The oracle’s words provoked a new round of hilarity, which the pipsqueak Bernini faced down with dignity. He decided to play his best card and go for broke: he spoke of untutored youths, of the aberrations in adolescents due to inadequate sex education; he spoke of the youthful Argentine Republic and of the sacred virility of her sons. Just when everyone saw a pall being cast over the august horizon of the homeland, Bernini let the sun shine once again by pulling out his famous “safety valves.” It must be owned that, when he mentioned them for the second time, the pipsqueak unleashed a hurricane of laughter so violent that it wrinkled the brow of Doña Venus and knocked the Gasfitter out of his ecstasy.
A matter of such vast ramifications could not, of course, leave Franky Amundsen indifferent. Once the laughter had calmed down, Franky very gravely enquired of the scholars surrounding him if Schultz’s neocriollo angels (the same ones who had brought us the legion of single men just mentioned by Bernini) had likewise guided to our shores the legion of adorable Jovas, Fannys, and Suzettes who one fine day had blithely set out on the Road to Buenos Aires. At Franky’s words, many eyes flashed with hostility. In vain did Doña Venus wake up to swear that Jova had no equal in this world. In vain did Schultz deplore the inglorious role that certain perverse imaginations attributed to his angels. For nothing could prevent Adam, Pereda, and Bernini from recalling the name of that perfidious Frenchman, Albert Londres, who with his equally perfidious slander had tried to besmirch Argentine honour.9
— Those caftens are all from Marseilles! thundered Pereda, swearing he’d seen loads of them in brothels, with their bowler hats, Mediterranean mustaches, and heavy gold chains.
— They’re Pollacks! cried Bernini just as vigorously.
— Romanians! Adam affirmed categorically.
The question still hadn’t been resolved when the pythoness of the vestibule stirred again on her stool, a sure sign she was about to deliver a great revelation. Given her indisputable authority on the subject, everyone listened with keen interest.
— They come in all kinds, like at the five-and-dime store, Doña Venus whispered at last.
Having delivered her final verdict, she promptly woke up and slid over to the main door to let out the Syrian Merchant who, fleeing, was as despondent as a beat-up fighting cock. The Italian Gasfitter, without waiting to be invited, walked dreamily over and let himself into the room just vacated by the Merchant. Doña Venus approved his move with a slight nod and went back to her stool.
The Gasfitter’s departure allowed our men in the vestibule to bask in an intimacy that gave greater freedom to their words and movements. Few sounds penetrated that silent space — the neighbourhood rooster multiplying his shrieks, as if maddened by the sense of dawn’s approach; a grocer’s cart rattling lazily down the street to the rhythmic clip-clop of horseshoes. It was the hour when nocturnal souls, overcome by remorse, grow swollen with generous intentions and pledge their word of honour to the future. In this atmosphere favourable to all redemptions, Adam Buenosayres launched the final theme: of course this ignominy wasn’t necessary, and it was only the total lack of colonizing spirit that was responsible for the concentration of three million people on the banks of the Río de la Plata, while fertile plains and sylvan valleys were left unpopulated. And so? Was all lost, then? No! Adam Buenosayres gathered up all those “men in solitude”10 mentioned by Bernini; he joined them in Christian matrimony with vigorous women; he said unto them, “Multiply and fill the earth”; he scattered them like seed from north to south, from east to west. And then, before the wonderstruck gaze of his listeners, a race of shepherds and ploughmen, innumerable as the sands of the sea, covered the Argentine pampas all the way down to Cape Horn. They built amazing cities, peopled the sea with ships and the sky with aircraft, sang epics as yet unheard, and thought up superb metaphysical systems.
The vision sent the characters of the vestibule into ecstasy. The philosopher Tesler averred that a grand pastoral freshness was washing over him. Faithful to himself, Schultz proposed a few ethnic combinations (Spanish men with Tartar women, Englishwomen with Chinese men, Italian men with Esquimo women) which would bring about the lineage destined, so he affirmed, to find its quintessence in the Neocriollo. Pereda gravely endorsed the vision, and even the pipsqueak Bernini, beneath his tough scientific shell, was almost-sort-of moved by it. Alas! Among those zealous settlers, only Franky Amundsen maintained a reserved and almost hostile attitude! When the others called him on this, he retreated into a silence full of reticence, but eventually agreed in principle to the general idea of settlement. After more supplications and hesitations, Franky ended up insinuating that he would join the legion of men and women convoked by Adam Buenosayres. Nevertheless, given that he was not a reckless lyrical type, but a man of action with his feet firmly on the ground, Franky Amundsen imposed a condition without which he reckoned they wouldn’t get anywhere.
— What condition? several voices asked him.
— That polygamy be re-established, Franky answered in a pious tone.
And he added euphorically:
— What the heck! The Republic needs a hundred million inhabitants, and we’ll provide them!
Franky’s motion was fervently endorsed by some, but provoked vague protests from others. Samuel Tesler leapt to his feet:
— Yes! he cried. Polygamy, like in the Old Testament!
Radiant, sublime, his mouth malignant and his eyes flashing, the philosopher of Villa Crespo initiated his final ballet. With one hand on his hip and the other fluttering in the air, he slowly pirouetted along the vestibule, at once grotesque and rhythmic, a dancing gargoyle.
— The phylogenetic dance! cried Franky, applauding furiously.
Doña Venus woke up with a start:
— No horse-play, she said. This is a decent establishment.
But Samuel Tesler had concluded the first figure of his dance and was launching into the second with a lively display of footwork that captivated the onlookers. So Doña Venus slid off her tripod like a ball of gelatine, stood up, and made for the philosopher:
— Shhh! she ordered him. That’s enough!
In vain! A furious maenad, a gargoyle gone crazy, Samuel began to dance circles around Doña Venus, enclosing her in an orbit of leaps, pirouettes, and contortions. Doña Venus, sphere of fat, began to rotate awkwardly on her own axis, trying to face the dancing demon who was circumscribing her ever more closely. Meanwhile, from her post on the cushion, Lulu kept up a steady stream of yapping as shrill as broken glass.
— Hoodlums! Doña Venus panted. Get out!
She lunged for the main door, jerked back the chain to open it, then turned to the assembled company who were already on their feet:
— Out! she shouted. Get out of here!
— It’s not such a big deal, Franky told her in a conciliatory tone.
He tried to stroke her round double chin. But Doña Venus deflected the hand that dared such impudence. And so Franky studied the woman in her entire volume. Finally deciding on the right spot, he smiled benevolently and gave her backside a resounding slap.
— Police! shrieked Doña Venus. Police!
She hiked up her skirt, exhibiting a repulsively fat thigh, then pulled from her stocking a metal whistle and started blowing on it for all she was worth. Little Lulu chimed in, croaking and wheezing as if in her death throes. And Jova, now out in the vestibule, added her cackle to the chorus as she asked in alarm: “What’s up? What’s going on?” It was time to make themselves scarce, and the men bolted down the hallway and out to the street. Schultz, Franky, Pereda, and Bernini took off to the right, toward Triunvirato Street. Adam ran after the philosopher of Villa Crespo, who had gone to the left and was running hell bent in headlong flight.