The Seven Madmen 1732 Studios

Spanish · Part Two

Dos almas

Two Souls

335 sentences · 148 notes

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  1. 1

    At two in the morning Erdosain was still wandering between walls of wind, through the downtown streets, in search of a brothel.

    AAta · prepositionpreposition marking dos
    lastheel · determiner, feminine, pluraldeterminer of dos
    dostwodos · numeral, pluraloblique complement of andaba
    deinde · prepositionpreposition marking madrugada
    latheel · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of madrugada
    madrugadamorningmadrugada · noun, feminine, singularmodifies dos
    aunstillaun · adverbmodifies andaba
    andabawas wanderingandar · verb, imperfect, indicative, third-person, singularmain verb of the sentence
    ErdosainErdosainErdosain · proper nounsubject of andaba
    entrebetweenentre · prepositionpreposition marking murallas
    murallaswallsmuralla · noun, feminine, pluralobject of preposition entre (oblique complement of andaba)
    deofde · prepositionpreposition marking viento
    vientowindviento · noun, masculine, singularmodifies murallas
    porthroughpor · prepositionpreposition marking calles
    lastheel · determiner, feminine, pluraldeterminer of calles
    callesstreetscalle · noun, feminine, pluralobject of preposition por (oblique complement of andaba)
    delof thedel · prepositionpreposition marking centro
    centrodowntowncentro · noun, masculine, singularmodifies calles
    eninen · prepositionpreposition marking busca
    buscasearchbusca · noun, feminine, singularobject of preposition en (oblique complement of andaba); part of the idiom en busca de
    deofde · prepositionpreposition marking lenocinio
    unauno · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of lenocinio
    lenociniobrothellenocinio · noun, masculine, singularobject of preposition de (modifies busca)

    'Lenocinio' is a formal/legal term for a brothel.

  2. 2

    A dull murmur panted in his ears, but following the frenzy of instinct he walked in the shadow that the tall façades threw down to the pavement.

  3. A horrible sadness was inside him.

  4. At that moment he had no bearings.

  5. 3

    Sleepwalking, he marched on, his eyes fixed on the nickel-plated spikes that, on the policemen's helmets, were set gleaming at the street corners by the cylinders of light falling from the arc lamps... An extraordinary impulse flung his body forward in long strides... So he came up Plaza Mayo, and now, along Cangallo, he was leaving the Once station behind him.

  6. 4

    A horrible sadness was inside him.

  7. 5

    His thought, fixed on a single fact, kept repeating:

  8. 6

    "It's no use, I'm a murderer" — but suddenly, when the red or yellow cube of a brothel's entryway appeared, he would stop, hesitate a moment bathed in the reddish or yellowish haze, then, telling himself "It will be at another one," he would go on his way.

  9. 7

    Silent, at his side, an automobile rolled past into its swift vanishing, and Erdosain thought of the happiness he would never have and of his lost youth, and his shadow ran ahead quickly over the paving stones, then lost length, and, beginning trampled underfoot, leapt onto his back or swayed across the shining grate of a drain... But his anguish grew heavier at every instant, as if it were a mass of water, wearying with a tide the uprightness of his limbs.

  10. In spite of this, Erdosain imagined that, by the grace of some providence of his own, he had entered a singular brothel.

  11. 8

    The madam would open the bedroom door for him, he would throw himself fully dressed onto the bed... in a corner the water in a pot boiled over a kerosene burner... suddenly the half-naked girl would come in... and stopping, astonished at a reason only he and she knew, the whore would exclaim:

  12. 9

    "Ah! Is it you?... You!... You came at last!..."

  13. 10

    Erdosain would answer her:

  14. 11

    "Yes, it's me... Ah, if you only knew how I have searched for you!"

  15. 12

    But since it was impossible for this to happen, his sadness bounced back like a lead ball off a rubber wall.

  16. And he knew well that always his longing to be suddenly pitied by an unknown whore would be, as the days unfolded, as useless as that ball for boring through the thick mass of life.

  17. Again he repeated to himself:

  18. 13

    "Ah! Is it you? You... Ah! You came at last, my sad love..." — but it was all useless, he would never find that woman, and a pitiless energy, born of despair, swelled his muscles, spread through the seventy kilos of his bulk, moving it nimbly through the darkness, while in the cube of his chest an enormous sadness made the beats of his heart go heavy.

  19. 14

    Suddenly he found himself before the great door of the boardinghouse where he lived; then he resolved to go in.

  20. His heart beat impatiently.

  21. 15

    On tiptoe he crossed the gallery and, drawing near the door of his room, opened it stealthily.

  22. Then, with his hands stretched out in the darkness, he went toward the corner where the sofa was and slowly curled up there, taking care the springs should not creak.

  23. Later he could find no explanation for this behavior.

  24. He stretched his legs out on the sofa and for a few minutes remained with the back of his neck resting on his interlaced hands.

  25. And there was more darkness in his soul than in that moment of gloom, which would turn into a wallpapered cube if he lit the lamp.

  26. He wanted to fix his thought on something objective, which proved impossible for him.

  27. This caused him a certain childish fear; for a few moments he strained his attention to the utmost, but no sound reached him, and then he closed his eyes.

  28. His heart labored with hoarse blows, driving the mass of his blood, and a coldness like water made the hair on his back stand on end.

  29. 16

    With his eyelids stiff and his body rigid, he awaited some event.

  30. Suddenly he understood that if he stayed in that position he would scream with fear, and drawing in his heels, his legs crossed like a Buddha, he waited in the darkness.

  31. His self-annihilation was intense, but he could call no one, nor could he weep.

  32. And yet it was no good going on like this all night, crouched down.

  33. 17

    He lit a cigarette, and a great chill froze him still.

  34. 18

    The Lame Woman was standing beside the edge of the folding screen, studying him with her venomous cold gaze.

  35. Her hair, parted into two smooth bands, covered her ears with its red wings, and the woman's lips were pressed tight.

  36. Everything about her betrayed an excess of attention, but Erdosain was afraid.

  37. At last he managed to say:

  38. 19

    "You!"

  39. 20

    The match was burning his fingernails... and suddenly an impulse stronger than his shyness pulled him to his feet.

  40. In the darkness he walked toward her, and said:

  41. 21

    "You?... Weren't you sleeping?"

  42. 22

    He felt her stretch out her arm; the woman's hand took his chin between its fingers, and Hipólita said in a deep voice:

  43. 23

    "What's wrong, that you're not sleeping?"

  44. 24

    "Are you caressing me, señora?"

  45. 25

    "Why aren't you sleeping?"

  46. 26

    "You're touching me?... But how cold your hand is!... Why is your hand so cold?"

  47. 27

    "Light the lamp."

  48. 28

    Under the vertical light, Erdosain stood gazing at her.

  49. She sat down on the sofa.

  50. 29

    Erdosain murmured timidly:

  51. 30

    "Would you like me to sit beside you?"

  52. I couldn't sleep.

  53. 31

    Hipólita made room for him, and beside the intruder Erdosain could not hold back the force that lifted his hands, and with his fingertips he stroked her forehead.

  54. 32

    "Why are you like this?" he asked her.

  55. 33

    The woman looked at him, serene.

  56. 34

    Erdosain gazed at her a moment in mute desperation; and at last he took up her slender hand.

  57. He was about to raise it to his lips, but a strange force struck against his feeling, and sobbing he collapsed onto the woman's lap.

  58. 35

    He wept convulsively in the shadow of the intruder, upright, and of her gaze fixed on the shaking of his head.

  59. He wept blindly, his life wrung by a hoarse fury, holding back cries whose unfinished tearings renewed his horrible pain, and suffering welled up from him inexhaustibly, he was flooded with more grief, a grief that rose in sobs into his throat.

  60. So he agonized for several minutes, biting his handkerchief to keep from screaming, while her silence was a softness on which his exhausted spirit leaned back.

  61. Then the screaming suffering wore itself out; tears in his chest, and he found comfort in lying fallen like this, his cheeks wet, on the lap of a woman.

  62. An enormous weariness weighed him down, the figure of his distant wife ended by fading from the surface of his grief, and while he stayed like this, a twilight calm came to resign him to all the disasters that had been prepared.

  63. 36

    He lifted his reddened face, streaked by the folds of the cloth and damp with tears.

  64. 37

    She looked at him, serene.

  65. 38

    "Are you sad?" she asked.

  66. 39

    "Yes."

  67. 40

    Then they fell silent, and a violet flash of lightning lit up the recesses of the dark courtyard.

  68. It was raining.

  69. 41

    "Would you like us to drink mate?"

  70. 42

    "Yes."

  71. 43

    In silence he prepared the water.

  72. She gazed absently at the panes where the rain drummed, while Erdosain got the yerba ready.

  73. Then, smiling through the tears, she said:

  74. 44

    "I'll prepare it my own way."

  75. "You'll like it."

  76. 45

    "Why were you sad?"

  77. 46

    "I don't know... the anguish... it's been a long time since I've lived in peace."

  78. 47

    Now she drank the mate in silence, and in the room with its wallpaper peeling in one corner, the figure of the woman grew more perfect, wrapped in her nutria coat, her red hair combed into two bands that covered the tips of her ears.

  79. 48

    With a childish smile, Erdosain added:

  80. 49

    "When I'm alone... sometimes I'm in the habit of drinking it."

  81. 50

    She smiled amiably, one leg crossed over the other, her back slightly inclined, an elbow resting in the palm of her hand and the fingers of the other holding the mate, whose nickel-plated straw she sipped slowly.

  82. 51

    "Yes, I was distressed," Erdosain repeated, "but how cold your hands are!... Are they always this cold?"

  83. 52

    "Yes."

  84. 53

    "Will you give me your hand?"

  85. 54

    The intruder straightened her back and, almost regally, held it out to him.

  86. Erdosain took it cautiously and raised it to his lips, and she looked at him a long while, the coldness of her eyes melted in a sudden warmth that flushed her cheeks.

  87. Then Erdosain remembered the chained man, and without this being able to overcome the pale joy that was in him, he said:

  88. 55

    "Look... if you were to ask me right now to kill myself, I'd do it."

  89. That's how happy I am.

  90. The warmth that an instant before had convulsed the waters of her eyes was lost again in the coldness of her gaze.

  91. The woman examined him, her curiosity roused.

  92. 56

    "I'm telling you seriously."

  93. "I mean it... it's better... ask me to kill myself... tell me, don't you think certain people would do better to go away?"

  94. 57

    "No."

  95. 58

    "Even if they do the worst thing?"

  96. 59

    "That's in the hands of God."

  97. 60

    "Then it's not worth our talking about that."

  98. 61

    Again they drank the mate in silence, a silence that fell so that he could enjoy the spectacle of the red-haired woman, wrapped in her nutria coat, her transparent hands gathering her knee over the green silk dress.

  99. 62

    And suddenly, unable to contain his curiosity, he exclaimed:

  100. 63

    "Is it true that you were a servant?"

  101. 64

    "Yes... what's so strange about that?"

  102. 65

    "How strange!"

  103. 66

    "Why?"

  104. 67

    "Yes, it's strange."

  105. "Sometimes it seems to me that I'm going to find in another life what is missing in mine."

  106. "And it occurs to one that there are people who have discovered the secret of happiness... and that if they tell us a secret we too will be happy." — "My life, however, is no secret at all."

  107. 68

    "But have you never felt the strangeness of being alive?"

  108. 69

    "Yes, that I have."

  109. 70

    "Tell me."

  110. 71

    "It was when I was a young girl."

  111. "I worked in a lovely house on Avenida Alvear."

  112. "There were three young ladies and four servants."

  113. "And I would wake in the morning and could not quite convince myself that it was I who moved among that furniture which did not belong to me and those people who only spoke to me so that I would serve them."

  114. "And at moments it seemed to me that the others were firmly nailed into life, and into their homes, while I had the sensation of being loose, barely tied to life by a little cord."

  115. "And the voices of the others sounded in my ears like when you're asleep and don't know whether you're dreaming or awake."

  116. 72

    "It must be sad."

  117. 73

    "Yes, it's very sad to see the others happy and to see that the others don't understand that one will be wretched for the whole of one's life."

  118. "I remember that at siesta time I would go into my little room and, instead of mending my clothes, I would think: will I be a servant my whole life?"

  119. "And it was no longer the work that wore me out, but my thoughts."

  120. "Haven't you noticed how stubborn sad thoughts are?"

  121. 74

    "Yes, they never go away."

  122. "How old were you then?"

  123. 75

    "Sixteen years old."

  124. 76

    "And you hadn't yet slept with any man?"

  125. 77

    "No... but I was furious... furious at being a servant for the whole of my life... besides, there was something that affected me more than anything."

  126. "It was one of the young men of the house."

  127. "He was engaged and very Catholic."

  128. "More than once I caught him caressing a cousin of his who was his fiancée — now I realize: a sensual girl — and I would ask myself how it was possible to reconcile Catholicism with those filthy things."

  129. 78

    "Without meaning to, I ended up spying on him... but he, who was so attentive with his fiancée, was utterly correct with me."

  130. "Afterward I realized that I had desired him... but it was too late... I was in another house..."

  131. 79

    "And?..."

  132. 80

    "Always with the weight of my own ideas."

  133. "What was it that I wanted from life?"

  134. "Did I not know it back then?"

  135. "Everywhere they were kind to me."

  136. "Later I have heard people speak ill of the rich... but I was never able to see that wickedness."

  137. "They lived like that."

  138. "What need did they have to be cruel, isn't that so?"

  139. "They were the young ladies and I the servant."

  140. 81

    "And?"

  141. 82

    "I remember that one day I was riding on the streetcar, accompanying one of my mistresses."

  142. "On the seat, two young men were riding along talking."

  143. "Have you noticed that there are days when certain words sound in your ears like drums... as if one had always been deaf and were hearing people speak for the first time?"

  144. "Well."

  145. "One of the young men was saying: 'An intelligent woman, even if she were ugly, if she took to the life of vice would grow rich, and if she fell in love with no one could be the queen of a city."

  146. "'If I had a sister, that's how I would advise her.'"

  147. "On hearing it, I went cold in my seat."

  148. "These words instantly melted my shyness, and when we reached the end of the ride it seemed to me that it was not the strangers who had spoken those words, but I, I who had not remembered them until that moment."

  149. "And for many days the problem of how to become a woman of the bad life weighed on me."

  150. 83

    Erdosain smiled:

  151. 84

    "How marvelous!"

  152. 85

    "The first month's wages I collected, I spent on a pile of books that talked about the bad life."

  153. "I was mistaken, because almost all of them were pornographic books... stupid ones... that wasn't the bad life, but the bad life of pleasure... And, will you believe me, not one of my friends could explain to me, in essence, what the bad life was."

  154. 86

    "Go on... now it doesn't surprise me that Ergueta fell in love with you."

  155. "You are an admirable woman." Hipólita smiled, blushing.

  156. 87

    "Don't exaggerate... I'm a sensible woman, nothing more."

  157. 88

    "Go on telling, you delightful creature."

  158. 89

    "What a child you are!... Well" — Hipólita drew the lapels of her coat closed over her chest and went on — "I worked as before, all day, but the work turned strange to me... I mean, that while I scrubbed or made a bed, my thought was far away and at the same time so deep inside me that at moments it seemed to me that if that thought grew any bigger my skin would burst."

  159. "But the problem would not resolve itself."

  160. "I wrote to a bookshop asking whether it had some manual for becoming a woman of the bad life, and they didn't answer me, until one day I decided to see a lawyer so that he might clear up that point for me."

  161. "I went up to the courts and wandered through a lot of streets, looking at one nameplate, another, another, until, heading down Juncal street, I stopped before a luxurious house, spoke with the doorman, and he led me into the presence of a doctor of laws."

  162. "I remember it as if it were today."

  163. "He was a thin man, serious, he had the whole face of a wicked bandit, but when he smiled his soul seemed that of a little boy."

  164. "Later, thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that that man must have suffered a great deal."

  165. 90

    She drew long on the mate, then, handing it back to him, she said:

  166. 91

    "How hot it is in here!"

  167. "Will you open the window?"

  168. 92

    Erdosain opened one pane partway.

  169. It was still raining.

  170. Hipólita went on:

  171. 93

    "Without flinching, I said to him: 'Doctor, I've come to see you because I want to know what the bad life is.'"

  172. "The man sat there staring at me, astonished."

  173. "After reflecting for a few moments, he said to me: 'For what purpose do you wish to know it?'"

  174. "I calmly explained my intentions to him and he listened to me attentively, frowning, mulling over my words."

  175. "At last he said: 'In a woman, what is called the bad life is sexual acts performed without love and for profit.'"

  176. "That is to say, I replied, that by means of the bad life, one frees herself of the body... and is left free."

  177. 94

    "You answered him that?"

  178. 95

    "Yes."

  179. 96

    "How strange!"

  180. 97

    "Why?"

  181. 98

    "And then?"

  182. 99

    "Almost without saying goodbye, I went out into the street."

  183. "I was happy, I was never happier than I was that day."

  184. "The bad life."

  185. "Erdosain, that's what it was, to free oneself of the body, to have the will free to do all the things one might take a fancy to."

  186. "I felt so happy that to the first good-looking fellow who came by and desired me with pretty words, I gave myself."

  187. 100

    "And then?"

  188. 101

    "What a surprise!, when the man... I already told you he was a handsome fellow, he dropped like a slaughtered animal after satisfying himself."

  189. "The first thing that occurred to me was that he was ill... I had never imagined that."

  190. "But when the man explained to me that that was natural in all men, I couldn't hold back the urge to laugh."

  191. "So the man, whose strength seemed immense, like a bull's... in short, have you never seen a thief in a room full of gold?"

  192. "At that moment I, the servant, was the thief in the room full of gold."

  193. "And I understood that the world was mine... Afterward, before throwing myself into prostitution, I resolved to study... yes, don't look at me astonished, I read everything... I had come to the conclusion, reading novels, that men granted extraordinary powers of love to the cultivated woman... I don't know if I'm explaining myself well... I mean to tell you that culture was a disguise that raised the value of the merchandise."

  194. 102

    "Did you find pleasure in the act of possession?"

  195. 103

    "No... but going back to the first point: I read everything."

  196. 104

    Erdosain felt enthralled by the woman's cynicism, and, moved to tenderness, said to her:

  197. 105

    "Will you give me your hand?"

  198. 106

    She handed it to him, grave.

  199. 107

    Erdosain took it cautiously; then he raised it to his lips and she now looked at him a long while; but Remo suddenly remembered the chained man; he would be awake now in the stable, and without this being able to overcome the sweetness that lulled his senses, he said:

  200. 108

    "Look, if you... if you were to ask me right now to kill myself, I'd do it gladly."

  201. 109

    She looked at him a long while through her red lashes.

  202. 110

    "I'm telling you in earnest."

  203. "Tomorrow... today... it's better... ask me to kill myself... tell me, don't you think that certain people ought to leave the earth?"

  204. 111

    "No... that isn't done."

  205. 112

    "Even if they should turn into bandits?"

  206. 113

    "Who can judge another?"

  207. 114

    "Then let's not talk any more."

  208. 115

    Once again they sipped the straw in silence.

  209. Erdosain understood the sweetness of many things.

  210. He looked at her, then said:

  211. 116

    "What a strange creature you are!"

  212. 117

    She smiled, flattered, and a festival entered his soul.

  213. 118

    "Would you like me to put in more yerba?"

  214. 119

    "Yes."

  215. 120

    Suddenly Hipólita looked at him, grave.

  216. 121

    "Where did you get that soul of yours?"

  217. 122

    Erdosain was about to speak of his sufferings, but held himself back out of modesty and said:

  218. 123

    "I don't know... many times I would think about purity... I would have wanted to be a pure man" — and growing impassioned, he went on — "Many times I felt the sadness of not being a pure man."

  219. "Why?"

  220. "I don't know."

  221. "But can you imagine a man with a white soul, in love for the first time... and that everyone were like that?"

  222. "Can you imagine what an enormous love between a pure woman and a pure man?"

  223. "Then, before giving themselves to one another, they would kill themselves... or no; it would be she who would one day offer herself to him... then they would commit suicide, understanding the futility of living without illusions."

  224. 124

    "Nevertheless, that isn't possible."

  225. 125

    "But it exists."

  226. "Haven't you seen how many shopkeepers and dressmakers commit suicide together?"

  227. "They loved each other... they can't marry... they go to a hotel... she gives herself and then they kill themselves."

  228. 126

    "Yes, but they do it out of unawareness."

  229. 127

    "Perhaps."

  230. 128

    "Where did you have dinner last night?" Erdosain spoke of the Espilas, explaining to her the fall of those people into destitution.

  231. 129

    "And why don't they work?"

  232. 130

    "Where is one to get work?"

  233. "They look for it and don't find any."

  234. "That's the terrible part."

  235. "I even thought I observed that destitution had destroyed in them the very desire to live."

  236. "Deaf Eustaquio has a talent for mathematics... he knows infinitesimal calculus; but that's of no use to him at all."

  237. "He also knows Don Quixote by heart... but he must have something off-center in his understanding... this fact will paint it for you: at sixteen they sent him to buy yerba and he went to a pharmacy instead of to a grocer's."

  238. 131

    "After much explaining, he said that yerba was a medicinal product... that he had studied it that way in botany."

  239. 132

    "He has no practical sense."

  240. 133

    "That's exactly it."

  241. "Besides, he's a brooding gambler... to solve a riddle he's capable of missing a meal, and when he has a few cents he goes into the cafés to stuff himself with sweets."

  242. 134

    "How strange!"

  243. 135

    "Emilio, on the other hand, is a good fellow."

  244. "He has — so he has told me — the certainty that that psychic state of theirs, listless and strange, is a hereditary consequence, and on that basis he governs his whole life, moving with the slowness of a tortoise."

  245. "He's capable of taking two hours to dress... it seems he does everything in an atmosphere of extraordinary indecision."

  246. 136

    "And the sisters?"

  247. 137

    "The poor things do what they can... they sew... one of them looks after, at a friend's house, a hydrocephalic boy with a head bigger than a melon."

  248. 138

    "How dreadful!"

  249. 139

    "What I can't explain to myself is how they got used to all of that."

  250. "That's why, after I visited them, I felt the great need to fill them with hope... and since I spoke rather well, I managed it."

  251. "And they devoted themselves to the copper rose."

  252. 140

    "What is that?"

  253. 141

    Erdosain explained to her his musings as an inventor.

  254. It had been at the beginning, shortly after he married, when he dreamed of growing rich with some discovery.

  255. His imagination filled his nights with extraordinary machines, incomplete fragments of mechanisms turning their lubricated gears...

  256. 142

    "But then you're an inventor?..."

  257. 143

    "No... not now... that had importance for me."

  258. "There was a time when I had the hunger... the terrible hunger for money... possibly I was sick with a madness that has changed... Now, when I spoke to them about that, it wasn't because the matter interested me financially, but because I needed to see them filled with hope, I needed to see with my own eyes those poor girls dreaming of silk dresses, of a handsome fiancé, and of an automobile at the door of a chalet they would never have."

  259. 144

    And now I'm sure they believe in all of that.

  260. 145

    "Were you always like this?"

  261. 146

    "No, only at times."

  262. "Has it never happened to you to feel, at a given moment, the desire to do works of mercy?"

  263. "I remember now this other incident."

  264. "I tell it to you because earlier you asked me what soul mine was."

  265. "I remember."

  266. "A year ago."

  267. "It was a Saturday, at two in the morning."

  268. "I remember that I was sad and went into a brothel."

  269. "The room full of people waiting their turn."

  270. "Suddenly the bedroom door opened and the woman appeared... just imagine... a round little face of a girl of sixteen... pale-blue eyes and a schoolgirl's smile."

  271. "She was wrapped in a green overcoat and was rather tall... but her little face was that of a schoolgirl... She looked around... it was already too late; a frightful black man, with lips of cardboard, stood up, and then she, who had wrapped us all in a promise, drew back sadly toward the bedroom, under the madam's hard gaze."

  272. 147

    Erdosain stopped a moment, then, in a purer and slower voice, went on:

  273. 148

    "Believe me... it's very shameful to wait in a brothel."

  274. "One never feels sadder than in there, surrounded by pale faces that want to hide, with false, furtive smiles, the terrible carnal urgency."

  275. "And there's something humiliating besides... one doesn't know what it is... but time runs in your ears, while the sharpened hearing makes out the creak of a bed in there, then a silence, later the sound of washing... but before anyone could take the black man's place, I left my chair and went to the other one."

  276. "I waited with my heart pounding great blows, and when she appeared in the doorway I stood up."

  277. 149

    "Always the same... one after another."

  278. 150

    "I stood up and went in, again the door closed; I left the money on the washstand, and when she was about to open her dressing gown, I took her by an arm and said to her: 'No, I haven't come in to sleep with you.'"

  279. 151

    Now Erdosain's voice had taken on a vibrant fluency.

  280. 152

    "She looked at me and surely the first thing she thought was whether I might not be some pervert; but looking at her gravely, believe me, I was moved, I said to her: 'Look, I came in because you made me feel pity.'"

  281. "By now we had sat down beside the console table of a gilded mirror, and she, with her schoolgirl's little face, examined me gravely."

  282. "I remember it!... As if it were now."

  283. "I said to her: 'Yes, you made me feel pity. I know very well that you earn two or three thousand pesos a month... and that there are families that would count themselves happy to have what you throw away on shoes... I know it... but you made me feel pity, an enormous pity, seeing all the lovely things you outrage in yourself.'"

  284. "She watched me in silence, but I had no smell of wine on me. 'So I thought... it occurred to me right after the black man came in, to leave you a beautiful memory... and the most beautiful memory it occurred to me to leave you was this... to come in and not touch you... and you will always remember that gesture afterward.'"

  285. "Notice that while I talked, the prostitute's dressing gown had fallen open over her breasts, while over her crossed leg it... suddenly she, on catching sight of herself in the mirror, realized it and hurriedly pulled the dress down over her knees, closing up the neckline."

  286. "That gesture made a strange impression on me... she watched me without saying a word... who knows what she was thinking... suddenly the madam knocked with her knuckles on the door, she looked in that direction with distress, then her little face turned toward me... she looked at me a moment... she stood up... took the five pesos and, struggling, pushed them into my pocket while she said: 'Don't come back, because if you do I'll have the doorman throw you out.'"

  287. 153

    "We were standing... I was already about to leave by the other door, and suddenly, her gaze fixed on mine, I felt her arms knot around my neck... she looked me still in the eyes and kissed me on the mouth... what shall I tell you about that kiss!... she ran her hand across my forehead and, when I was already at the threshold, she said to me: 'Goodbye, noble man.'"

  288. 154

    "And you never went back?"

  289. 155

    "No, but I hold the hope that one day we'll meet again... who knows where, but she, Lucién, will never forget me."

  290. "The years will pass, she'll drift through the most wretched brothels... she'll turn monstrous... but I will always be in her, as I had set out to be, as the most precious memory of her life."

  291. 156

    The rain beat against the panes of the door and on the tiles of the courtyard.

  292. Erdosain sipped his mate slowly.

  293. 157

    Hipólita stood up, went to the windowpanes, and looked a moment at the black courtyard.

  294. Then she turned around and said:

  295. 158

    "Do you know that you're a strange man?"

  296. 159

    Erdosain brooded for a moment.

  297. 160

    "I'm being sincere with you... I don't know what will become of my life... but, believe me, it wasn't in my hands to be a good man."

  298. "Other dark forces twisted me... dragged me down."

  299. 161

    "And now?"

  300. 162

    "Now I'm going to carry out an experiment."

  301. "I've met an admirable man who is firmly convinced that the lie is the foundation of human happiness, and I have decided to back him up in everything."

  302. 163

    "And does that make you happy?"

  303. 164

    "No... for some time I've felt that I'll never be happy again."

  304. 165

    "But do you believe in love?"

  305. 166

    "What's the use of talking about that!" — but suddenly he glimpsed what the reason was for all the incoherent things he had been saying these last few minutes, and he said — "What would you think of me if tomorrow... I mean any day... if any day you found out that I had murdered a man?"

  306. 167

    Hipólita, who had sat down, slowly raised her head and, letting it rest against the back of the sofa, looked a long while at the ceiling.

  307. Then, half-closing her eyelids, she said, filtering a cold gaze through her red lashes:

  308. 168

    "I would think that you were immensely wretched."

  309. 169

    Erdosain left his armchair, put the burner, the yerba, and the mate away in the wardrobe drawer, and then Hipólita said to him:

  310. 170

    "Come here... to my feet."

  311. 171

    An enormous sweetness was inside him.

  312. 172

    He sat down on the rug so that his side rested against her legs, let his head fall onto her knees, and Hipólita closed her eyes.

  313. 173

    He was content like this.

  314. He rested in the woman's lap, and the warmth of her limbs passed through the cloth, warming his cheek.

  315. That situation, moreover, seemed to him quite natural; life took on that cinematic quality he had always pursued, and it did not occur to him that Hipólita, stiff on the sofa, was thinking about him — that he was a weak man and a sentimental one.

  316. The tick-tock of the clock spaced out, in the interval of its gears, a drop of sound that fell one after another like a lentil of water into the cubic silence of the room.

  317. And Hipólita said to herself:

  318. 174

    "All his life he'll do nothing but complain and suffer."

  319. "What use is a boy like this to me?"

  320. "I'd have to support him."

  321. "And the copper rose must be some foolishness."

  322. "What woman is going to wear on her hat metal ornaments, heavy ones, that turn black?"

  323. "They're all like that, though."

  324. "The weak ones, intelligent and useless; the others, brutish and dull."

  325. "Among them I have still not found one worthy of cutting the others' throats, or of being a tyrant."

  326. "They're pitiful."

  327. 175

    She thought this way frequently, as reality tarnished the puppets that her imagination had tinted, for a moment, with arrogant life.

  328. She could point them out with her finger.

  329. This stiff dummy, perfumed and severe, who on working days built a reputation out of his solemnity and silence, was a lecherous wretch; that other small, prim one, always gentle, discreet, and sensible, was the victim of atrocious vices; that one brutal as a carter and strong as a bull, more inexperienced than a schoolboy — and so they all passed before her eyes, bound together by the same inextinguishable desire, all of them had laid their heads for an instant on her bare knees, while she, indifferent to the clumsy hands and the passing frenzies that stiffened the sad puppets, brooded, harsh, on the sensation of living like a thirst in the desert.

  330. 176

    "That's how it was."

  331. Men were moved only by hunger, by lust, and by money.

  332. That's how it was.

  333. Anguished, she told herself that the only one who had interested her was the pharmacist, able for a few instants to rise above his vehement flesh, but the terrible game had wrecked his mechanism, and now he lay more broken than the other dolls.

  334. 177

    What a life hers had been!

  335. In other times, when she was a helpless young girl, she thought she would never have money nor a house furnished with beautiful furniture, nor gleaming tableware, and that impossibility of wealth saddened her as much as it saddens her today to know that none of the men who could go to bed with her had the drive to become a tyrant or a conqueror of new lands.

The particulars

The text
Los siete locos, Roberto Arlt. Part Two.
Translation
Public-domain Spanish (Arlt, d. 1942). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
Reading aloud
Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
Words
Every word of the text, by letter.
Data
JSON · Markdown · A guide for agents
Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.