rather dubious.' I thought. 'The melodrama of illusions grows too
improbable. This fine tragedy crumbles into the ludicrous. She forgets
her hate. She is again Rita, the infatuated one. A lightning change that
smacks of inferior vaudeville. She is about to undress and resume her
deplorable assaults upon my idiot senses. A poorly written business. I
have a notion to walk out.'
"But I remained smiling at the absurdity, too tired to leave my chair. I
was pleased to notice that her nudity did not this time appeal to my
doting madness. This marked an improvement--a foretaste of victory. The
disintegration had begun.
"Her body was interesting. It was covered with bruises. There were
stains on its flesh. At the sight of them the lodge brother, the
sniveling one who had followed me home in the snow, set up a veritable
caterwauling. Here was terrible evidence of the fellow's guilt. The
bruises of course. An accomplished penitent, this blubberer, able to
transform himself from a Sense of Homicidal Guilt into a mere feeling of
General Remorse.
"She was not dead. Yet he lingered. And now, at the sight of her
bruises, he rushed forward with inferior regrets. He will bear study,
this weeping one. Of all the sprawling Mallares, he alone lacks logic.
But I will come to him later. The plot is more entertaining than this
incongruous spectator weeping and hissing out of turn.
"She began to talk once more and wildly. The sense of it dawned on me.
She was calling Goliath. He came shuffling from his usual hiding
place--the curtains. A diverting little monster. I bear him no ill will.
Although I grow slightly envious of his madness. Yet his madness is a
terrific flattery. It is involved and piquant and one of the things that
remain for me to study cautiously. The madness of Goliath and, of
course, this gentleman Niobe.
"He came out, a fact at the time that astonished me. For I had not been
aware of his madness. He stood with his bent and bulbous body shaking
and his hands resting like a baboon's on the floor. I was noticing the
excitement of his huge head when it came to me with a curious
feeling--he was looking at her. Yes, Goliath my servant was looking not
at me. But at her!
"'Careful, Mallare, be careful,' I thought. The insane sniveling of this
lodge brother distracted me. His arms came around me and he rested his
head on me and wept. Insufferable ass! It was impossible to think. I
remained with my eyes watching and repeating cautiously to myself the
warning.
"Here was a trick too baffling for Mallare. Mallare must suspend
himself, close his eyes and climb slowly back into his black heaven.
"'Then Goliath too is a phantom,' I thought. 'But careful, be careful,
Mallare. That is too easy. And you remember. It is dangerous to hide
from too many memories. They will become shadows that nibble at you. He
is not a phantom. Goliath is no chimera. He lives. He has reality.
"'Then how does it come,' I continued thinking, 'that he sees that which
is visible only to you? His eyes are fastened on her who is to be seen
only inside the caverns of Mallare. He raises his arms. His hands touch
her. I am imagining Goliath. Goliath is not in the room. This is a
memory of him that has wandered onto the scene of my madness.'
"Here my thinking ended. I sat contemplating the imbecile, the
blubberer. He pressed himself upon me with his shameless importunings.
He snivelled and his lips moved with my name. I watched them say,
'Mallare' and repeat 'Mallare' till I grew dizzy with the pantomime of
my name. I will study this later and discover the secret of his lips. My
name drifting continually over them has a way of hypnotizing me. But
later--later.
"I began thinking once more.
"'This lodge brother weeps while Goliath takes liberties with my
phantom. There is a connection there. But it is unimportant for the
present. I must discover something else.'
"Then, like a victory too long withheld, it came to me. He was mad.
Goliath, my servant, was mad. But more than that--a telepathic madness.
I have elaborated my understanding since. Goliath suffers from a
contagion. His constant attendance upon me has proved fatal to his
stupidity. His senses are the victims of my puppets. He has entered my
world and my madness creates for him, as it does for me, shadows that
deceive him. But there is no Mallare in him. Unlike me, he does not sit
in amused judgment upon himself.
"It is an interesting phenomenon--this strange mesmerism. It remains to
be studied. Goliath and I are mad brothers. This understanding arrived
in time. Or else I would have flung myself in despair upon the
ever-imploring bosom of my lugubrious sniveler.
"Rita was real to Goliath. I watched him excitedly and continued to
think. I addressed myself:
"'Observe,' I said, 'here you have a distressing visualization. Goliath,
your dwarf, mimics your madness. And it is not pleasant to look at. His
eyes roll with passion. His fat lips chew upon lewd expectations. His
fingers raise themselves like frightened blasphemies to her breasts. And
he watches you. Yes, his eyes sneak glimpses of you. For you are his
rival! You and this nigger monster are vaginal comrades. It is pleasant
to see that you have the decency to feel enraged.' Five infatuated
Mallares sputtered and wept and gnashed their teeth.
"As I talked I turned my attention to her. In my excitement over Goliath
I had ignored her. Her hands were fumbling with the clothes of this
doting rival. But her eyes were on me. They blazed.
"'This pantomime of shadows grows involved,' I thought. But I was
experimenting with rhetoric. For the thing was absurdly simple. Hate
still animated my phantom. And this was her revenge. She was about to
give herself to the black dwarf Goliath. She was about to commit sexual
hari-kari.
"I watched her hands remove his clothes, his red jacket, his fine shirt.
He jumped up and down like a distracted child, his own hands bewildered
with too many activities. They fondled her, they tugged at his trousers.
They became insane and flapped at his sides. She helped him, her eyes
still watching me.
"'At last I produce a horror worthy of myself,' I thought. 'The mist
dagger was melodrama to be smiled at. But this--ah, here we have a
refinement that reduces death to a minor obscenity. She attacks me now
with a weapon worthy my indifference. It is true, my senses writhe less
frightenedly. But I, Mallare--yes, Mallare the Supreme One--honor her
assault with a shudder.
"'Ah, who but Mallare could have invented so subtle a blasphemy, so
accomplished an enemy. It is an old theological quibble, but I
understand it now. God is the greatest atheist. He is proud of a
disbelief in Himself.
"'Yes, this phantom is the atheism of Mallare. And it is at last a true
child. A parental pride excites me. Like Mallare, her father, she rises
above herself. I have breathed the soul of hate into her. My hatred
alive with a cleverness of its own speaks to itself.
"'It says, 'I am the hatred of Mallare. I desire to murder him. I am his
phantom, but the suffering and insult he has heaped upon me grow
unbearable. His cruelty and coldness have filled me with fury. I would
have killed him but that would have been almost an infidelity. For his
senses have been my lovers. I remember them with tears. I decided not to
kill him because that would have meant to kill his senses. But this
other one, this Insufferable and Aloof One--this Serene One staring
amusedly at me out of His black heaven--how send my hatred against him?
Ah, I will conspire with his senses. I am no more than an idea in the
head of God. But the head of God is but an idea that encircles me. I am
a phantom within a phantom. Thus I must make myself nauseous. I must
make myself too hideous. I must make myself so monstrous that the Idea
which contains me will feel an anguish. And this anguish will be the
applause to my hate.'
"I sat shrewdly silent, for the moment was approaching. At last I
perceived myself behind the logic of this Frankenstein. For it was I--I,
Mallare--that was attacking myself with this hatred. It was Mallare who
was arranging this little plot for himself. And why? Because then the
head of Mallare, nauseated by the vileness of the assault, would
disgorge forever the hallucination of Rita. It was an emetic Mallare had
found necessary to administer to himself.
"Ah, my cleverness grows incredible. I am too Supreme to grasp Myself.
There are still unexplored crevices in My infinity, and out of these
continue to issue surprises that divert Me.
"Goliath was undressed. His black body, lumped and like some mad
caricature of itself, gleamed in the light.
"'See,' I said. 'Note this bulbous little black man. For he is a
caricature not of himself but of you. He is a rival before whom your
senses wince as before some unflattering image. Yes--the image of
Mallare stands saluting his charming chimera with an interesting
Ethiopian erection. For though they differ in many externals, Mallare
and Goliath are one. They are ornamented insulations for an identical
current. And here, throbbing under an erection is the current of Mallare
and of an infinity of Mallares.
"'Ah, the penis of this dwarf is repellent because that which Mallare so
fondly called his own--his desires--is revealed to him as grotesquely
promiscuous. Yes, the penis is the democratic tabernacle of Life. Under
its little Moorish roof, the senses of the race kneel in common prayer.
"'Observe it, Mallare. It is the rendezvous of expiring illusions, the
gathering place of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts and plants.
See how this curious dwarf staggers like a bewildered stranger in its
shadow. He is an outcast. He is useless. He is no longer necessary. Life
which made a pretense of him, enters its tabernacle and closes the doors
on him. Here is the great secret. Here stands the grim tyrant before
whose delicious wrath man bows himself into annihilations.
"'Ah, what a marvelous tabernacle! It moves and Goliath follows. It
points and Goliath runs after it. An infatuated tabernacle that fancies
itself going to Heaven! It is proud. It struts. Goliath shuffles after
it like a forlorn little nigger in the wake of a circus. It leaps. And
Goliath gallops after it. Aha! he lies on his back impaled. But she!'
"They were on the couch. She sat beside him but her eyes still sought
me. Noises issued from Goliath. He rolled on his back, kicking crooked
legs and yelping.
"I watched her white body spread over him. Her eyes left me and my
rhetoric dwindled into a sigh. I was alone with a spectacle. Goliath,
masturbating with a phantom--but not as Mallare had done. No, not as
Mallare who had lain indifferent beside his Frankenstein. For Goliath's
arms were around her, his legs entwined her. His body, an insanity in
itself, made a mate beneath her more incredible than she. There was
silence. Then she screamed!----
"Yes, Mallare closed his eyes. A coldness tip-toed out of his heart. She
was laughing. Her laughter entered his ears--a noise that was like a
witch's flight of sound. But who was it laughed? Mallare, Mallare
laughed. It was his voice in the phantom that laughed at him. It was his
hallucination he had loved that now gave itself to a little monster. And
it was his hate that designed this laugh, a thing that pierced the
heaven in which he sat. Mallare closed his eyes, a God shuddering before
His own atheism. Yes, rhetoric now. It is easy to write. My words
embroider themselves.
"But then, when the laugh struck Mallare! Ah, there was curious mutiny.
They went away. The little Mallares who worship me went away, all but
one. The dumb one. Yes, I write of him again. He came to me then and his
tears were more horrible than the scream I had heard. His weeping came
too close. His weeping grew too loud. His arms embraced me and he held
his face too close to mine. And my name rose from his lips.
"I was alone with him and my fingers fought with his throat. This
blubberer who had followed me home in the snow, yes this insufferable
melancholiac who rained his tears into my Heaven--Mallare would have
killed him.
"But he was too sly. He slipped away and sprawled around the room. He
beat his hands against walls and tore at his hair. I followed watching
him and coaxing him to come close once more. I smiled at him to come
near again. But no, he avoided me. He stood against the curtains facing
me and pointing his finger at me. His mouth was open but no sound came
from it. There was only the noise of my phantom laughing.
"He stood pointing and I watched my name come like a dead shout from his
lip. His throat was alive with my name.
"'Mallare!' it said.
"I smiled at him. And I worshipped aloud so that he might hear. I
whispered to him to come close--this lugubrious blasphemer who wears my
name in his throat. But his face grew white. His arms dropped and he
leaned against the curtains. His eyes closed and he fell. The
Indifferent One remained. The smile of Mallare remained contemplating
the prostrate ones.
"The couch was still alive. But it was dark. Her outline was already
disintegrating. Goliath's fingers stared from her back.
"'The dark comedy ends,' I thought. 'My phantom dissolves in a suicidal
orgasm. And the little monster beneath her collapses amid too sudden
memories. Finis! The revenge that I so cleverly manipulated is
accomplished. And now Mallare disgorges a hallucination become too
nauseous. I have fouled this pretty one so that my senses might abandon
her. And see, they whimper under me. The dumb one lies in a corner and
even his tears are ended. And this sad eyed one, weary with intolerable
visions, and this one whose ears are filled with voices--all of them
whimper under me. But I must feel no pity for them. Mallare rides away
like a star....
"'And she dissolves. Vale Rita! The red and yellow dress again. Yes ...
yes--the green and orange shawl again. Put them on. Bravo Rita! Tragedy
bows in a decorative anti-climax. Little one, Mallare banishes thee from
His heaven where thou becamest too intimate. Because thou sought to
seduce His worshippers. Vale!--Mallare disgorges thee. Spit not at Me,
little one, for I am only a smile. Spit at this dumb one, this
blubberer, who has forgotten himself in a new sleep.'
* * * * *
"And Goliath weeps. She is gone and his madness regrets her vanishing.
He sits by day and watches out of the window. At night I have found him
staring at the couch where he lay with my shadow. He kneels beside it
with his grotesque arms flung out, embracing memories.
"His madness flatters me. Yet it is a thing to be studied. His eyes are
insane. They roll continually in their sockets. He beats himself,
knocking his fists against his head. And I have discovered him on the
floor doubled up, his head buried in his arms. He does not hear me but
remains, while I move around, immobile as an idol. Yes, little Goliath
is mad. But he cannot recover the illusion whose memory haunts his dark
soul. He suffers. He beats his head and his tears are futile. For she
was mine. Mallare created her. Mallare destroyed her. There is a
temptation at times to return her--not to Mallare but to this poor
dwarf who expires under his grief.
"I am tempted by his madness. Goliath has found no God in his black
heaven. I would be his God and create for him as I may for Myself. But I
am wary of such altruism. He is still My servant and looks after Me. But
My smile watches him with caution. His eyes roll too much.
"Since I rid myself of her, there has been no mutiny. I sit and
contemplate problems that have grown too simple for me. And when I am
bored with studying Goliath's madness, I divert myself with my friend,
the lodge brother. A baffling imbecile who withholds himself slyly. I
have not yet come to an understanding with him. There are too few facts
to go on. He is silent. He weeps. My name sleeps forever on his lips.
And once he babbled to me of blood on my hands. These are the only
realities that form a key to him.
"His presence remains a discomfort. We sit and stare at each other. And
I talk quietly to him.
"'You are an inconsistent ass,' I say. 'You were first an obvious
pathologic symptom--an illusory conscience born to adorn the grief of my
senses that fancied they had murdered Rita, the phantom. But then when
you found her alive, what did you do? Did you vanish as, in all logic,
you should? For Rita was not murdered and therefore where the necessity
of a conscience to celebrate her crime?
"'But you remained and grew more dolorous. Then you are something else.
I suspect you of being the adroit ambassador the madmen have sent into
my heaven to plead their cause. Yet why do you not plead? As an
ambassador you are a tongue-tied, sniveling idiot. Therefore again, you
escape logic. And without logic my madness becomes slyly
incomprehensible to me.
"'We watch each other like two careful wrestlers, eh? But what hold do
you want? Tell me and I will let you try your strength. No--tears,
nothing else. You weep, weep until the sight of you is an impossible
ennui.
"'Ah, perhaps you are a memory of Mallare. Something forgotten. Logic
approaches you as I think. Something forgotten. And you are overcome at
my infidelity. Like Goliath you mourn a vanished one. But there is this
difference. Whereas Goliath is real and the object of his mourning is a
phantom--you and not I are the phantom. Yes, a phantom mourns me. But
speak then. I have no objection to memory. Let me hear what this is all
about and I will admit what you say. I will admit it all beforehand.
"'But no. You expect something else. You expect Mallare to fall at your
feet and embrace you. I can see that in your eyes--a monotonous
expectation that grows ludicrous. Yes, your tears grow ludicrous. I
tolerate you for only one purpose. You are a problem that diverts me.
For if I desired I could do with you as I did with Rita. There are ways
to make you too nauseous.
"'Yes, I might invent another hate for myself. My hands might tear you
as they tore her. And then, filled with a fury against me, you too
might turn to Goliath. He is still mad, my dwarf, and susceptible to the
phantoms I send him. Do you want to go to him as she did? Aha! You
wince. Remember then that Mallare has it in his power to send you to his
dwarf, to make you take her place over his terrible body. And Mallare
will do this if you annoy him too much. And then, sickened with you as
he was with her, he will disgorge another shadow. Let us be frank about
this. I warn you.'
"Thus I sit and talk quietly to this weeping one. And when I stop I
watch his lips move with my name.
"'Mallare,' they say.
"This is his only answer to my overtures. But I will win him over. He
will come close to my smile and kneel finally before me. He will confess
who he is and what my name means.
"I grow tired. Goliath stands by his shrine and weeps. He waits beside a
couch as if it were another Mallare able to give birth to a phantom.
Poor dwarf, unlike Mallare he has not learned that suffering is an
illusion, that couches and Medusas are illusions. Unlike Mallare there
is no smile hanging its star above him.
"Sleep comes. A forgotten world babbles with shadows outside my windows.
It is time to say goodnight to my friend, the lodge brother. Turn your
tears to the cold moon, my friend. Mallare goes away. Far away into a
house where he is alone."
[Illustration: Ninth Drawing]
[IX]
_The last entry in the Journal of Mallare--undated._
"Talk to me, Mallare. Tell me. Where am I? He grows larger, this dumb
one. He moves away, growing larger. He defies distance. He grows too
large to see. But his tears remain.
"Whisper to me, Mallare. He vanishes and I must sneak after him. Call me
back. He is strange. His darkness lures me out of my heaven. A little
whisper will save me. You will say to me, 'Here is God.' I will come
back.
"My words tire of him. He will not listen. His tears! dear God, are You
so human that they silence You? He has come into my loneliness. And
there is no use debating with him any longer. Since he followed me home
in the snow his weeping has never wavered. I must talk not to him but to
Mallare. I must debate with Mallare. But where is he, this Supreme One?
Mallare, where art thou?
"Yes, my madness becomes an increasing novelty. I remain. But I grow
smaller. I am too small. Where is my smile? It hides from me. But his
tears fall. This dumb one knows how to weep. Alas, I drown.
"Come to my side. I will whisper. I am in love. Yes, do not be
astonished. I am in love with her. You recall her? She was like a
curtain fluttering before the door of enchantments. Her breasts were
like little blind faces raised in prayer. Yes, Rita, my radiant one. The
phantom I constructed. The Phoenix that arose in my soul. And that I
slew again. I am in love. But my magic no longer works. She does not
return.
"I will whisper. I kneel with Goliath beside the couch. Ah, Mallare,
Mallare--I am mad with love. I weep and beat my head. And this other one
calls me away. His shape grows larger and his darkness lifts me toward
it. He pulls me from the couch. Talk to me, Mallare. I am mad, but talk
to me and I will understand. Dear, shining Mallare ... Tell me 'no' and
I will break my love. I will put my fist through the window out of which
I watch for her. And it will be finished.
"But I weep. My eyes have caught his trick. I weep for her. Do you
understand this? My beautiful one whom I disgorged. Yes, Rita. I die
with love of her. I kneel by the bed that knew her. Whisper back to me,
Mallare, that I am mad. And I will laugh. But without you I grow too
small to laugh.
"There is pain in the shadows. I ask, where am I? Go way, then, Mallare.
Leave me. I persist without Mallare. I remain. Let me dissolve into
this. Let me sprawl before the door of enchantments. It is illusion.
Let it be. She will come out. Rita, my vanished one, come back to me.
It is I who ask. Not the Cold One, not the Indifferent One, not Mallare.
But I ... I.
"I will hold you in my arms. I will feed your mist with kisses. My body
will warm you. I will be kind. I am not Mallare. He is gone. He hides.
He will not come back. I will kneel before the door that sings with you.
I am mad with love. See, Rita, I am like Goliath. My eyes roll. I am mad
and you may come to me without fear.
"Windows break in me again. I remember this from long ago. Hey, you
blubbering one! Do you want me! Hey, you brother sniveler, come back! I
laugh. Do you understand this? A laughter without definitions. Ah,
forgive me. You sat and wept and I scolded. Come back and sit again. I
will fall at your feet. Your eyes asked that. But now--where are your
feet? There is no shape. How am I to know where? Come back. Here, sit in
this chair beside me. God! In silence, I utter my name. But it is a
name that has flown away, flown away.
"Hey, you, bring me my name. The little name, the one that made a
pantomime on your lips. The one that stared at me with letters. Bring me
my name, I will understand its meaning. My other name has flown away.
Listen. Let me whisper. Bring it to me and I will place it like a gate
before the door of enchantments. I will kneel to it. Windows break in my
head. Mallare ... are you Mallare? No, you are this. You are a babble of
words that stands on its nose.
"Laugh at me, Mallare. Let me hear your laugh far away. Or I go. Listen,
Mallare. I turn my back on this darkness. I do not kneel at empty
couches. No. I wait for you. You were my God. You, the One who
contemplated. Yes, my arms are out to You. Come ... a whisper out of
silences. Hey, Mallare. I dissolve. I become a little phantom. A useless
little phantom. I drift like Rita. And they attack me. Hands, voices and
trembling ones. They are brave because it is dark. Your worshippers,
Mallare, they turn on me. They break windows. Pity me. This is the
cross.
[Hebrew: Eli, eli, lama azavtani?]
[Illustration: Tenth Drawing]
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| Transcriber's Note |
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| Details of minor typographical corrections are provided in |
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