body. She will vanish. But do I hate her? My madness is infatuated since
it makes her so radiant. And who am I that I laugh at my madness? It is
I who am insane. Not this other Eden maker whose mania I applauded. I,
Mallare, tear at my hair.
"I look in the mirror over my bed. Eyes red and gleaming look back at
me. This is my face, but I am no longer there. And whose are these eyes
looking back at me? The eyes of Mallare's friend, red and gleaming. His
friend who betrayed him. Hair slanting over a forehead. Mouth wide and
thin. No longer mine. They belong to the mirror. Mallare's words whimper
before them.
"Weep ... weep, impotent one. The feet of your madness walk solemnly
over you. They kick gravely at a carcass. Lie beneath them and watch
Mallare dance away, whirl away with lecherous shadows in his arms. But
she will die too. I am thinking of death. Mallare the egoist asks alms
of death!
"Windows break inside me. I look out of broken windows. I am gone and
away. Empty rooms. My hands feel walls. Mallare asks pity of darkness.
Pity him."
[Illustration: Sixth Drawing]
[VI]
She sat looking out of the window. He had gone away early in the
morning. It was growing dark now. The cold street dwindled. Windows
lighted up. People that looked from the distance like black toys moved
through the darkening street.
She could tell when he came because his walk was different. The hours
built pointed roofs to her dream. She played behind happy walls but her
eyes remained outside, watching from the window.
This was part of a game--to hide away and wait. To put on her clothes
carefully in the morning; bright silks and petticoats and a dress on
top; jewels on her fingers; bracelets and earrings; gold bands through
her hair. To make her cheeks red and paint black lines in her eyes; then
paint her lips and fingers red--these things hid her. She must be hidden
when he came--concealed behind paints and clothes so that when he looked
at her it would be someone else he saw.
A tall man with black hair. His face was white. His eyes were silent and
hidden. But when they looked at her they screeched like parrots. They
ruffled up and yellow points came into them.
He liked to walk up and down pretending she was nowhere, pretending
there was no Rita, pretending he was looking for her. Then she ran
around and one by one she took off the things--the dress, the
petticoats, the silks, the jewels and bracelets and gold bands. Each one
she took off was for him. It was a game. She came out of hiding places.
Each one she took off was a secret she confessed to him.
She sat at the window dreaming of the ways she belonged to him. Her
thought was a pantomime which prostrated itself before his memory. She
remembered sacrifices.... He would lie cold in his bed. Then she crawled
to his side. She dared not look at his eyes. They were above her and
kept themselves hidden. She vanished before the thought of them.
Then his body grew warm under her hands. Her lips made his body tremble.
He was white and naked like her. He was a fire to which she fed herself.
The moment came when there was no longer any Rita. A little ember lay
burning happily in his passion.
When he fell asleep she went away. In her own bed she lay dreaming words
that were like hiding places. Only he could lure her out of them. After
he fell asleep she carried memories of him into herself.... He had
smiled. His body had shivered. His fingers had clutched at her face. He
had picked her up and fought with her. When he did this it was as if he
lifted her to his eyes and she could look at him--as if the wind lifted
the flames about.
The street was dark. But he would come soon. He only stayed away till it
grew dark. Now it was his time again. The street and all the lights
would open the door and come into the room. And she would be waiting,
hidden away. It was exciting to wait. It was the way he kissed her--by
making her wait and pretending when he came that there was no Rita.
The night was like a story that frightened. As she watched from the
window she remembered the caravan along the roads. Fires and dark faces
and red handkerchiefs. The night along the roads changed the trees into
birds that flew away. The wagons went to sleep. Everyone slept but Rita.
The horses had dreams and whispered to themselves.
Along the roads where the caravan stopped there would be a fire at night
to watch. Rita sat alone looking at the flames. Dreams came out of the
fire and walked away. Then, hours afterward, they came back when the
fire was low. They stood around the coals and finally crawled into the
ground. Darkness remained. The wagons became ghosts. She grew sad and
wanted to go away with the night like the dreams that crept back into
the dead fire.
Now his eyes were like the hiding places she had wished. She trembled.
He was coming. She could see him out of the window, walking slowly in
the street below. She closed her eyes.
The door opened and her heart bowed itself. Her fingers, stiffened with
colored rings, pressed at her breasts. Now there was a game to play. He
walked up and down pretending Rita was hidden. He was cold and far away.
His face walked like a dead man back and forth in the room. Goliath
shuffled as fast as he could and hid himself in the curtains. She
crouched in the chair, her knees drawn up, her eyes cringing with
delight.
She could watch his face. When he was far away she had further to go to
reach him, and each step was like a kiss she gave him. His anger, his
words, his cold face and his hands striking her were wild roads down
which she ran toward a fire that waited.
He paid no attention but walked up and down and his eyes ignored her.
But he would begin to talk soon. She would undress for him. One by one,
rings, bands of gold, silks and petticoats--each that came off was like
a part of her already burning.
She stood up naked. Only she was left now. Her body caressed her with
its desires. She must go on undressing. There was something more to give
him. She would remove something of herself--her arms, her breasts, her
white thighs. She gave these to him with her dresses and jewels. They
were things for him to burn up.
He was looking at her because she had crawled to his feet. This was when
he began to talk to her--when she placed her arms around his feet and
bent her head to the floor.
"Yours," she whispered.
He was motionless and far away and tall above her. He stood like the
night. His white face was the cold moon. She waited and heard the wind
blow against the windows. She waited for him to grow warm.
His hands lifted her up. He held them around her neck, his fingers
tightening. She opened her eyes and loved him. He talked to her. She
listened and wished to die in his hands, if he desired her, if it would
make his eyes smile at her.
But his fingers loosened and he threw her down. She lay smiling on the
floor as he walked away. He went on talking, louder and louder. His
voice was like a sword swinging. He was angry. His words were soft and
quick.
She looked up only when he laughed. He was standing against the red
curtains laughing. His finger was pointing to her. He stood watching her
with his eyes screeching like parrots and laughing as he pointed.
Kneeling, she covered her face with her hands. His laughter came nearer.
His hands began to strike. Pain leaped to greet them. Pain, like wings,
raised her body to his eyes. His hands were striking and tearing. They
played a game with her body.
Candles lighted in her head. He was laughing and throwing himself
against her. She felt blood come out of her and cover her with little
flames. But he would let her come close soon. After he had struck her
and become like a fire she would crawl close to him and he would let her
give herself, what was left of herself.
His hands knocked her down again and she lay without moving. He was
still laughing and pulling at her. She kneeled and covered her face. Her
head kept nodding at him.
Now she would die. He would devour her. Her body fell and rose as if he
were swinging her around his head. His hands drove nails through her
breasts. Her voice ran away from her and screamed. But she continued to
nod her head and to come toward him out of the hiding places. His blows
were binding her body with red ropes. But soon she would lie against him
and give herself to his passion. She would feel his body burning from
the blows he had given her. She closed her eyes and screamed. He grew
larger and she was no longer able to understand the pain....
When she awoke Goliath was bending over her. He was whispering
excitedly. Sunlight made red shadows in the room.
"Where is he?" she asked.
She slid to the floor and then stood up carefully. Pain halted her and
she moaned. But her eyes continued to hunt the room.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
Goliath watched her and his head rolled excitedly. She straightened and
dragged herself to the door of his room. It was empty.
"Mallare," she cried. Her hands beat against her head, "Mallare."
Goliath remained watching her naked figure stumbling through the rooms
as she called the name. She returned to the couch and threw herself face
down. She lay moaning and tearing the cushions with her fingers.
He had gone away. He had beaten her not because he loved. He hated her.
And he had taken himself away from her. She understood. He no longer
wanted her. He had laughed and tried to kill her.
With a scream she rushed into his bedroom and threw herself against the
unused pillows. Her arms struck at them. She began to talk aloud in the
language she knew.
"Gone away, gone away," she cried. "I am yours and you gone away."
But words were too involved. She beat at the pillows and screamed. When
he came back she would kill him. While he sat in his chair writing she
would creep close and drive a knife. That was what would happen to him
because he no longer loved her and because he had beaten her to say
goodbye.
It was day outside. When it grew dark again he would come back. She
would wait, but not as before. She was no longer his.
In her room Rita bathed herself and searched for her old clothes. She
found them hidden--the wide dress with red and yellow stripes, the many
blue and scarlet petticoats that she had worn when he brought her home
from the caravan; the long black earrings, the green and orange shawl
for her head. She put these on. They hid the vivid marks on her body.
Dressed in her gypsy clothes she came into the room again. It would be
long to wait. But darkness would come and then he would open the door
again. She lay down on the couch and sighed.
[Illustration: Seventh Drawing]
[VII]
Mallare, wrapped in a heavy overcoat, his hands in thick gloves, walked
from his door into the street. The cold straightened him. The deserted
night mirrored itself in a thin coating of snow that overlay the
roof-tops.
"They sleep," he thought. His head bent toward the wind. "The streets
are empty. The night is mine. I must think of what has happened. There
is something inexplicable in what has happened. My hands fought with a
phantom. That, of course, is nonsense.
"How do I know my hands fought? Merely because I remember them
striking. Yet that may have been an illusion too! Then why are my hands
tired? Why do my arms ache? Another illusion, of course. Logic is
independent of truth. Logic is the persuasive repetition of ideas by
which man hypnotizes himself. I must beware of logic. It will but tie me
hopelessly to hallucination. I must think without evidence. I do not
know anything. What I see, hear, smell, touch is nothing. I can no
longer summon my senses as witnesses.
"And is that unusual? I must sink to moralizings in order to understand
myself. What is reality but the habit of illusion. Man sees the
unexpected once and identifies it as hallucination. He sees it twice and
calls it phenomenon. But if he acquired the habit of seeing the
unexpected, he accepts it as reality.
"In the same manner in which he builds phantoms into furniture, converts
his Gods into sciences, his myths into laws; in that way he also reduces
his furniture into phantoms. He converts his emotions into music, his
nervous disorders into literature, his three elemental desires into
thought. He is continually holding a mirror to nature and worshipping
the childish phantoms within the mirror.
"This is the basis of egoism--the mania to change realities into
unreality. Because man is the tool of reality. Of unreality he is the
God. It is this desire to dominate which inspires him to avoid truths
over which he has no sway and to invent myths. Gods and virtues over
which he may set himself up as creator and policeman. It is this which
causes him to cloud the simplicities of nature in a maze of
interpretations. It is by his interpretations that he achieves the
illusion of importance. Ignored by the planets, he invents the myth of
mathematics and reduces the universe to a succession of fractions and
Greek letters on a blackboard.
"This, of course, for man the egoist. The more humorous spectacle is the
one in which man finds himself awed by his own lies. His Gods, his
myths, his phantoms come home to roost. He stands blinking in a
veritable storm of lies. His yesterday's lies, his today's lies, his
tomorrow's lies--all his obsolete interpretations, his canonized
interpretations; all his systems, his philosophies; all his Gods and
Phantoms--these riot and war around him. Error endlessly assassinates
itself in a futile effort to escape its immortality.
"And in the midst of this horrendous confusion, stands man--naive and
powerless. But he has his sanity. He blows it up carefully like a soap
bubble and strikes a defiant posture in its center. And against the
walls of his bubble, his phantoms storm in vain. Within his bubble he
proceeds calmly to assert himself."
It was snowing. The night, white with snow, stared like a blind man. A
phantom world hung in the air. Houses and street withdrew silently. The
snow covered them. Mallare walked on, staring into the heavy weave of
flakes.
"A great white leopard prowling silently," he murmured. "It snows. The
moon has come down and walks beside me. The wind blows and the moon
gallops away on a white horse. A gentle annihilation. The night has
fallen asleep and this is a dream that pirouettes in its head. The
street becomes a bridal couch.
"Ah, the snow is like my madness. It snows, snows. I climb silently
among soft branches and white leaves. Delirium sleeps with a finger to
its pale lips. I must continue to think. The storm hangs like a
forgotten sorrow in my heart. But my thought persists. It crawls like a
little wind through the forgotten storm. It rides carefully from flake
to flake.
"I overtake myself. What a quaint imbecile I am. Or rather, was. In my
effort to emancipate myself from life, I succeeded only in handing
myself over to my senses. And my senses, I perceive, belong not to me
but to the procreative principles of biology. They have been loaned to
me by a master chemist. When I die my cherished soul will disintegrate
into nothing. It will become a useless thing. It will unquestionably go
to a Heaven which is as non-existent as itself. Heaven is the emptiness
into which souls vanish. Very good. But my senses, these are immortal.
They will, in some inexplicable way, I am certain, continue their idiot
career.
"I must consider them. I have learned one thing. They are indifferent to
reality and unreality. They contain life within themselves. All that
exists outside them is extraneous--shadows among which they divert
themselves.
"The hallucination that overpowered me but never seduced my intelligence
became a reality to them. She was a shadow with which my senses diverted
themselves. Then why do I look upon the business as illogical? The
illogical thing is not that I feel tired from striking her who had no
tangible existence, but that I should be able to reason beyond the reach
of my senses. Yes, that I should succeed in wresting them from their
prey. For the shadows with which the senses divert themselves are
tyrants they may never hope to abandon. Man is at the mercy of his
phantoms. Behold, I arrive at a conclusion which means I am bored with
the subject.
"I prefer the snow. But there is time for the snow. I must establish
premises. Climb out of the abyss on a ladder of premises. What did I
say about logic? Oh, yes, the persuasive repetition. One flake remains
invisible. A thousand flakes are of no account. It is only when the
flakes repeat themselves too endlessly for my eye to distinguish that I
finally ignore them and walk contentedly in a storm. Thus with logic.
When I have surrounded myself with an infinity of assurances, my error
vanishes in the constant repetition of itself. And I am reassured. And
sane.
"Yet I must think simply. The snow seduces me into fellow labyrinths.
I've destroyed her. My senses were in love with her. They responded to
her kisses. She was a Thought able to ravish my body. This is what the
pathologists would identify as a triumph of the psychic sex center. What
charming palaverers--the pathologists! Man crawls in a circle around
himself and fancies himself an invader--a pathologist.
"A matter of no interest. What I have done, as the Christian Scientists
ably put it, is to rid myself of this Thought. But why was it necessary
to strike at it with my hands, to tear it with my fingers? This worries
me. But did I do these things? I must convince myself that I didn't. I
remember sinking my hands into her body, pulling at her flesh. I
remember blows given. She screamed. I struck her and flung her down.
These things I recall.
"But they do not interfere with my convictions. For of what are they
proof? The blows I gave were no more than a shrewd make-believe. To my
senses she was real, and it was necessary therefore to destroy her
realistically. It was easy for my mind to ignore this Thought. I was
never its victim. I merely created it. My senses that belong to life and
not to me, however, became victimized.
"I do not recall myself as a spectator of the struggle. I remember it
now as I might remember participating in an honest fight. A very clever
ruse. It is evident I loaned myself. I surrendered adroitly to my
idiotic senses. Therefore for that hour I was completely mad. What
happened in the room? Ah, what a grotesque memory it makes. Mallare
knocking his fists against the air. Mallare throwing himself around like
an epileptic. Sinking his fingers into nothing--a shadow boxer
pummelling frenziedly at space. That was madness.
"But it served its purpose. For I've destroyed her. Rita, Rita is gone.
Yet there's a curious twist in that. I am lacking one memory. One very
important memory hides from me. I calculate its time and place, but,
like a recalcitrant comet, it fails to enter the appointed void. Alas, I
no longer remember killing her in the street.
"But I am certain I did. Why, certain? Because my logic establishes the
fact. Still, I would feel better about something, if my memory were more
docile. But what is memory? The soul of dead illusion. Since it
withholds itself, I will create a memory.
"There was a lamp shining over my head. I was walking. And then I stood
still. Oh, yes, shadows. I grew eloquent with shadows. And she appeared
in the midst of this eloquence. My hands choked her. She had followed me
into the street and I choked her. But I do not remember this. At least,
the thing grows elusive and unsatisfactory. Why? Ah, the snow covers me.
I will cover my confusion with a sigh like the snow.
"No, I see the thing now. Was she ever real? There were gypsy wagons and
an old man. A camp fire and this girl with the green and orange shawl.
Yes, these were realities. But how do I know? Hm, I place my finger on
the sore spot. There is a point where reality and unreality meet. And
this point has vanished from my mind. I pursue it. A matter of
remarkable importance. It evades me; therefore I will arbitrarily locate
it. The point between reality and unreality is the arc lamp in the
street. Up to that point Rita was real. I killed her at that point and
she became unreal. This statement cures me. Nevertheless, my sanity is a
myth. I have invented it, by arbitrarily identifying the moment of its
departure. But it is better that way than to blunder on without knowing
how mad I am or whether I am mad at all, or whether I ever have been
mad. A lie believed in is an antidote for confusion.
"It doesn't matter. Excellent logic. She is destroyed. And I am none the
worse, except for a disillusion more--and an uncertainty. My uncertainty
is removed by logic, or at least concealed by it. And I am sane. I
return to life--another Napoleon walking backwards. My experiments have
led me around a circle. I meet myself where I started, but naked of
hopes.
"It snows and I am amiable. Something has happened. My hatred, where is
that? This street is pleasant. The light of the snow cheers me. I am, in
fact, buoyant. Ah, I understand. A balloon come down to earth and vain
once more of its buoyancy--its ability to bob along the pavement.
"It is curious. I delude myself that I am thinking. But my alleged
thoughts do not further my ideas. They merely convert them into little
pictures easy for me to understand and diverting to look at.
"Still, if I am happy ... but how does one know one is happy? I suspect
my happiness. It is a clown's suit in which my mourning disguises
itself. Mallare has fallen out of his black heaven. And he picks himself
up like a good burgher. He grunts and chuckles and looks at the skies,
alas, without curiosity. Lucifer, fallen, finds diversion as a janitor
in red tights. Ergo, I have proved something. I am in Hell and with
Lucifer I know its secret--happiness.
"Where is Mallare who fancied himself a madman? Who sought to climb over
his senses and found himself impaled by a tower of Babel? Where are his
angers, his disgusts that were the noble shadows thrown by his egoism to
blot out a world? Ballad of rhetorical questions. My vanity preens
itself with reminiscences. I smile. I am depressed and content. Answers
whisper. Mallare is on his feet. His experiments are ended. His mania to
possess himself is a snow that falls forgotten in his past. Vale, the
lunatic. Vale, the man in the moon. Ave, Mallare.
"It snows. I walk. I think. I smile. And this too for a time is a
diversion--that people no longer distract me. I carelessly restore the
world. Let there be people, I say. And, alas, there are. I abdicate. I
hand my Godhood back to the race.
"Morning begins like another snow in the distance. Ah, here comes one
tired-eyed out of a house. It is astounding to think that he is human
like myself. He and I are actors in the same play, yet ignorant of each
other's lines. But I may guess at his part. He is frightened. He looks
furtively toward me. And he walks rather lamely. Aha, a fornicator! He
has left a warm bed, illegally occupied for the night. A woman in a
rumpled night dress moaned under him. The plot is simple. How pleasing
it was for a moment. She came so close. She was like an incredibly
intimate secret. He gasped physiological instructions. And--finis! The
captains and the kings depart. The recessional of the douche! Do you
love me yet, do you love me yet?
"And now he walks in the cold street. He must hurry away. There are
complications, but they make a minor drama. Off stage business. He is
aware of contrasts. A moment ago--her arms, her gasps. A moment ago
warmth, intimacy. And now, the snow, the cold, and life. Memory like
fool's gold jingles in his pocket. Life is real, life is earnest. He
regrets his orgasms. They will interfere with business.
"The male rampant! What a sinister comedian! The mythical despoiler. Hm,
his head bows down. The snow disturbs him. Sad, weary, remorseful, he
drags himself home. He has lessened his virility and it worries him.
There is a plot in this. Some day I will write it out--a love story of
the sexes. Poor, weary one, he has enriched Delilah.
"Ah, I am amused. It will be pleasant to observe people once more.
Sanity has its rewards. Its laughter is a charming hint of madness that
one may enjoy harmlessly.
"What a lecherous spectacle a row of dark houses is! Bedrooms filled
with bodies--incredible nudities. Bed springs creaking. The hour of
asterisks. Window blinds down. Doors locked. Lights out. The city
lingers in the snow like a feeble burlesque. Houses and shops and street
car tracks gesture reprovingly. Civilization bows its head in the night
like an abandoned bride. Man, like an ape hunting fleas, preoccupies
himself again with his nerve centers.