realised how stupid it was. The pimp stared at him for a moment, then retorted:

“Just listen to me. If a doctor came to me tomorrow and told me: your Basque girl is going to die in a week, whether you take her out of the brothel or not, I’d allow that girl, who’s brought me in 30,000 pesos over the past four years, to work for six days and croak on the seventh.”

The Thug’s voice had become harsh. There was a certain fierce bitterness to his words, the kind of bitterness that Erdosain would come to recognise in the voice of all the tight-lipped lowlifes, all the bored gangsters he was to meet.

“Pity?” the other man went on. “The last thing those whores need is pity. They’re tough, vindictive bitches, that’s what they are. Don’t be astonished, I know what I’m talking about. They only respond to a good beating. Like nine out of ten people, you think the pimp is the one who does the exploiting, and that the girl is the victim. But tell me this: why does a girl need all the money she earns? What the novelists don’t write is that a prostitute who hasn’t got a man is always searching desperately for someone who’ll deceive her, beat up on her from time to time and take all her money, because that’s how dumb they are. It’s been said women are men’s equals. Pure hogwash. Women are inferior to men. Just look at savage tribes. There it’s the women who cook, work and do everything, while the males go hunting or off to fight. It’s the same today. Apart from making money, men do nothing. And make no mistake, a whore will despise any man who doesn’t take her money. Oh yes, as soon as they feel soft on you, the first thing they want is to be asked for money … you can’t imagine how delighted they are the day you say: ‘ Ma chérie , could you lend me 100 pesos?’ It’s guaranteed to bowl her over, make her feel good. At last the filthy money she earns is going to a good cause, to making her man happy. Of course, no novelist has ever written that. So people reckon we’re monsters, or zoo animals, as we’re painted in cheap fiction. But if you come and live in our world and get to know it well, you’ll see it’s just the same as our bourgeoisie or our aristocracy. The kept woman looks down on the cabaret artiste, the artiste looks down on the streetwalker, the streetwalker looks down on the girl in a brothel, and what’s most surprising, the brothel girl nearly always chooses a real swine, while the cabaret artiste finds a daddy’s boy or a crooked doctor to run her. You want to know the psychology of a whore? A girl who a friend of mine had dropped put it in a nutshell when she told me in tears: ‘ Encore avec mon cul je peux soutenir un homme .’ Ordinary people and novelists don’t know that. But it’s all in a French proverb: ‘ Gueuse seule ne peut pas mener son cul. ’”

Erdosain stared at him dumbfounded. Haffner went on:

“Who looks after her like her pimp? Who takes care of her when she’s ill, or been picked up by the police? What do people know? If one Saturday morning you heard a whore say to her ponce: ‘ Mon chéri , I turned fifty more tricks than last week,’ you’d want to be a pimp too, wouldn’t you? Because she says that ‘fifty more tricks’ with just as much pride as an honest woman tells her husband: ‘Darling, this month I managed to save thirty pesos by not buying a new dress and by doing all the laundry myself.’ Take my word for it: women, honest or not, are creatures who like to sacrifice themselves. It’s the way they’re made. Why do you think the Fathers of the Church despised women so much? Most of them had lived in luxury off women, and knew what they were talking about. And whores are worse still. They’re like children: you have to tell them everything. ‘This is where you walk; don’t go past this corner; don’t give that mafioso the time of day. Don’t pick a fight with that woman.’ You have to teach them every single thing.”