The Seven Madmen

by Roberto Arlt

  So when he stole the first twenty pesos, he was surprised how easily he could "do it," since before he got started he had thought he would have to overcome any number of scruples which he was no longer in a condition to feel. Then he reflected:

  "It's just a matter of working up one's will and doing it, simple as that."

  And "it" made life a little easier, with "it" he had money that felt alien, since it was acquired through no effort of his own. And the amazing thing for Erdosain was not the thievery itself, but that his face should show no sign of his crime. He was forced to steal because his monthly pay was so meager. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty pesos, since it depended on how much he collected; he was paid a commission per hundred pesos of bills he collected.

  So, some days he carried four to five thousand pesos on his undernourished person and made do with a stinking, fake leather billfold, inside of which happiness piled up in the form of paper money, checks, money orders, and vouchers.

  His wife nagged about the way she was always deprived of this or that; he would hear out her reproaches in silence and later, alone, he would wonder:

  "What can I do?"

  When he got the idea, when that idea started to grow, how he might steal from his bosses, he felt like an inventor yelling eureka. Steal? But how come he had only thought of it now?

  And Erdosain was amazed by his own oversight, even accusing himself of lacking drive, since in those days (three months before the events of this story), he was painfully deprived of all kinds of necessary things, although vast sums of money streamed through his hands every day.

  And what made his thievery so easy was the lax way the Sugar Company kept its books.

  Terror in the Street

  His life was most certainly strange, because sometimes hope welled up inside him and drove him out into the street.

  Then he would get on a bus and ride to some ritzy neighborhood like Palermo or Belgrano. He would wander, lost in thought, down quiet avenues, saying to himself:

  "Some young creature will spot me, a tall, pale, high-strung young girl, driving aimlessly around in her Rolls-Royce. Suddenly she spots me and knows I will be the one love of her life, and those eyes, that withered foolish suitors, will come to rest on me and will fill with sudden tears."

  The dream pried loose from its framework of nonsense and slid slowly down into the shade of the tall facades and the green plantain trees that cast their shadows in triangular shapes on the white tiling below.

  "She will be a millionairess, but I will tell her, 'Senorita, I cannot touch you. Even should you offer yourself to me, I would not take you.' She will look at me in surprise, then I will say, 'It's no use, do you understand? It's no use, I am married.' But she will pay Elsa a fortune to divorce me, and then we will marry and sail off to Brazil on her yacht."

  And the bare simplicity of his dream took on rich nuances at the word "Brazil," which, hot and fervid, summoned up a pink and white coast, jutting and jettying out at points into the tender blue sea. Now his lady had lost her tragic air and was—under the white silk of her simple schoolgirl dress—a smiling creature, simultaneously timid and daring.

  And Erdosain thought:

  "We will never have sex. To make our love last forever, we will deny our desires, and I will never kiss her mouth, only her hand."

  He pictured this happiness which would purify his life, if such an impossible dream could happen. But it would be easier to make the earth stand still than turn his crazy dream into reality.

  Then he would mutter, discomfited by a vague sense of ill-being:

  "So then, I'll be a pimp." And all at once a terror greater than any other undid the fabric of his thoughts. He felt his soul being bled dry out of every furrow, like a creature pressed in a vise. With his powers of reason paralyzed, he ran off in search of a brothel. Then he knew the full terror of the thief, luminous terror like a sunny day smashing against a convex salt flat.

  He abandoned himself to the impulses that twist a man who finds himself facing jail for the first time, blind forces that impel some wretch to stake his life on a card or a woman. Perhaps seeking in that card or woman a sour, harsh consolation, perhaps seeking in the vilest, lowest depths a certain affirmation of purity that might once and forever save him.

  And in the warmth of the siesta hour, he wandered the sidewalks, whose tiles baked in the yellow sun, seeking the filthiest of whorehouses.

  He liked best the one where he saw orange peels and trickles of ash in the doorway and the windows were lined with red or green flannel and armored with chicken wire.

  He would enter, plunged deep into darkest despair. In the courtyard, under the checkered blue sky, there was usually a bench painted ocher, onto which he would wilt, exhausted, enduring the icy stare of the madam while he waited for one of her girls to show up, inevitably either horrendously thin or horrendously fat.

  And the prostitute yelled from the half-open bedroom door, where a man could be heard getting dressed again:

  "Ready, love?" and Erdosain went into the other bedroom, his ears buzzing and smoke churning in front of his eyes.

  Later he lay back on the bed, varnished a liver-like color, on top of the shoe-grimed covers which protected the mattress.

  Suddenly he felt like crying, like asking that horrible pig of a woman what love was, the angelic love that celestial choruses sang at the foot of the throne of the living God, but anguish formed a plug in his larynx and his stomach was a clenched fist of disgust.

  And as the prostitute let his hand wander over her clothes, Erdosain wondered:

  "What have I done with my life?" A ray of sun bounced off the cobweb-covered transom, and the prostitute, with one cheek against the pillow and one leg resting on his, slowly moved his hand for him while he thought sadly: "What have I made of my life?" Suddenly remorse darkened his soul, he thought of his wife who, in her poverty, had to do laundry although she was sick, and then, filled with self-loathing, he leaped out of bed, paid the girl, and without having taken her, ran off to a new hell to spend the money that was not rightfully his, to descend still farther into his ever-howling madness.

  A Strange Man

  At ten that morning Erdosain arrived at the corner of Peru and Avenida de Mayo. He knew he was doomed to jail, for Barsut would never give him the money. All at once he got a surprise.

  At a café table was the pharmacist Ergueta.

  With his hat down to his ears and his hands touching thumbs across his vast expanse of belly, he sat nodding with a puffed-up, sour expression on his yellow face.

  His glassy, protruding, toad eyes, his great hook nose, his flaccid cheeks, and pendulous lower lip all combined to make him look like a cretin.

  His great hulking body inhabited a cinnamon-brown suit, and from time to time he would bend over and rest his teeth on the pommel of his cane.

  That disgusting habit and his churlish, bored expression made him resemble a white slaver. He suddenly caught sight of Erdosain walking toward him, and the pharmacist's face lit up with an infantile grin. He was still smiling as he stretched out his hand to Erdosain, who thought:

  "How many women have loved him for just that smile."

  Erdosain was unable to hold back the question:

  "So did you and Hipólita get married?"

  "Right, only when they found out at home all hell broke loose."

  "What—they knew she was a prostitute?"

  "No ... but she told them that afterward. You know before Hipólita was a prostitute she had been a servant?"

  "So?"

  "Right after we got married, Mama, Hipólita, me, and my sister all went to visit a family. You know how some people remember things? Ten years later they recognized Hipólita who had been their servant. That really put us on the spot. Mama and Juana versus me and Hipólita. It destroyed the cover story I had worked up to make Hipólita seem all right to marry."

  "But why did she tell them she had been a prostitute?"

  "She was fu
rious. But, wasn't she right? Hadn't she gone straight? Couldn't she live in peace with me, something they'd never managed to do?"

  "So how's it going?"

  "Pretty well. The pharmacy brings in seventy pesos a day. In all of Pico nobody knows the Bible like me. I challenged the priest to a debate and he wouldn't take me up on it."

  Erdosain looked at his strange friend with sudden hope. Then he asked:

  "You still gamble?"

  "Yes, because of my innocence, Jesus has seen fit to reveal to me the secret of roulette."

  "What is it?"

  "You don't know—the great secret—a law of static synchronism—I used it twice in Montevideo already and won a lot of money, but tonight Hipólita and I are going to break the bank."

  And all at once he launched into an involved explanation:

  "Look, in theory you play X amount on the first three balls, one out of each dozen. If you don't get different dozens, then, automatically, the whole thing is off balance. So you keep track of the dozen that come out. For the three balls after that, the dozen you're keeping your eye on will stay the same. Of course the zero doesn't count and you play your dozens in series of three balls. So then you raise by one the amount you have riding on the dozen without a cross, you go down one, I mean, two units on the dozen with three crosses, and on the basis of that you figure the unit smaller than those bigger ones and play the difference on the dozen or dozens that come out of that move."

  Erdosain had not understood. He suppressed a laugh as his hope grew, for there was no denying that Ergueta was mad. So he replied:

  "Jesus knows how to reveal such secrets to those whose souls are full of light."

  "And also to idiots," argued Ergueta, looking at him mockingly and winking with his left eye. "Since I've gotten into these mysteries, I've done some hair-raising things, for instance, marrying that dummy."

  "And are you happy with her?"

  "... to believe that people are good, when everyone is out to get you, to label you as crazy ..."

  Erdosain frowned in impatience, then: "Why shouldn't they think you're crazy? You were, as you yourself put it, a great sinner. Then suddenly you hear some divine call, you marry a prostitute because it is written in the Bible, you talk about the fourth seal and the pale horse—sure, people are going to think you're crazy because you don't know anything at all about these things. Didn't they call me crazy, too, because I said they should set up shops to dry-clean and dye dogs and metallize shirtcuffs? But I don't think you're mad. No, I don't think so. Your problem is you have too much life, love, and neighborly feeling. Now, about Jesus revealing to you the secret of roulette, that's going a bit far—"

  "But both times I won five thousand pesos—"

  "So what? What saves you isn't the secret of roulette, but the beautiful soul that you have. You're someone who can do good, have mercy on some poor wretch about to go to jail..."

  "That's the truth," Ergueta interrupted. "And look, there's another pharmacist in town who's an old miser. His son stole five thousand pesos from him, and later the son came to me for advice. You know what I told him to do? To blackmail his father saying he'd send him to jail for selling cocaine if he tried to report the crime."

  "See how I understand you? You want to save the old man's soul by making the son commit a sin, a sin which he'll repent his whole life long. Isn't that it?"

  "Yes, in the Bible it is written: 'And the father shall rise up against the son, and the son against the father.' "

  "See? I understand you. I don't know what future fate awaits you—the destiny of man is always uncertain. But I believe a magnificent road stretches before you. You know? A strange road ..."

  "I shall be King of the World. Can't you see it? I will win at every roulette wheel, all the money I could want. I will journey to Palestine, to Jerusalem, and rebuild the great temple of Solomon—"

  "And save many good people from misery. How many are there who, from dire need, steal from their bosses, take the money that is given into their keeping? You know? Wretchedness—a wretched man doesn't know what he's doing—Today he robs one peso, tomorrow five, the next day twenty, and before he knows it he owes hundreds of pesos. And so the man thinks, 'It's not much ...' and suddenly it's five hundred that's disappeared, no, six hundred pesos and seven cents. You see? Those are the people who must be saved—the wretches." The pharmacist thought a minute. A somber expression came over his puffy face; then he agreed coolly: "You're right—the world is full of stupid wretches, but what is to be done? That's what worries me. How can we share the sacred truths with those of little faith?"

  "But if what people need is money—not sacred truths."

  "No, that's what happens when man will not heed the word of God. A man who bears within him the sacred truths doesn't rob his boss, defraud his company, get himself into a spot where he could go to jail overnight."

  Then he scratched his nose pensively and continued, "Besides, who's to say it's not all for the best? Who will make social revolution, if not the embezzlers, the wretches, murderers, swindlers, all those low-life types shoved down to the bottom with no way out? Or do you think revolution will come from shopkeepers and journalists?"

  "Okay, okay—but, while we wait for the revolution, what is that poor man supposed to do? Me, what do I do?"

  And grabbing Ergueta's arm, Erdosain burst out:

  "Because I am that close to jail. See? I stole six hundred pesos and seven cents."

  The pharmacist winked slowly at Erdosain and then said:

  "Don't be upset. The times of tribulation spoken of in the Scriptures have come. Didn't I marry the Lame Whore? Has the son not risen up against the father, and the father against the son? The revolution is even closer than we would like to think. Are you not the thief and the wolf who ravages the flock?"

  "But, tell me, can't you lend me those six hundred pesos?"

  Ergueta shook his head slowly.

  "You think because I read the Bible I'm stupid?"

  Erdosain looked at him in desperation.

  "I swear, that's what I owe."

  All at once something unexpected happened.

  The pharmacist got up, reached out one arm and snapping his fingers exclaimed, to the astonishment of a nearby waiter:

  "Beat it, you creep."

  Erdosain, red-faced, crept off. When he got to the corner and looked back, he saw Ergueta gesticulating as he talked to the waiter.

  Hatred

  His life was bleeding away. All of his pain was unraveling and flooding out toward the horizon, barely visible through the maze of cables and wheels of the trolley cars, and suddenly he had the feeling that he was treading on his own anguish, which lay beneath his feet. Like a horse with its guts torn out by a bull, mucking around in its own viscera, every step he took drained his lungs of their lifeblood. He breathed slowly and despaired of ever making it. Making it to where? In all truth, he did not know.

  In Piedras Street he sat down in the entryway of a vacant house. He stayed for several minutes, then began to walk rapidly; sweat ran down his face as though it were a hot day.

  Thus he got to the corner of Cerrito and Lavalle.

  Reaching into his pocket, he found a fistful of paper money and then went into the Japanese Bar. Cabbies and thugs were gathered around the tables.

  A black with a wing collar and rough black sandals was delousing his armpits, and three Polish pimps, with heavy gold rings on their fingers, spoke in their private language of brothels and madams. In another corner several cabdrivers were playing cards. The black man who was delousing himself peered all around, as though seeking approval for his labors, but no one paid any attention to him.

  Erdosain ordered coffee, leaned his forehead against his hand, and sat peering into the surface of the counter.

  "Where can I get those six hundred pesos?"

  Then he thought of Gregorio Barsut, his wife's cousin.

  He stopped caring that Ergueta had told him to get lost. Now he could
see before his eyes the taciturn figure of this other man, of Gregorio Barsut, with his shaven head, his bony nose like a bird of prey, his greenish eyes, and pointy wolf ears. He would ask him for money again tonight. Surely at nine-thirty he would come to Erdosain's home as usual. And again he would see the man. He would already be amassing an endless conversation full of vague excuses for coming to see him, torrents of words that stupefied Erdosain like tons of sand rolling over him.

  Because now he remembered Barsut's interminable talk, leaping with feverish versatility from one topic to the next with his perverse eyes on Erdosain, who sat dry-mouthed and trembling, not daring to throw the man out of his house.

  And Gregorio Barsut must have been aware how deeply he revolted Erdosain because more than once he said:

  "You don't much care for my conversation, do you?" which never kept Barsut from coming over to his house with wearisome frequency.

  Erdosain was quick to deny it, and tried to look interested in the man's ramblings, as he went on for hours and hours, aimlessly, always keeping an eye on the southwest corner of the room. What was he hoping to find there? Erdosain would try to feel better about these unpleasant conversations by thinking that the poor man must live wracked with envy and certain hellish sufferings which were completely unjustifiable.

  One night Gregorio said, in front of Erdosain's wife, who was rarely on hand for these conversations, staying in the other room with the door closed to avoid hearing the voices:

  "How extraordinary it would be if I should go mad and shoot you two dead, then kill myself!"

  His slanted eyes were fixed on the southwest corner of the room, and he smiled with a flash of pointy teeth, as if what he had just said were only a joke. But Elsa looked at him dead serious and said:

  "That's the last time you talk like that in my house. Otherwise, don't come around."

  Gregorio tried to apologize. But she walked out and didn't appear again all evening.

  The two men went on talking, though Barsut was ashen and his narrow forehead was continually going into spasms, and he kept running his hand over his bristly bronze hair.