The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt Read Free Book Online Page B

psychology of the hooker? You have it in a nutshell in something one told me through her tears when a friend of mine gave her the heave-ho: ' Encore avec mon cul je peux soutenir un homme .' That's the part people don't know and novelists don't tell them. A French proverb says it all: ' Gueuse seule ne peut pas mener son cul . ' "
    Erdosain looked at him stupefied. Haffner went right on:
    "Who looks after her like the pimp? Who takes care of her when she's sick or gets busted? What do people know about that? If some Saturday morning you heard a woman say to her 'marlu,' 'Mon chéri, I made fifty pesos more this week than last,' you'd take up pimping, see? Because that woman tells you 'I made fifty more' just in the same tone an honest woman uses to tell her husband: 'Dear, by not buying a new dress and doing the laundry at home, I saved thirty pesos this month.' Believe me, friend, woman, honest or not, is an animal crazed with the idea of self-sacrifice. She's just made that way. Why do you think the Church fathers thought so little of women? Because most of them had sown a lot of wild oats and saw first-hand what a little animal she is. And the hooker is even worse. She's like a child, you have to point everything out to her. 'You can walk past this place, only keep away from that corner, don't say hi to that "operator." Don't go getting into a fight with that woman.' You have to tell her everything."
    They walked along under the garden walls, and in the mellow dusk the pimp's words opened Erdosain up to gaping astonishment. He grasped he stood next to a life considerably unlike his own. Then he asked him:
    "And how did you get into pimping?"
    "It was when I was young. I was twenty-three and on the university faculty in math. I'm a professor, see," Haffner added proudly. "A math professor. I was living on my salary when one night in a whorehouse on Rincón Street I met this French girl that I liked. All this was about ten years ago. Just around then I came into about five thousand pesos when a relative died. I liked Lucienne, and I asked if she'd come live with me. She had a pimp, the Marseillais, a giant brute I saw now and then ... I don't know if it was my smooth talking or good looks, but anyway she fell in love with me and one stormy night I came and got her out of her house. It was straight out of a novel. We went to Córdoba in the mountains, then to Mar del Plata, and when we'd gone through the five thousand pesos, I told her: 'Well, that was our fling. It's all over now.' Then she told me, 'No, darling, we'll never again be apart.' "
    Now they were strolling under clusters of greenery, intertwining branches, and clumps of stalks.
    "I was jealous. Do you know what it's like to be jealous of a woman who sleeps with everyone? And do you know what it is when she pays for the first lunch with money from some john? Can you picture the joy of sitting there eating away with the waiter looking at you and knowing what the deal is with you? And the joy of walking out with her hanging from your arm and all the johns trying to get a look at you? And seeing that she prefers you, you alone, after she's been to bed with so many men? That's a sweet sensation, pal, once you get to make a career of it. And she's the one who recruits a second woman for your stable, brings her home and tells her 'We'll be sisters-in-law,' she's the one who keeps the new girl in hand and makes her turn everything over to you, and the more shy and squeamish you are, the more she likes to wreck your conscience, pulling you down to her level, and suddenly—when it's the last thing on your mind you find you're up to your ears in slime—and then there's no way back out. And while you have the woman going you have to work her hard, because one day she'll dump you, go crazy over another guy, and in the same blind way she took to you, she'll give everything up for him. You'll ask me, what does a woman need to have a man for? But I'll tell you: nobody's going