Seven Madmen, The by Arlt Roberto

Author:Arlt, Roberto [Arlt, Roberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Modern Classics, Translated, Novel
Publisher: David R. Godine
Published: 2012-05-06T03:00:00+00:00

"Each girl puts up fourteen pesos a week for board and has to buy her tea, sugar, kerosene, candles, stockings, makeup, soap, and perfume from the house supply."

"Total net proceeds should be two thousand five hundred pesos a month minimum. In four months we get our initial investment back. Then fifty percent of that total net proceeds will be plowed back into setting up brothels, twenty-five percent will be to cover debts, the third part to fund the cells. So do I have the go-ahead on ten thousand as an initial outlay?"

Everyone nodded assent except the Gold Seeker, who said:

"Who's the auditor?"

"After it's done we'll choose one."

"Okay."

"Okay with you, too, Major?"

"Yes."

Erdosain looked up and eyed the pseudo-sergeant's pale face, its keen eyes watching a white butterfly flutter amid the leaves, and he couldn't help but wonder how the Astrologer got people to act out all these schemes of his. But the Astrologer cut in by asking:

"You, Mr. Erdosain, how much do you need to set up your galvanoplastics works?"

"A thousand pesos."

"Ah! You're the inventor of the copper rose?" asked the Major.

"Yes."

"My congratulations. I think it will really sell. Of course, you need to metallize the flowers on a large-scale basis."

"Right. I thought of doing that along with our photography lab. That way it would be twice as cheap."

"You know best about that."

"Besides that, I have a practical friend lined up to do the galvanoplastics," he said, thinking of the Espila family, who could fit into the organization, but the Astrologer broke in on his thoughts, saying:

"Now the Gold Seeker will fill us in on the proposed location of our training camp," and the man got up.

Erdosain could hardly believe it when he saw what the man looked like. He had imagined the movie stereotype of a towering fellow with a great bushy beard smelling of strong drink. But what he saw was a far cry from that image.

The Gold Seeker was young, just about his age, his skin stretched taut over flat facial bones, very pale, with lively jet black eyes. His huge barrel chest looked like it should have been on some big burly fellow twice his size. His legs were spindly and bowed. Between his belt and pants a revolver butt was showing. His voice was ordinary, but he seemed like someone from a strange continent, cobbled together out of bits and pieces of different types of men. His face was from a shifty-eyed cardsharp, his chest was from a boxer, and his legs were from a jockey. And he really was a bizarre mixture; he just gave off an unfocused, alien aura. He had lived in the country till he was fourteen, then he shot a rustler dead, and later, fear of tuberculosis exiled him once more to the open plains, and he galloped for days and nights across unbelievable distances. Erdosain felt an immediate kinship.

The Gold Seeker took some rocks out of their wrappings. They were chunks of gold ore. Then he said:

"Here you have a certified analysis from the Mining and Hydrology Department.

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