The Mad Toy by Robert Arlt
Author:Robert Arlt [Roberto Arlt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780941738
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00
The first person to enter the bookshop in the morning was Don Gaetano. I followed him. Everything was as we had left it. The atmosphere was filled with damp, and in the back, on a line of leather-bound spines, a patch of sun came in through the skylight.
I went to the kitchen. The coal had gone out, it was lying in a pool of water that had formed when Stinking God washed the plates.
That was the last day I worked there.
Chapter 3
The Mad Toy
After doing the washing up, closing the doors and opening the shutters, I went back to bed, because it was cold.
On the wall, the sun slantingly reddened the bricks.
My mother was sewing in another room and my sister was preparing her lessons. I got ready to read. On a chair next to the bedstead were the following works:
Virgin and Mother by Luis de Val, BahÃaâs Electrical Engineering and Nietzscheâs Antichrist. Virgin and Mother, four volumes of 1,800 pages each, had been lent to me by a neighbour who took in ironing.
When I was sitting comfortably, I looked at Virgin and Mother with little enthusiasm. It was clear that I wasnât in the mood for some gruesome doorstop, and so I decided to take up Electrical Engineering and set to studying the theory of rotating magnetic fields.
I read slowly and with satisfaction. I thought, once I had interiorised the complex explanation of multiphase currents:
âIt is a sign of universal intelligence to be able to appreciate all kinds of beauty,â and the names of Ferranti and Siemens-Halske21 sounded harmoniously in my ears.
I thought:
âOne day I too will be able to say in front of a conference full of engineers, âYes, sirs⦠the electromagnetic currents the sun generates can be used and condensed.â How stupid, they need to be condensed first, and then used! Damn, how can you condense the sunâs electromagnetic currents?â
I knew, because of various scientific announcements that appeared in the papers, that Tesla,22 the wizard of electricity, had come up with the idea of a ray condenser.
And I dreamt like this until it grew dark, when I heard the voice of Rebeca Naidath, a friend of my motherâs, in the other room:
âHello! How are you, Frau Drodman? Howâs my little girl?â
I lifted my head from my book in order to listen.
Señora Rebeca was of the Jewish faith. Her soul was petty because her body was small. She walked like a seal and examined everything like an eagle⦠I hated her because of certain bad things sheâd done to me.
âIs Silvio there? I need to talk to him.â I was in the next room in a flash.
âHello! How are you, Frau, whatâs up?â
âDo you know about mechanics?â
âOf course⦠well, I know something. Didnât you show her the letter from Ricaldoni, mama?â
And it was true, Ricaldoni had congratulated me on some ridiculous mechanical contraptions I had thought up in my leisure hours.
Señora Rebeca said:
âYes, I saw it. Here you go.â And she held out a newspaper and pointed to an advert with her dirt-haloed finger.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro(2127)
The Fine Print (Dreamland Billionaires Book 1) by Lauren Asher(1921)
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn(1657)
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward(1618)
Luster by Raven Leilani(1599)
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi(1596)
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz(1459)
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid(1397)
This Changes Everything by Unknown(1223)
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante(1186)
The Midwife Murders by James Patterson & Richard Dilallo(1169)
The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses) by Cassandra Clare & Wesley Chu(1168)
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook(1139)
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur(1112)
Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte by Kate Williams(1100)
The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson(1097)
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante;(1070)
Every Vow You Break by Swanson Peter(1058)
Wandering in Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins(1027)