Roberto Arlt - The Mad Toy

An enormous sadness passed over my life. I would always remember this moment.

‘If that’s how it is,’ the engineer babbled, and suddenly he got up with his bright eyes fixed on the knot in my tie, and he murmured as if in a dream: ‘You’ve said it. It’s like that. You obey this brutal law that you have within yourself. That’s how it is. That’s how it is. You obey the fierce law. That’s how it is; but who told you that this law exists? Where did you learn it?’

I replied:

‘It’s like there’s a world that will soon fall upon us.’

‘But did you ever imagine that one day you’d become like Judas?’

‘No, but I am calm now. I will go through life as if I were a dead man. I see life like that, like a great yellow desert.’

‘Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘Why? Life is so large. A moment ago it seemed to me that what I did was preordained ten thousand years ago; then I thought that the world split in two, that everything became a far purer colour and that mankind was not ruined.

A boyish smile appeared on Vitri’s face. He said:

‘Is that how it appears to you?’

‘Yes, that will happen one day… it will happen and people will go through the streets asking each other: “Is it right, is this true?”’

‘Tell me, have you ever been ill?’

I understood what he thought and I continued with a smile:

‘No… I know what you’re thinking… But listen to me… I’m not mad. There is a truth, yes… and it is that life will always be extraordinarily beautiful to me. I don’t know if people will sense the life-force as I sense it, but there is a joy in me, a sort of joy-filled unconsciousness.’ A sudden lucidity allowed me to see the motives behind my previous actions and I continued: ‘I’m not perverted, I am curious about this vast force that there is within me…’

‘Go on, go on.’

‘Everything takes me by surprise. Sometimes I feel that I only came to the earth an hour ago and that everything is new, fresh, beautiful. Then I would be able to embrace people in the street, to stop in the middle of the pavement to ask them: “Why do you walk with such sad faces? Life is beautiful, beautiful…” Don’t you think so?’

‘Yes…’

‘And knowing that life is beautiful makes me happy, because everything is filled with flowers… You want to go down on your knees and give thanks to God for allowing us to be born.’

‘And do you believe in God?’

‘I believe that God is the joy there is in life. If you only knew! Sometimes it seems to me that my soul is as large as Flores cathedral… and I want to laugh, to go out into the street and give people friendly punches…’

‘Go on…’

‘Aren’t you bored?’

‘No, go on.’

‘The thing is, that you can’t tell people these things. They think you’re mad. And I ask myself: what do I do with this life there is in me? And I would like to give it away… to give it as a present… to get close to people and tell them: “You have to be happy!” You get me? “You have to play at pirates… you have to build marble cities… you have to laugh… you have to make fireworks…”’

Arsenio Vitri stood up and said with a smile:

‘That’s all very well, but you have to work. How can I help you?’

I thought for a second, then said:

‘Look; I wanted to go to the South… to Neuquén… where there is ice and clouds… and tall mountains… I wanted to see the mountain…’

‘Perfect; I’ll help you get a job in Comodoro; but go now because I have to work. I’ll write to you soon… Oh! And don’t lose your joy; your joy is very beautiful…’

And his hand squeezed mine firmly. I tripped over a chair… and left.

The son of immigrant parents from Germany and Italy, Roberto Arlt was born in Buenos Aires on 2 April 1900.

Following a startlingly brief and difficult school education, Arlt tried to turn his hand to many different careers (from mechanic and painter to dockworker and member of the armed forces) before lighting on journalism. The fruits of his columns were his ‘Aguafuertes’ (Etchings) in which he documented everyday life in Buenos Aires and for which he is still best remembered and celebrated.

In 1926, Arlt published his first novel El juguete rabioso (The Mad Toy). He would go on to write a number of other novels as well as short stories and plays. In 1935, Arlt travelled through Spain and Africa as a correspondent, hoping that it would lead to a career as a North-American correspondent.

Arlt died in July 1942 following a stroke.

James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian and English Literature at university, and has lived in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Reykjavík. In 2008 he moved to Madrid with his wife, the Spanish writer Marian Womack, where they run Nevsky Prospects, a publishing house producing Spanish translations of Russian literature. He has published translations from Russian and Spanish. His first book of poems, Misprint , was published in 2012.

1. Jules Bonnot (1876–1912): French anarchist robber; André Valet (1890–1912): French anarchist robber, founder member of what came to be called the Bonnot Gang ( la Bande à Bonnot )

2. Yerba: plant used to make mate tea.

3. Orestes and Pylades: figures from Greek mythology, famous for their strong, possibly homoerotic, friendship.

4. In the original, the phrase is gallegos de mierda (‘Galician bastards’). Because of the extensive emigration to Argentina of Spaniards from the northwestern region of Galicia, gallego became used in Argentina to refer to anyone of Spanish extraction.

5. Cacus: in Graeco-Roman mythology, a cannibalistic fire-breathing giant and thief, killed by Hercules.

6. Cacaseno: a famous simpleton; protagonist of the story Cacaseno (1620) by Adriano Banchieri (1568–1634).

7. Tute : trick-taking card game, originally from Italy.

8. Montparnasse and Thénardier: criminal characters from the novel Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo (1802–85); ranún : slang for ‘a cunning person’, derived from rana , ‘frog’, and the Genoan diminutive — ún , which implies frivolity and mischief.

9. Bondi : tram. The term bondi comes into Argentinian Spanish via Brazilian Portuguese and, ultimately, via the English ‘bond’, referring to the bond issues which funded the public transport system.

10. Lacombe (18??–19??): French anarchist robber, arrested in 1913.

11. Misquotation of lines 1–2 and 7–8 from an untitled poem (poem 22 in the first edition) from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal (1857). The original French runs as follows: ‘Je t’adore à l’égal de la voûte nocturne, / O vase de tristesse, ô grande taciturne […] Je m’avance à l’attaque, et je grimpe aux assauts, / Comme après un cadavre un choeur de vermisseaux’.

12. Voglio dire: more or less, ‘I’m telling you’ (Italian).

13. The word Arlt uses, bulín , is a slang term that implies a room used for sexual activity.

14. Lyda Borelli (1884–1959): Italian film and theatre actress, star of films such as La donna nuda (1914).

15. Trophonius: in Greek mythology, a famous architect, one of the designers, along with his brother Agamedes, of the cavern where King Hyrieus kept his treasure.

16. Dardo Rocha (1838–1921): Argentinian statesman and naval officer, founder of the city of La Plata.

17. Pejerrey: Pacific fish, similar to mackerel.

18. Estate buono : ‘Calm down’ (lit. ‘Be good’, Italian).