The Seven Madmen 1732 Studios

Spanish · Part Two

La coja

The Lame Woman

163 sentences · 92 notes

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  1. 1

    That same day, shortly before Erdosain reached the last flight of the spiral staircase, he made out, stopped on the landing, a lady wrapped in an otter coat and a green hat, who was talking with the landlady of the boarding house.

    EseThatese · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of día
    mismosamemismo · determiner, masculine, singularmodifies día (intensifies Ese)
    díadaydía · noun, masculine, singularhead of the phrase
    pocoshortlypoco · adverbmodifies antes
    antesbeforeantes · adverbadverbial clause on distinguió
    deofde · prepositionintroduces the clause of llegar
    llegarreachingllegar · verb, infinitiveadverbial clause on antes
    ErdosainErdosainErdosain · proper nounsubject of llegar
    altheal · prepositionpreposition marking tramo
    últimolastúltimo · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies tramo
    tramoflighttramo · noun, masculine, singularoblique complement of llegar
    deofde · prepositionpreposition marking escalera
    latheel · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of escalera
    escalerastaircaseescalera · noun, feminine, singularmodifies tramo
    eninen · prepositionpreposition marking caracol
    caracolspiralcaracol · noun, masculine, singularmodifies escalera

    idiom 'en caracol' = 'spiral' (literally 'snail-shaped')

    distinguióhe made outdistinguir · verb, past, indicative, third-person, singularmain verb of the sentence
    detenidastoppeddetenido · adjective, feminine, singularmodifies señora (participial phrase)
    enonen · prepositionpreposition marking rellano
    eltheel · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of rellano
    rellanolandingrellano · noun, masculine, singularoblique complement of detenida
    a(marks person)a · prepositionpreposition marking señora
    unaauno · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of señora
    señoraladyseñora · noun, feminine, singularoblique complement of distinguió
    envueltawrappedenvuelto · adjective, feminine, singularmodifies señora
    eninen · prepositionpreposition marking abrigo
    unauno · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of abrigo
    abrigocoatabrigo · noun, masculine, singularoblique complement of envuelta
    deofde · prepositionmodifies abrigo
    lutreotterlutre · noun, masculine, singularobject of de, modifies abrigo

    rare word for a fur (otter), matching the translation

    yandy · conjunctionlinks the coordination
    tocahattoca · noun, feminine, singularcoordinated with abrigo
    verdegreenverde · adjective, singularmodifies toca
    quewhoque · pronounsubject of conversaba
    conversabawas talkingconversar · verb, imperfect, indicative, third-person, singularclause modifying señora
    conwithcon · prepositionpreposition marking patrona
    latheel · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of patrona
    patronalandladypatrona · noun, feminine, singularoblique complement of conversaba
    deofde · prepositionpreposition marking pensión
    latheel · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of pensión
    pensiónboarding housepensión · noun, feminine, singularmodifies patrona

  2. An "here he comes" made him understand that he was the one they were waiting for, and as he stopped in the corridor the stranger, turning her slightly freckled face, said to him:

  3. 2

    "Are you Señor Erdosain?"

  4. 3

    "Where have I seen this face?" Erdosain asked himself as he answered the stranger in the affirmative, whereupon she introduced herself:

  5. 4

    "I am Señor Ergueta's wife."

  6. 5

    "Ah! You're the lame one!" But suddenly, ashamed of the rudeness that so startled the landlady it made her look down at the stranger's feet, Erdosain apologized:

  7. 6

    "Sorry, I'm flustered... You understand, I wasn't expecting... would you like to come in?"

  8. 7

    Before opening the door of his room, Erdosain apologized again for the mess his visitor would find in it, and Hipólita, smiling ironically, replied:

  9. 8

    "It's all right, sir."

  10. 9

    Yet Erdosain was irritated by the cold gaze that filtered through the woman's transparent green-gray pupils.

  11. And he thought: "She must be a wicked woman," for he had noticed that under the green hat Hipólita's red hair was smoothed along her temples into two flat bands that covered the tips of her ears.

  12. He looked again at her motionless red lashes and her lips, which seemed inflamed against the flushed softness of her freckled face.

  13. And he said to himself: "How different from the one in the photograph!"

  14. 10

    She, stopped in front of him, watched him as if saying to herself:

  15. 11

    "This is the man," and he, right beside the woman, felt her presence without understanding it, as if she did not exist or were many leagues distant from him along some inner road.

  16. Yet she was there and something had to be said, and since nothing else occurred to him, he spoke—after turning on the light and offering the lady a chair, while he himself took the sofa:

  17. 12

    "So you're Ergueta's wife? Very good."

  18. 13

    He could not quite grasp what this life, suddenly planted in the middle of his bewilderment, was doing there.

  19. A gust of curiosity stirred his soul, but he would have wanted to be otherwise, to feel familiar with the woman's face, whose oval lines had something of the red of copper, like those rays of rainy sunlight that in paintings of saints burst out in a thousand shafts from a pinnacle of clouds.

  20. And he kept saying to himself:

  21. 14

    "I am here, but my soul—where is it?" And he said once more: "So you're Ergueta's wife? Very good."

  22. 15

    She, who had crossed her legs, tugged the hem of her dress well below her knee, the fabric gathered between her rosy fingers, and lifting her head as if that movement cost her a great effort in the strangeness of a setting she did not know, she said:

  23. 16

    "You must do something for my husband. He has gone mad."

  24. 17

    "My curiosity has taken no great blow," Erdosain said to himself, and pleased to keep himself unmoved like one of those bankers in the novels of Xavier de Montepin, he added, with the inner delight of being able to play the comedy of the impassive man: "So he's gone mad?" But suddenly, realizing he could not keep up that role, he said: "Do you realize, ma'am?

  25. You give me extraordinary news, and yet I've stayed completely impassive.

  26. It hurts me to be like this, empty of all emotion; I'd like to feel something and I'm like a paving stone.

  27. You'll have to forgive me.

  28. I don't know what's wrong with me.

  29. You'll forgive me, won't you?

  30. Once, though, I wasn't like this.

  31. I remember I was cheerful as a sparrow.

  32. I've been changing little by little.

  33. I don't know, I look at you, I'd like to feel I'm your friend and I can't.

  34. If I saw you dying I probably wouldn't even hand you a glass of water.

  35. Do you see?

  36. And yet...

  37. But where is he?"

  38. 18

    "In the Hospicio de las Mercedes."

  39. 19

    "How strange! Didn't you two live in Azul?"

  40. 20

    "Yes, but we've been here for two weeks..."

  41. 21

    "And when did "that" happen?"

  42. 22

    "Six days ago. I can't explain it to myself either. It's the way you were saying before about me.

  43. 23

    Forgive me if I'm wasting your time.

  44. I thought of you, who knew him, he was always talking to me about you.

  45. When was the last time you saw him?"

  46. 24

    "Before he got married... Yes, he told me about you. He called you the lame one... and the whore."

  47. 25

    It seemed to Erdosain that Hipólita's soul was serenely glazing her own pupils.

  48. He felt sure he could speak of anything with her.

  49. The woman's soul stood motionless there, as if to receive him naturally.

  50. She had rested her crossed hands on her skirt above her knee, and that detail of posture made the moment of confidence easy for him.

  51. What had happened that morning at the Astrologer's house seemed remote to him; only some little scrap of tree and of sky crossed his memory at moments, and the gliding of those broken images left a slow, unjustified pleasure resting in his consciousness.

  52. He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, and said:

  53. 26

    "You won't be offended, ma'am... but I think he was already mad when he married you..."

  54. 27

    "Tell me... do you know if he gambled before marrying me?"

  55. 28

    "Yes... Besides, I remember he studied the Bible a great deal, because among other things he spoke to me about the new times, the fourth seal, and a whole heap of other things.

  56. Besides, he gambled.

  57. He always interested me because I saw in him a frenzied temperament.

  58. 29

    "Exactly. A man of frenzy. He went so far as to accept a five-thousand-peso bet at a poker table.

  59. 30

    He sold my jewels, a necklace a friend had given me...

  60. 31

    "But how can that be?... Didn't you give that necklace to the maid shortly before marrying him?

  61. That's what he told me.

  62. That you gave her the necklace and the silver tableware... and the ten-thousand-peso check the other man had given you..."

  63. 32

    "But you think I'm crazy!... Why would I give my maid a pearl necklace?"

  64. 33

    "Then he lied."

  65. 34

    "That's what I think."

  66. 35

    "How strange!..."

  67. 36

    "Don't be surprised. He lied a great deal. Besides, in those last days he was beside himself.

  68. He worked out a betting system to apply to roulette.

  69. You'd have laughed if you had seen him.

  70. He put together a book of numbers that nobody understood except him.

  71. What a man!

  72. He couldn't sleep from worry; he neglected the pharmacy; sometimes, with the light off and me about to fall asleep, I'd hear a great thud on the floor; it was him, having thrown himself out of bed, turning on the light, jotting down some figures as if he were afraid they would escape him...

  73. But—so he told you that I had given away my pearl necklace?

  74. What a man!

  75. What he did was pawn it before we got married...

  76. Well, as I was saying... last month he went to the Real de San Carlos...

  77. 37

    "And, logically, he lost..."

  78. 38

    "No, with seven hundred pesos he won seven thousand. You should have seen how he came in... Silent... I said to myself: There it is! He's lost... but the remarkable thing is that he was frightened of the luck he'd had... up to then even he had had only relative confidence in his system...

  79. 39

    "Yes... I see... He preferred believing in it to testing it."

  80. 40

    "Of course, for fear of failure. But as I tell you... for several days he was as if deranged. I remember that one afternoon, at siesta time, he said to me: "Well, negra, you'll just have to resign yourself to being queen of the world."

  81. 41

    "Always the delusions of grandeur..."

  82. 42

    "I warn you that, in part, after that even I came to believe in the success of the system.

  83. He had played according to the numbers that appeared on his table of calculations, and so, to break the bank, he withdrew three thousand pesos from the bank...

  84. They were in my name, I remember, plus the six thousand five hundred... He had paid some pharmacy bills... We set out for Montevideo... and he lost it all.

  85. 43

    "How long did it take?"

  86. 44

    "Twenty minutes... I thought he was going to faint on the way... but—so he told you I'd given my necklace to the maid?... What a man!"

  87. 45

    "It must have been to give me a better impression of you. And on the trip, how did it go for you?"

  88. 46

    "Nothing... he didn't say a word. That, yes—his eyes were glassy, his face as if undone, slack, you know? As soon as we reached Buenos Aires he went to bed... it was a Monday.

  89. He stayed in bed until nightfall, then he went out, I don't know why it weighed on my heart that something was going to happen... By ten at night he still hadn't come back, so I went to bed; around one in the morning his steps in the room woke me, I was about to turn on the light when he gave a great leap and, seizing me by an arm—you know the dreadful strength he has—in my nightgown he hauled me out of bed and, dragging me through the corridors, got me all the way to the door of the hotel.

  90. 47

    "And you?"

  91. 48

    "I didn't scream because I knew it would enrage him.

  92. Once at the hotel door he stood staring at me as if he didn't know me, his forehead bunched into a knot of wrinkles, his eyes huge.

  93. A wind was blowing that bent the trees over, I covered myself with my arms, and he, without a word, did nothing but stare at me, when in front of us a policeman stopped, while from behind the night porter, who had woken at the noise, grabbed him by the arms.

  94. And he shouted so that they could hear him from the corner: "This is the whore... the one who loved the pimps whose flesh is like the flesh of the mule..."

  95. 49

    "But how do you remember those words?"

  96. 50

    "Everything that happened is as if I were seeing it now.

  97. He, in the gap of one door-leaf, wrenching inward; from outside the policeman pulling at him, while the porter clamped him by the throat to sap his strength, and I in the doorway waiting for it to end, since several people had gathered who, instead of helping the policeman, amused themselves by staring at me.

  98. It's just as well I always wore a long nightgown...

  99. Finally, with the help of other policemen whom a bellboy summoned from inside with cries for help, they managed to take him off to the police station.

  100. They thought he was drunk... but it was a fit of madness... That's how the doctor diagnosed it.

  101. He was raving about Noah's ark...

  102. 51

    "Very well... and how can I be of service to you?" Once again Erdosain felt that the importance of the character was reappearing in his life like a novelistic element to be looked after the way one looks after the knot of one's tie in the disorder of a dance.

  103. 52

    "Well, I was troubling you to see whether you might be able to help me for the time being. On his family I can't count for absolutely anything.

  104. 53

    "But didn't you marry into his family's house?"

  105. 54

    "Yes, but when we came back from Montevideo after we married, we went one day to visit... imagine... to visit a house where I had been a maid.

  106. 55

    "How extraordinary!"

  107. 56

    "You can't imagine those people's indignation. One of his days... but what's the use of recounting so many mean little things!... don't you think? Life is like that, and that's that. They threw us out and we left. Patience, bad luck.

  108. 57

    "The strange thing is that you should have been a maid."

  109. 58

    "There's nothing unusual about it..."

  110. 59

    "It's that you don't give that impression..."

  111. 60

    "Thank you... the thing is that on leaving the hotel I had to pawn a ring... and I need to make the little money I have last...

  112. 61

    "And the pharmacy?"

  113. 62

    "It's in the charge of a licensed assistant. I've wired him to send money... but he's answered that he has orders from Ergueta's family not to hand me a cent. Anyway...

  114. 63

    "And what do you plan to do?"

  115. 64

    "That's what I don't know... Whether to go back to Pico, or wait here."

  116. 65

    "What a mess!..."

  117. 66

    "Believe me, I'm fed up by now."

  118. 67

    "Well, the thing is that today I have no money. Tomorrow, yes, I'll have some..."

  119. 68

    "You know?... Those few pesos I want to keep just in case..."

  120. 69

    "And while you look into something solid... if you like you can stay here. As it happens, there's an empty room next door. And what else do you want?"

  121. 70

    "To see if you can get him out of the asylum."

  122. 71

    "How am I going to get him out if he's insane? We'll see. All right... tonight you'll stay and sleep here. I'll manage on the sofa... though I'll probably not sleep here."

  123. 72

    Once again the woman let her malevolent greenish gaze filter through her red lashes.

  124. It was as if she projected her soul onto the relief of the man's ideas, to take a tracing of his intentions.

  125. 73

    "All right, I accept..."

  126. 74

    "Tomorrow, if you like, I'll give you money so you can go off and live in peace at a hotel, if you'd rather not stay here."

  127. 75

    But suddenly, irritated with Hipólita by a thought that had just slipped into his understanding, he said:

  128. 76

    "Do you know that you must not love Eduardo?..."

  129. 77

    "Why?"

  130. 78

    "It's obvious. You arrive here, you tell me about this whole drama with a calm that astonishes... and naturally, then... what is one to think of you?"

  131. 79

    As he said these words, Erdosain had begun to pace about the cramped space of the room.

  132. He felt uneasy, and out of the corner of his eye he studied the oval freckled face, with its fine red eyebrows under the green brim of the hat, and the lips as if inflamed, while the two wings of copper-colored hair hugged her temples, covering her ears, and the transparent pupils flung out shafts of gaze.

  133. 80

    "She has almost no breasts," Erdosain thought.

  134. Hipólita looked around; suddenly, smiling kindly, she asked him:

  135. 81

    "What was it, my dear boy, that you expected of me?"

  136. 82

    Erdosain felt irritated by that untimely, brothel-tinged "m'hijito" that added itself to the contemptible "patience, bad luck."

  137. At last he said:

  138. 83

    "I don't know... well, I imagined you less cold... there are moments when you give the idea that you're a wicked woman... maybe I'm wrong, but... well... that's your business..."

  139. 84

    Hipólita stood up:

  140. 85

    "My dear boy, I have never put on an act. I've come to you, quite simply, because I knew you were his best friend.

  141. What do you want?... For me to start crying like a Magdalene if I don't feel it?... I've cried enough already...

  142. 86

    She too had risen to her feet.

  143. She looked at him fixedly, but the hardness of line that lay rigid beneath the skin of her face like an armor of will broke apart from fatigue.

  144. With her head tilted slightly to one side, she reminded Erdosain of his own wife... it could well have been her... she was at the door of some unknown house... the captain, indifferent, watched her walk away forever and did not stop her... the street opened before her... perhaps she would end up in a hotel with dirty walls, and then, moved to pity, he said:

  145. 87

    "Forgive me... I'm a little on edge. Make yourself at home. The only thing I regret is that you found me without money. But tomorrow I'll have some."

  146. 88

    Hipólita took the chair again and Erdosain, as he walked, took his own pulse.

  147. His veins were throbbing rapidly.

  148. Worn out from the afternoon spent with the Astrologer and Barsut, he said bitterly:

  149. 89

    "Life is heavy going... eh?..."

  150. 90

    The intruder gazed in silence at the tip of her little shoe.

  151. She raised her eyes, and a fine wrinkle streaked her freckled forehead.

  152. Then:

  153. 91

    "You seem worried. Is something wrong with you?"

  154. 92

    "Nothing... tell me... did you suffer a great deal at his side?..."

  155. 93

    "A little. He's violent..."

  156. 94

    "How strange! I'd like to picture him to myself in the madhouse and I can't.

  157. I can barely make out a piece of a face and an eye... I warn you, I sensed the disaster coming.

  158. I ran into him one morning, he told me everything, and suddenly I had the impression you would be unhappy at his side... but you must be tired.

  159. I have to go out.

  160. I'm going to tell the landlady to serve you dinner here.

  161. 95

    "No... I don't feel like it."

  162. 96

    "All right, then, by your leave. Here's the folding screen. Act as if you were at home."

  163. 97

    When Erdosain went out, the lame woman wrapped him in a singular look, a fan-like look that slices a man's body on the diagonal from head to foot, gathering up at a tangent the whole inner geometry of his life.

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
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.