The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt Read Free Book Online

a way of working out? Things okay now?"
    He spoke with a smirking calm, with the unshakable cool of a country man who knows that he knows enough about the natural world to cope with any crisis. And it was only then that Erdosain noticed the overpowering rose scent and the tap dripping into the barrel, plunking clearly outside the half-open door. Outside, the roads meandered away, wavy in the afternoon sun, and birds sitting in the pomegranate trees bent the boughs downward in great sagging clusters of scarlet asterisks.
    Again a nasty gleam appeared in the Ruffian's eyes. Cocking one eyebrow, he waited for Erdosain to light up with joy, but, when that didn't happen, he said:
    "Have you been going on like this for long?"
    "Yes, quite a while."
    "Do you remember I once told you, even before you had confided in me, that you couldn't go on living the way you were?" the Astrologer objected.
    "Yes, but I didn't feel like talking about it. I don't know ... things that really confuse you are the ones you won't talk about even with people you know you can trust."
    "When will you put the money back?"
    "Tomorrow."
    "Good, then I'll write you a check right now. You'll have to cash it tomorrow."
    Haffner turned to the desk. He pulled out his checkbook and wrote the sum firmly, then signed his name.
    Erdosain went through a paralyzed moment of utter suspension, as unthinking as someone who is confronted with a dream landscape that stays in his memory later, so that he would swear that sometimes life really operates with an intelligent fatalism.
    "Here you go, pal."
    Erdosain took the check, and without reading it folded it twice and put it in his pocket. It was all over in a minute. It was more absurd than anything in a novel, and yet it was a real live person doing it. And he did not know what to say. Just a minute before he was six hundred pesos and seven cents in debt. Now he was no longer in debt, and this miracle had been worked by a single move on the Ruffian's part. By all standards of logic it should not even have happened, but it went off without a hitch. He wanted to say something. He peered again into the face of that man lounging in the frayed velvet armchair. Now the revolver stood out visibly under the gray fabric of the suit coat, and Haffner, irritated, propped his bluish cheek on three flashy-nailed fingers. He wanted to thank the Ruffian, but no words came to him. The man understood, and, turning to the Astrologer, who had sat down on a stool by the desk, said:
    "So then, your society will be very big on obedience?"
    "That and industrialism. We need gold if we want to seize men's minds. So just as there was mysticism in religion and then again with chivalry and knights-errant, what we need is industrial mysticism. Make man see how beautiful it is to head a great foundry, as beautiful as it used to be to discover a continent. My political man, my student, my right hand in the movement will be someone who sets out to win happiness through industry. He will be a revolutionary equipped to speak on fabric processing as well as the demagnetization of steel. That's why I was so impressed when I met Erdosain. He thought along these exact same lines. You remember how often we talked about how many ideas we shared. The creation of a proud, beautiful, inexorable man who will harness the multitudes and show them a future based on science. How else can we have a social revolution? The leader of today must be a man who knows everything. We will create this prince of wisdom. The society will undertake the fabrication and dissemination of his myth. A Ford or an Edison has a thousand more chances to touch off a revolution than a politician. Do you think future dictatorships will be the military type? No, sir, the military man is nothing compared to an industrialist. The most he can be is the industrialist's tool. That's all. Future dictators will be kings of petroleum, steel, wheat. Through our society, we will set the scene for all this.