The Tragedy of an Honorable Man
(from Aguafuertes Porteñas)
Roberto Arlt
Every day I witness the tragic life of an honourable man. This honourable
man has a cafe valued at thirty thousand pesos or more. Well, this honourable man
has an honourable wife.
By putting his honorable wife in charge of the Victrola, he saves eighty
dollars per month, instead of paying for a victrolista.
From this system of management, my good guy saves, at the end of the year, the
respectable sum of nine hundred and sixty pesos excluding interest. After ten
years he will save ...
But my honourable man is jealous. So what if I understood it as jealousy!
Keeping on guard behind the counter, monitoring, not just the consumption of
his customers, but also how they look at his woman. And he suffers. Suffershonourably.
Sometimes turning pale, sometimes his eyes gleam. Why? Because how could anyone
be duller than to look at the plump calves of his spouse. Under these
circumstances, the honourable man looks up to ascertain whether his wife responded
to the arousing glimpses of the customer, or is entertaining herself, reading a
magazine. He suffers. I see him suffering, suffers honourably; but what he
suffers is forgotten the moment his wife hands him the account book of two
pesos and sixty-five centavos; when his legitimate wife made deposits to the
bank, of nine hundred sixty dollars
annually. He suffers. The honourable
heart of this man of prudence, in terms of money, is disturbed and forgets his interests
when a butcher, bus driver or caregiver, study the anatomical contour of his
also honourable wife. But suffers more, when the person who enjoys
contemplating her charm is a sturdy lad, with moustache as stiff as his back, powerful
enough to withstand any extra work. Then my honourable man looks up desperately.
The jealousy that Greek gods had immortalized, upsets his sense of economy, cast
into the stillness, undermining his joy of saving two pesos and sixty-five centavos
per day; desperate and grinding his teeth as if wanting to bite a huge chunk off
the customer’s kidney.
I understand him, without having spoken a word with this man, the
problem that his honourable soul is facing. I understand, with sympathy, it
eats into me [lo ‘manyo’]. The man is faced with Hamlet’s dilemma, the problem
of Balaam's donkey, before ...before the awful problem of saving eighty bucks
monthly! They are eighty pesos. Do you know the packers, las canastas, work how many days of eighteen hours to earn eighty
dollars a month? No, no one can imagine.
Thus, I understand. At the same time he loves his wife. How not to?! But
cannot reduce the work – like the famous miser Anatole France who never fails
to cut some barbs with the gold coins offered to the Virgin: remaining true to
his habit.
And eighty pesos is eight ten pesos bills, sixteen of five and… sixteen
bills of five pesos for five dollars, they are money ... money...
And the proof that our man is honourable is how he suffers when they
start to look at his wife. Suffering visibly. What to do? To give up eighty
pesos? Or to resign oneself to a possible marital disappointment?
If this man was not honourable, he would not mind if his wife was being
courted. All the more, he would devote himself to it like the famous Monsieur Bergeret
who endured the misery stoically.
No, my cafe has no money for the too obliging husband. In him, it is
still El Cid, don Juan, Calderon of the Barca and all the glory of the race,
mixing with the voracious greed of people of the land.
They are eighty pesos a month. Eighty! Why would one renounce eighty
dollars a month? He loves his wife, but their love is not comparable to the
eighty pesos.
He loves the front to be cleared of all adornments, and he also loves
his trade, well-organized finance, the deposit slip at the bank, cheque book. How
this honourable man loves money! Fucking honourable!
Sometimes I go to his cafe and stay for an hour, two or three. He
believes that when I look at his woman I'm thinking about her. But he is wrong.
The one who I am thinking about is Lenin ... Stalin ... Trotsky ... I am thinking
with the profoundest joy of the devilishly contorted face that this man would
have if tomorrow a revolutionary regime told him:
'All your money is worthless.’
Translated by J. Loke (Nov
2014)
https://www.academia.edu/9217735/The_Tragedy_of_an_Honorable_Man_-_Roberto_Arlt
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