(r 
 
Limited edition for private circulation only, 
 consisting of two thousand and twenty-five 
 numbered copies. Only two thousand copies 
 for sale. Published September 1922. 
 
 cNo._ 
 
 PRESS OP 
 
 PRINTING 
 IH VICE 
 COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT NINETEEN-TWENTY-TWO 
 
 COVICI -cMcGEE 
 
 Chicago 
 
 <Rifehts ^Reserved 
 
FANTAZIUS 
 
 M ALIA RE 
 
 Oath 
 
 BEN HECHT 
 
 Drawings 
 WALLACE SMITH 
 
 Chicago 
 COVICI-McGEE 
 
 192,2 
 
Opposite 
 
 First ^Drawing ........ 20 
 
 Second drawing ....... 42 
 
 Third ^Drawing ..... ... 58 
 
 Fourth drawing ....... 74 
 
 Fifth ^Drawing '. . . . . . . . 88 
 
 Sixth ^Drawing . . . . i . ^ . 94 
 
 Seventh Drawing . . . . . . 106 
 
 Eighth ^Drawing . ...... 132 
 
 cNinth drawing .*,,... 168 
 
 Tenth ^Drawing ..... ... 174 
 
 INine} 
 
 907851 
 
\HIS dark and wayward book 
 is affectionately dedicated to 
 my enemies to the curious 
 ones who take fanatic pride 
 in disliking me; to the baf- 
 fling ones who remain en- 
 thusiastically ignorant of my 
 existence; to the moral ones 
 upon whom Beauty exer- 
 cises a lascivious and cor- 
 rupting influence; to the 
 moral ones who have relentlessly chased God 
 out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who 
 cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves 
 upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff 
 their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and 
 offer their mutilations to the idiot God they 
 
 [Eleven] 
 
have invented (the Devil take them, I grow 
 bored with laughing at them}; to the anointed 
 ones who identify their paranoic symptoms as 
 virtues, who build altars upon complexes; to 
 the anointed ones who have slain themselves and 
 who stagger proudly into graves (God deliver 
 Himself from their caress!}; to the religious 
 ones who wage bloody and tireless wars upon 
 all who do not share their fear of life (Ah y 
 what is God but a despairing refutation of 
 Man?); to the solemn and successful ones who 
 gesture with courteous disdain from the depth 
 of their ornamental coffins (we are all cadavers 
 but let us refrain from congratulating each 
 other too courteously on the fact); to the prim 
 ones who find their secret obscenities mir- 
 rored in every careless phrase ', who read self 
 accusation into the word sex; to the prim ones 
 who wince adroitly in the hope of being mis- 
 taken for imbeciles; to the prim ones who 
 
 [Twelve'} 
 
fornicate apologetically (the Devil can-cans in 
 their souls}; to the cowardly ones who borrow 
 their courage from Ideals which they forth- 
 with defend with their useless lives; to the 
 cowardly ones who adorn themselves with cas- 
 trations (let this not be misunderstood); to the 
 reformers the psychopathic ones who publicly 
 and shamelessly belabor their own unfortunate 
 impulses; to the reformers (once again) the 
 psychopathic ones trying forever to drown their 
 own obscene desires in ear-splitting prayers for 
 their fellowmans welfare; to the reformers 
 the Freudian dervishes who masturbate with 
 Purity Leagues, who achieve involved orgasms 
 denouncing the depravities of others; to the re- 
 formers (patience, patience) the psychopathic 
 ones who seek to vindicate their own sexual 
 impotencies by padlocking the national vagina, 
 who find relief for constipation in forbidding 
 their neighbors the water closet (God forgives 
 
 [Thirteen} 
 
them, but not I); to the ostracizing ones who 
 hurl excommunications upon all that is not 
 part of their stupidity; to the ostracizing ones 
 who fraternize only with the worms inside 
 their coffins (their anger is the caress incom- 
 parable]; to the pious ones who, lacking the 
 strength to please themselves, boast interminably 
 to God of their weakness in denying themselves; 
 to the idealistic ones who, unable to confound 
 their neighbors with their own superiority, join 
 causes in the hope of confounding each other 
 with the superiority of their betters (invoked, 
 but I am not done with them}; to the idealistic 
 ones whose cowardice converts the suffering of 
 others into a mirror wherein stares wretchedly 
 back at them a possible image of themselves; to 
 the idealistic ones who, frightened by this pos- 
 sible image of themselves, join Movements for 
 the triumph of Love and Justice and the over- 
 throw of Tyranny in the frantic hope of break- 
 
 [Fourteen] 
 
ing the mirror; to the social ones who regard 
 belching as the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
 who enamel themselves with banalities, who 
 repudiate contemptuously the existence of their 
 bowels (Ah, these theologians of etiquette, these 
 unctuous circumlocutors, a pock upon them); to 
 the pure ones who masquerade excitedly as 
 eunuchs and as wives of eunuchs (they have 
 their excuses, of course, and who knows but the 
 masquerade is somewhat unnecessary); to the 
 pedantic ones who barricade themselves heroic- 
 ally behind their own belchings; to the smug 
 ones who walk with their noses ecstatically buried 
 in their own rectums (I have nothing against 
 them, I swear); to the righteous ones who mas- 
 turbate blissfully under the blankets of their 
 perfections; to the righteous ones who finger 
 each other in the choir loft (God forgive me if 
 I ever succumb to one of them); to the critical 
 ones who whoremonger on Parnassus; to the 
 
 {Fifteen} 
 
critical ones who befoul themselves in the Tem- 
 ples and point embitteredly at the Gods as the 
 sources of their own odors (I will someday 
 devote an entire dedication to critics]; to the 
 proud ones who urinate against the wind (they 
 have never wetted me and I have nothing against 
 them); to the cheerful ones who tirade viciously 
 against all who do not wear their protective 
 smirk; to the cheerful ones who spend their 
 evenings bewailing my existence (the Devil pity 
 them, not I); to the noble ones who advertise 
 their secrets, who crucify themselves on bill- 
 boards in the quest for the Nietzschean solitude; 
 to the noble ones who pride themselves on their 
 stolen finery; to the flagellating ones who go 
 to the opera in hair shirts, who excite them- 
 selves with denials and who fornicate only on 
 Fast Days; to the just ones who find compen- 
 sation for their nose rings and sackcloth by 
 hamstringing all who refuse to put them on 
 
 [Sixteen] 
 
all who have committed the alluring sins 
 from which their own cowardice fled; to the 
 conservative ones who gnaw elatedly upon old 
 bones and wither with malnutrition; to the 
 conservative ones who snarl, yelp, whimper 
 and grunt, who are the parasites of death; 
 who choke themselves with their beards; to the 
 timorous ones who vomit invective upon all 
 that confuses them, who vituperate, against all 
 their non-existent intelligence cannot grasp; 
 to the martyr ones who disembowel themselves 
 on the battlefield, who crucify themselves upon 
 their stupidities; to the serious ones who mis- 
 take the sleep of their senses and the snores of 
 their intellect for enviable perfections; to the 
 serious ones who suffocate gently in the bore- 
 dom they create (God alone has time to laugh 
 at them); to the virgin ones who tenaciously 
 advertise their predicament; to the virgin ones 
 who mourn themselves, who kneel before key- 
 
 \.S event een] 
 
holes; to the holy ones who recommend them- 
 selves tirelessly and triumphantly to God (I 
 have never envied God His friends, nor He, 
 mine perhaps); to the never clean ones who 
 bathe publicly in the hysterias of the mob; to 
 the never clean ones who pander for stupidity; 
 to the intellectual ones who play solitaire with 
 platitudes, who drag their classrooms around 
 with them; to these and to many other abomi- 
 nations whom I apologize to for omitting, this 
 inhospitable book, celebrating the dark mirth 
 of Fantazius Mallare, is dedicated in the hope 
 that their righteous eyes may never kindle with 
 secret lusts nor their pious lips water erotically 
 from its reading in short in the hope that 
 they may never encounter the ornamental 
 phrases I have written and the ritualistic lines 
 Wallace Smith has drawn in the pages that 
 follow. 
 
 [Eighteen] 
 
MALIARE 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 [I] 
 
 IANTAZIUS MALLARE 
 
 considered himself mad 
 because he was unable to 
 behold in the meaningless 
 gesturings of time, space and 
 evolution a dramatic little 
 pantomime adroitly cen- 
 tered about the routine of 
 his existence. He was a 
 silent looking man with black hair and an 
 aquiline nose. His eyes were lifeless because 
 they paid no homage to the world outside him. 
 
 When he was thirty-five years old he lived 
 alone high above a busy part of the town. He 
 was a recluse. His black hair that fell in a 
 slant across his forehead and the rigidity of his 
 eyes gave him the appearance of a somnam- 
 
 [Twenty-one] 
 
FAKTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 bulist. He found life unnecessary and sub- 
 mitted to it without curiosity. 
 
 His ideas were profoundly simple. The 
 excitement of his neighborhood, his city, his 
 country and his world left him unmoved. He 
 found no diversion in interpreting them. A 
 friend had once asked him what he thought 
 of democracy. This was during a great war 
 being waged in its behalf. Mallare replied: 
 "Democracy is the honeymoon of stupidity." 
 
 There lived with him as a servant a little 
 monster whom he called Goliath and who was 
 a dwarfed and paralytic negro. Goliath's age 
 was unknown. His deformities gave him the 
 air of an old man and his hunched back made 
 him seem too massive for a boy. But in study- 
 ing him Mallare had concluded that he was 
 a boy. 
 
 Goliath had been one of the first symptoms 
 of Mallare's madness. He had brought the little 
 monster home from an amusement park one 
 summer night. Goliath had been standing 
 doubled up, his pipe stem arms hanging like a 
 
 [Twenty-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R 
 
 baboon's, his enlarged black head lifted and 
 his furious eyes staring at a Wheel of Fortune. 
 
 When they left the confetti-electrics of 
 the park behind, Mallare spoke to the dwarf 
 whose wrinkled hand he was holding. 
 
 "If you come home with me I will make 
 you a servant and give you a fine red suit to 
 wear. Also, I will call you Goliath for no 
 reason at all, since I am at war with reason." 
 
 Goliath said nothing but sat staring hap- 
 pily out of the window of an automobile as 
 they rode home. 
 
 The home of Fantazius Mallare was filled 
 with evidences of his past. There were clay 
 and bronze figures and canvases covered with 
 paintings. These had been the work of his 
 hands. It was to be seen that he had once given 
 himself with violence to the creation of images. 
 And for this reason he was still known among 
 a few people as an artist. 
 
 In the days when he had worked to create 
 images Mallare had been alive with derisions. 
 
 [Twenty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 He desired to give them outline. But the 
 desire went from him. The brilliant fancies 
 of his thought began slowly to bore him. The 
 astounding images that still bowed themselves 
 into his mind became like a procession of men- 
 dicants seeking alms of him. He folded his 
 hands and with an interested smile watched 
 his genius die. 
 
 At the time of this curious tragedy Mallare 
 was thirty. He kept a Journal in which he 
 wrote infrequently. There was in this Journal 
 little of interest. Apparently he had amused 
 himself during his youth jotting down items of 
 preposterous unimportance. 
 
 "I saw a man with a red face," he would 
 write one week. The next he would add a 
 line, "There are seven hundred and eighty-five 
 normal strides between the lamp-post and my 
 front door." Turning a page a month later he 
 would meticulously set down the date, the hour 
 of the day, the direction of the wind and under 
 it write out, "I have a stomach ache from eat- 
 ing peaches." 
 
 [ Twenty-four} 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 The Journal bristled with innocuous 
 informations. An acquaintance of the period, 
 interested in Mallare's work as an artist, smiled 
 and commented, "These are, no doubt, symbols. 
 A psychological code into which you have 
 translated great inner moments." 
 
 Mallare answered, "On the contrary. 
 They are the only thoughts I have had in which 
 I could detect no reason. It has amused me to 
 put down with great care the few banalities 
 which have normalized my days. They are 
 very precious to me, although they have no 
 value in themselves. 
 
 "It is the ability to think such absurdities 
 as you have read that has kept me from suicide. 
 The will to live is no more than the hypnotism 
 of banalities. We keep alive only by maintain- 
 ing, despite our intelligence, an enthusiasm for 
 things which are of no consequence or interest 
 to us. 
 
 "That I saw a man with a red face aroused 
 in me a gentle curiosity lacking in words or 
 emotion. The desire to live is compounded of 
 
 [Twenty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 an infinity of such gentle curiosities which 
 remain entirely outside of reason. This never- 
 satisfied and almost non-existent curiosity we 
 have toward things, masquerades under the 
 intimidating guise of the law of self-preserva- 
 tion. Man is at the mercy of life since, his intel- 
 ligence perceiving its monotony and absurdity, 
 he still clings to it, fascinated by the accumu- 
 lated rhythm of faces, impressions, and events 
 which he despises. 
 
 "It is a form of hypnosis, and these words 
 I have written in my Journal are the absurdi- 
 ties by which life seduced me from abandoning 
 it. I am grateful to them and have therefore 
 preserved them carefully." 
 
 The history of Mallare's madness, how- 
 ever, is to be found in this Journal. There are 
 two empty pages that stare significantly. The 
 empty pages are a lapse. It was during this 
 lapse that Mallare smiled with interest at the 
 spectacle of his disintegration. There follows, 
 then, a sudden excited outburst, undated. In it 
 the beginnings of his madness pirouette like 
 tentative dancers. 
 
 [ Twenty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 "Perhaps the greatest miracle is that which 
 enables man to tolerate life," the passage starts, 
 "which enables him to embrace its illusions 
 and translate its monstrous incoherence into 
 delightful, edifying patterns. It is the miracle 
 of sanity. To stand unquestioning before mys- 
 teries, to remain an undisturbed part of chaos, 
 ah! what an adjustment! Content and even 
 elate amid the terrible circle of Unknowns, 
 behold in this the heroic stupidity of the 
 sane. . . a stupidity which has already out- 
 lived the Gods. 
 
 "Man, alas, is the only animal who hasn't 
 known enough to die. His undeveloped senses 
 have permitted him to survive in the manner 
 of the oyster. The mysteries, dangers, and 
 delights of the sea do not exist for the oyster. 
 Its senses are not stirred by typhoons, impressed 
 by earthquakes or annoyed by its own insignifi- 
 cance. Similarly, man! 
 
 "The complacent egomania of man, his 
 tyrannical indifferences, his little list of ques- 
 tions and answers which suffices for his wisdom, 
 
 [Twenty-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 these are the chief phenomena or symptoms of 
 his sanity. He alone has survived the ages by 
 means of a series of ludicrous adjustments, 
 until today he walks on two legs the crown- 
 ing absurdity of an otherwise logical Nature. 
 He has triumphed by specializing in his weak- 
 nesses and insuring their survival ; by disputing 
 the simple laws of biology with interminable 
 banalities labelled from age to age as religions, 
 philosophies and laws. 
 
 "Unable, despite his shiftiness, to lie the 
 the fact of his mortality and decomposition out 
 of existence, he has satisfied his mania for sur- 
 vival by the invention of souls. And so behold 
 him spectacle of spectacles a chatty little 
 tradesman in an immemorial hat drifting good- 
 naturedly through a nightmare. 
 
 "It is for this ability to exist unnaturally 
 that he has invented the adjective sane. But 
 here and there in the streets of cities walk 
 the damned creatures denied the miracle of 
 sanity and who move bewilderedly through 
 their scene, staring at the flying days as at the 
 fragments of another world. They are con- 
 
 [Twcnty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 scious of themselves only as vacuums within 
 which life is continually expiring. 
 
 "Alas, the damned! From the depths of 
 their non-existence they contemplate their fel- 
 lowman and perceive him a dwarf prostrate 
 forever before solacing arrangements of words ; 
 an homunculus riding vaingloriously on the 
 tiny river of ink that flows between monstrous 
 yesterdays and monstrous tomorrows ; a baboon 
 strutting through a mirage." 
 
 The history of Mallare's madness begins 
 thus. And the pages continue. The writing on 
 them seems at a glance part of a decoration in 
 black and white. The letters are beautifully 
 formed and shaded. They resemble laboring 
 serpents, dainty pagodas, vines bearing strange 
 fruits and capricious bits of sculpture. 
 
 To the end Mallare fancied himself aware 
 of the drift and nuance of his madness. Its con- 
 volutions seemed neither incomprehensible 
 nor mysterious to him. 
 
 An intolerable loathing for life, an illu- 
 minated contempt for men and women, had 
 
 [Twenty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 long ago taken possession of him. This philo- 
 sophic attitude was the product of his egoism. 
 He felt himself the center of life and it became 
 his nature to revolt against all evidences of life 
 that existed outside himself. In this manner 
 he grew to hate, or rather to feel an impotent 
 disgust for, whatever was contemporary. 
 
 When his normality abandoned him, he 
 avoided a greater tragedy. In a manner it was 
 not Mallare who became insane. It was his 
 point of view that went mad. Although there 
 are passages in the Journal that escape cohe- 
 rence, the greater part of the entries are simple 
 almost to naivete. They reveal an intellect able 
 to adjust itself without complex uprootings to 
 the phenomena engaging its energies. The first 
 concrete evidence of the loathing for life that 
 was to result in its own annihilation appears in 
 a passage beginning abruptly 
 
 "Most of all I like the trees when they are 
 empty of leaves. Their wooden grimaces must 
 aggravate the precisely featured houses of the 
 town. People who see my work for the first 
 
 [Thirty} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 time grow indignant and call me sick and arti- 
 ficial. (Bilious critics!) But so are these trees. 
 "People think of art in terms of symmetry. 
 With a most amazing conceit they have decided 
 upon the contours of their bodies as the stand- 
 ards of beauty. Therefore I am pleased to look 
 at trees or at anything that grows, unhandi- 
 capped by the mediocritizing force of reason, 
 and note how contorted such things are." 
 
 Mallare'spointof view toward his world 
 the attitude that went mad was nothing more 
 involved than his egoism. His infatuation with 
 self was destined to arrive at a peak on whose 
 height he became overcome with a dizziness. 
 He wrote in his Journal: 
 
 "It is unfortunate that I am a sculptor, a 
 mere artist. Art has become for me a tedious 
 decoration of my impotence. Itisclearlshould 
 have been a God. Then I could have had my 
 way with people. To shriek at them obliquely, 
 to curse at them through the medium of clay 
 figures, is a preposterous waste of time. A 
 wounded man groans. I, impaled by life, emit 
 statues. 
 
 [Thirty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 a As a God, however, I would have found 
 a diversion worthy my contempt. I would have 
 made the bodies of people like their thoughts 
 crooked, twisted, bulbous. I would have given 
 them faces resembling their emotions and con- 
 verted the diseases of their souls into outline. 
 
 "What fatuous, little cylindrical creatures 
 we humans are! With our exact and placid 
 surfaces that we call beauty. And these grave 
 and noble houses we erect! 
 
 "Yes, I ought to have been a God. I should 
 have had my way with people then. I could 
 have created a world whose horrors would have 
 remained a consoling flattery to my cynicism." 
 
 There are entries that follow whose sig- 
 nificance is lost in a serpentine rhetoric. They 
 hint at nights of critical terrors. During the 
 writing of them Mallare was engaged in a des- 
 perate pursuit of himself. He was escaping. 
 He perceived his thoughts racing from his 
 grasp like Maenads down a tangled slope. The 
 dread of finding himself abandoned brought 
 his will into life. If he were to go mad he 
 
 [Thirty-two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 would leap upon his mania and ride it quietly 
 into darkness. He would be a gay rider astride 
 his own phantoms. Rather that than let the 
 first insane capering of his intellect unhorse 
 him and leave him gibbering after a vanished 
 mount. 
 
 The incoherence of the Journal suddenly 
 glides into an adagio. The panic has ended. 
 And the lifeless eyed man again smiles tri- 
 umphant out of the pages. 
 
 "My room is red. It is hung with red cur- 
 tains. I have bought only red things to put in 
 it. The sun coming through my red curtains 
 reddens the air of the room. 
 
 "I prefer to live in this painted gloom 
 because it is possible I hate the sunlight. I 
 hate even my rivals the trees. Today I walked 
 and found trees that resembled too closely 
 people passing under them. One is impotent 
 before such betrayal. 
 
 "But here in my rooms I find an almost 
 complete annihilation of life. I am bored with 
 inventing causes for my hatred. There is a 
 
 [Thirty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 diversion on earth called humanity creatures 
 full of enamelled lusts and arrogant decays 
 who go about smiling and slyly obeying laws 
 which protect them from each other. But they 
 no longer divert me. 
 
 "They tell me of health and sanity. And 
 I say sanity is the determined blindness which 
 keeps us from seeing one another. More than 
 that, of course: which keeps us from seeing 
 ourselves. And health is the lame artifice of 
 our bodies which keeps us from loathing one 
 another. I see and I loathe. Yet I must beware 
 of falling to sleep in explanations." 
 
 A month or a year may have passed 
 between this and the continuation. Whatever 
 the period, a clarity arrived. Mallare's mind 
 grappling with the nightmare shadows engulf- 
 ing it, distorted his reason to give them outline 
 and was saved. The writing, however, becomes 
 more labored in appearance as if the letters 
 of words were now decorations in themselves. 
 
 "I have listened for years to the prattle 
 of men who call themselves egoists. It is a 
 
 [Thirty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 title by which they have sought to identify 
 me. To label a mystery suffices for its dis- 
 missal and thus they seek to dismiss me. There 
 is in egoism, however, a depth to which all 
 but myself are blind. I have found this depth 
 in myself and out of it rises a definition which 
 I must consider cautiously. There is but one 
 egoist and that is He who, intolerant of all 
 buc Himself, sets out to destroy all but Him- 
 self. Egoism is the despairing effort of man 
 to return to his original Godhood; to return 
 to the undisputed and triumphant loneliness 
 which was His when as a Creator He moulded 
 the world to His whims and before He divided 
 Himself into the fragments of race and nature. 
 This is the explanation out of the depth. 
 
 "I must be cautious and keep my eyes 
 open. Secrets fly from the blind. Mount, I 
 say, and ride this secret and observe its direc- 
 tion. To return thus to Godhood means to 
 destroy All. And I were madder than I am 
 to play with this prospect, unless, perhaps, 
 there lie concealed in the elements, chemistries 
 
 [Thirty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 still unknown which might be utilized for 
 such destruction. 
 
 "As it is, I can with my thought deny 
 and re-create and impose upon the world of 
 reality a world of phantoms more pleasing to 
 my nature. In my red room I sit and give 
 birth to persuasive horrors. People shaped 
 like dead trees. People freed from the monot- 
 onous hypocrisy with which a despondent 
 Nature endows their outlines. I have become 
 aware that lobsters, beetles, crabs, and all the 
 crustacean monsters that abound are not the 
 abnormal accidents of creation, any more than 
 were the animate gargoyles of prehistoric eras. 
 They are the things which an Ego intent upon 
 the diversion of truth fashioned in the begin- 
 ning. Each thing to seem as each thing was. 
 But the courage of this Ego deserted Him and 
 He grew frightened when He came to give 
 body to His most useless creation Thought. 
 And He compromised. Yes, I could live 
 among people fashioned truthfully in their 
 own images as are the crustaceans." . 
 
 [Thirty-six} 
 
FANTAZIUS eMALLARE 
 
 With this entry Mallare found it neces- 
 sary to destroy the work his hands had created. 
 He attacked the canvases and figures in his 
 red room. Goliath who, preoccupied with his 
 own deformities, had remained indifferent to 
 his master, serving him faithfully however, 
 listened to Mallare one night 
 
 Sitting in the center of the room, his black 
 hair grown into a long slant across his pale 
 forehead, Mallare talked to his servant as a 
 man, still asleep, reciting a dream. 
 
 "Here in this room, Goliath," he said, 
 "are interesting works of art which I am about 
 to destroy. On the canvases are dithyrambic 
 burlesques in color, vicious fantasies, despair- 
 ing caricatures. My fingers fashioned them 
 and I remember the pleasant sleep each 
 brought me. But now I must beware of sleep. 
 My egomania, like a swollen thing, has become 
 impossible to articulate or to reduce to the 
 impotent ironies of clay and paint. But I 
 must beware of falling asleep under it. 
 
 "My friends have vanished as naturally 
 as if by death. I have forbidden them to come. 
 
 [Thirty-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 This disturbs them, but see to it, Goliath, that 
 no one ever enters my room unless I bring 
 them. Frighten them if they come. 
 
 "Tonight, while there remained a little 
 sanity, I had made up my mind to kill myself. 
 But I have changed it. I will destroy instead 
 my work. This is because I find the compro- 
 mise easier and the destruction, perhaps, more 
 interesting. I feel disinclined to abandon the 
 things I loathe. The world with its nauseous 
 swarm of life, its monstrous multiplications 
 which are the eternal insult to the Omniscience 
 I feel, still holds me. I am caught in a tangle 
 and I remain suspended and inanimate, in the 
 depth of a nightmare. But with your aid, 
 Goliath, I will continue tenaciously mimick- 
 ing an outward sanity so that people, when 
 they see me, will go away happy in the assur- 
 ance that I am as stupid as they." 
 
 Rising from his chair Mallare attacked, 
 one by one, the canvases and statues. Goliath 
 watched him in silence as he moved from ped- 
 estal to pedestal from which, like a company 
 of inert monsters, arose figures in clay and 
 
 [Thirty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 bronze. The first of them was a man four 
 feet in height but massive-seeming beyond 
 its dimensions. Mallare had entitled it "The 
 Lover." 
 
 Its legs were planted obliquely on the 
 pedestal top, their ligaments wrenched into 
 bizarre muscular patterns. Its body rose in 
 an anatomical spiral. From its flattened pelvis 
 that seemed like some evil bat stretched in 
 flight, protruded a huge phallus. The head of 
 the phallus was enlivened with the face of a 
 saint. The eyes of this face were raised in 
 pensive adoration. At the lower end of the 
 phallus, the testicles were fashioned in the 
 form of a short-necked pendulum arrested at 
 the height of its swing. The hands of the 
 figure clutched talon-like at the face and the 
 head was thrown back as if broken at the neck. 
 Its features were obliterated by the hands 
 except for the mouth which was flung open 
 in a skull-like laugh. 
 
 The figure on the whole was the flayed 
 caricature of a man done so cunningly that 
 
 [Thirty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 through the abortive hideousness of its out- 
 lines, its human character remained untouched. 
 
 Mallare swung the figure by its base 
 against the pedestal until it splintered and fell 
 to pieces. He stood whispering to himself 
 
 "This was the lover. My statue of the 
 lover. Dead, now." 
 
 A dozen similar caricatures in clay and 
 bronze vanished under his attack. Standing 
 against the wall and blinking at the rutilant 
 glare of the room, Goliath the dwarf waited 
 nervously. He had become aware that his 
 master was acting strangely. A look of feroc- 
 ity slowly came into the deep black of his 
 face. His misshapen body trembled. 
 
 Mallare, the destruction ended, turned to 
 him. 
 
 "And finally a last figure," he murmured. 
 "Goliath, too. Do you agree, Goliath? You 
 will find a congenial company in the souls of 
 these friends I have butchered." 
 
 Goliath shook his head vigorously. 
 
 "Go 'way," he answered. Mallare nodded. 
 
 [Forty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Thanks," he smiled. "You reminded me 
 in time. It is easy to mistake you for one of 
 my creations. Although I never created such 
 eyes, improbable eyes alive with murders. Go 
 to bed." 
 
 Alone amid the wreckage, Mallare turned 
 to his Journal. A precise smile was on his 
 lips and his eyes slanted toward the debris on 
 the floor as if he were watching the fragments, 
 fearfully. His hair made a black triangle 
 against his forehead. He began to write : 
 
 "I am too clever to go mad. To go mad 
 is to succumb to the sanity of others. Since I 
 avoid death, I must be wary of his misshapen 
 brother. Yet, I can prove to my satisfaction 
 tonight that I am mad. I have destroyed some- 
 thing. It was because the intricate presences 
 of life awaken too many despairs in me. 
 
 "Now I am alone. I must be cautious of 
 my thought. I feel words like rivals in my 
 head. Alas, I must think in words. Words 
 are the inevitable canonizations of life. But 
 worse, they are property loaned me and not 
 
 [Forty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS eMALLARE 
 
 my own. I must have my own and live with it 
 entirely. Yet there is some comfort in words. 
 They are not entirely sullied by their promis- 
 cuity. Words are like nuts people pass each 
 other without ever opening. The insides of 
 words are often virginal. But many words 
 too many words constitute intelligence and 
 intelligence is the stupidity which enables man 
 to imprison himself in lies. 
 
 "Years have passed and I still live. I do 
 not look for death. Death is too simple a 
 variant of destruction. My cleverness demands 
 more of me than to destroy the world by hid- 
 ing myself from it. And there is a song of 
 windows in the high streets that sometimes 
 relieves the black tension of my mind. 
 
 "It is important now that I retrace my 
 way toward a makeshift of Omnipotence. But 
 for this I will have to find a woman." 
 
 [Forty-two] 
 
[II] 
 
 |T was autumn. The air was 
 colored like the face of a 
 sick boy. Upon the streets 
 rested a windless chill. The 
 pavements were somber as 
 during rain. There was an 
 absence of illusion about 
 buildings. They stood, high 
 thrusts of brick, stone and 
 glass, etched geometrically against a denuded 
 sky. 
 
 Fantazius Mallare walked slowly toward 
 his home. Over his head, trees without leaves 
 stamped their gnarled and intricate contours 
 on the shadowed air. A pallor covered the 
 roofs. It was afternoon but a moon-like lone- 
 liness haunted the autumn windows. 
 
 [Forty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 Mallare lived in another world. Neither 
 trees nor buildings conveyed themselves to his 
 thought Within his own world he was sane. 
 His relation to the phantoms and ideas which 
 peopled his mind was a lucid one. Mallare's 
 world was his thought. He had retired within 
 himself, dragging his senses after him. 
 
 The street through which he walked was 
 like an unremembered dream. The faces that 
 passed him vanished before his eyes. He 
 walked, seeing nothing that was visible, hear- 
 ing nothing that had sound. He had accom- 
 plished an annihilation. 
 
 Three months had passed since he had 
 written in his Journal the command to find a 
 woman. She was waiting for him now as he 
 returned to his home. In the three months he 
 had devoted himself to her transformation. 
 
 Mallare no longer raged. In the lucidity 
 of his thought was a strange lapse. There had 
 vanished from it all images of life except those 
 of his own creation. His thought emptied of 
 its projective sense, he found it difficult for 
 
 [Forty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 him to translate his ideas in their relation to 
 the world from which they had escaped. Yet 
 he wrote in his Journal; 
 
 "I am aware of something that no longer 
 lives in my mind. Dim outlines haunt me. 
 Dead memories peer through the windows of 
 my tower. Life grimaces vaguely on the edges 
 of my madness. I can no longer see or under- 
 stand. The world is a memory that expires 
 under my thought. I am alone. Yet how 
 much of me must still 1 be the world ! My dear- 
 est phantoms are, after all, no more than dis- 
 torted reminiscences. I fear, alas, this is the 
 truth. Yet it is pleasant to be alone with one's 
 senses, to feel an independence." 
 
 The woman awaiting him was a curious 
 creature. He had found her with a family of 
 gypsies on the outskirts of the city. She was 
 young eighteen. His money had bought her 
 release. She was called Rita and after two 
 weeks she had agreed to come home with him. 
 An old man in the caravan had said to her: 
 
 "This man is crazy. You can see that by 
 his eyes and the way he walks. I have listened 
 
 [Forty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 to him for two weeks and I know he is crazy. 
 But you go with him, Rita. He is lonely and 
 wants a woman. You go with him and obey 
 him. You are young and he will teach you. 
 Perhaps even you will fall in love with him. 
 You are an ignorant child. Your mind is like 
 a baby's. And perhaps you will not under- 
 stand that he is crazy." 
 
 Among the gypsies with whom she had 
 lived Rita was known as a simple one. She 
 was never to be trusted to enter the cities they 
 visited. She would remain with the wagons, 
 helping to cook and wash. When men came 
 to her in the evening and, sitting beside her, 
 sang and played on guitars, she would listen 
 for a moment and then run off. The old ones 
 of the caravan said: 
 
 "She is not grown up. We must treat her 
 like a child because there is still only a child's 
 heart in her. She is beautiful but without 
 sense. Some day she will make a good wife. 
 But there is danger that she may give her body 
 to strangers. Because she does not know about 
 such things. We must be careful for her." 
 
 [Forty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 Sitting along the summer roads outside 
 the city Mallare talked to the child. She lis- 
 tened without understanding but after days 
 had passed, dreams of the man with the black 
 hair slanting across his forehead came to her 
 when she was alone. So when the Old One of 
 the caravan said 
 
 "You may go with this stranger. You can 
 go away if you wish" ; she nodded and smiled 
 with happiness. 
 
 Mallare brought her home. And she had 
 lived in the carnelian room that was colored 
 like the inside of a Burgundy bottle ever since. 
 Goliath was her slave. Mallare was her God. 
 
 At first he had said little to her. She 
 wanted him to talk but he neither talked nor 
 paid other attention. He brought her ribbons 
 and dresses, trinkets, jewels, and playthings. 
 She had a room in which to sleep but all day 
 she sat in the room that was hung with heavy 
 red curtains through which the sun filtered in 
 a rouged and somber glow. Vermilion fabrics 
 covered a long couch against the wall. Red 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 carpets, red tapestries, tawny vases of brass 
 inlaid with niello; crimsons and varying reds 
 struck an insistent octave of color around her. 
 
 Mallare was absent during the days. She 
 wondered where he went. He would return 
 in the evenings with gifts. This had continued 
 for a month. Then had begun a more curious 
 existence. 
 
 One night Mallare had said to her: 
 
 "You must never talk to me any more but 
 listen always to what I say. If you remain 
 here you will have everything you wish. But 
 you must not go outside. Do you understand?" 
 
 She closed her black eyes and nodded. 
 He continued 
 
 "I desire to make something out of you. 
 If you stay here you will learn what I want 
 you to be." 
 
 Thereafter he had sat for days at a time 
 in the room with her. Goliath brought them 
 food. 
 
 {.Forty-fight} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 To Rita the smiling man who never 
 ceased talking to her became like one of the 
 Djinns the old ones of the caravan used to tell 
 stories about, in the nights along the roads. 
 The words he spoke became a languorous mist 
 in her ears. She listened and understood only 
 that this man with the black hair slanted across 
 his forehead and the silent eyes, was talking to 
 her. This made her happy. 
 
 At night she slept alone dreaming of the 
 sound of his voice. Her heart became rilled 
 with awe. The strange room with its red col- 
 ors was a Temple such as she had heard about 
 but never seen. Mallare was a God who sat 
 in its center and around whom grew a world 
 of mysteries. 
 
 When she awoke her heart grew eager. 
 Perhaps he would let her sit closer to him this 
 new day. Perhaps his hands would touch her 
 hair. She dreamed that some time he would 
 play a guitar and sing to her as the men of the 
 caravan used to do. But if that happened she 
 would not run away as before. She would 
 draw close to him and kiss his hands. 
 
 [Forty -nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 But the two months had passed without 
 change. Except that the days became for Rita 
 only the sound of a voice in her heart and the 
 image of a face staring out of her secret 
 thoughts. 
 
 She wore fine clothing. Rings crowded 
 her fingers until her hands seemed little effigies 
 of themselves. Her black hair was looped over 
 her ears. A gold band was around it. She 
 would have been happy if he had sat closer to 
 her while he talked. Then the mystery of the 
 words he spoke would not have separated 
 them. Now she could lie on the couch, her 
 head on her hand, her eyes burning and watch 
 his lips move. 
 
 Her mind never asked what he was say- 
 ing. His words carried him away. They were 
 part of the mystery of him. Out of them she 
 gleaned fugitive meanings as one recognizes 
 for an instant familiar faces in a passing 
 crowd. But she was content to lie watching 
 him. A lethargy filled her. The days were 
 like parts of a dream. At night, alone, she lay 
 
 [Fifty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 awake remembering them as a child playing 
 with delicious fantasies. 
 
 She was asleep on the couch when Mal- 
 lare came in. Goliath shuffled away as his 
 master appeared. He had been standing in the 
 center of the room, staring at the sleeping 
 Rita, his eyes rolled up and his huge black 
 head rigid. 
 
 She woke and Mallare smiled at her. Her 
 eyes grew large and her red lips parted. 
 
 Mallare, seating himself, studied her with 
 calm. She was his creation. He was giving 
 her life. His mind was beginning to conceive 
 her as a part of the phantoms that lived in him 
 and that were his world. This illusion diverted 
 him. His objective sense fast vanishing, he 
 was gradually perceiving her as a tangible 
 outline of his own hallucinations. 
 
 She was no longer the childish-minded 
 gypsy girl he had found with the caravan. She 
 was a fantasy of Mallare. There was no body 
 to her but the body of his curious thoughts. A 
 silent and adoring image of his brain stared 
 
 [Fifty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 back at him from the vermilion couch. This 
 pleased him. 
 
 His madness had translated her into his 
 inner world. At moments a gleam of doubt dis- 
 turbed his illusion. As he talked a conscious- 
 ness of her eyes would tangle his words. Her 
 eyes would become two dark intruders, and he 
 would rise and walk away. 
 
 "I must be careful," he would mutter 
 nervously. 
 
 Away from her the illusion would leave 
 him and his thought would consider lucidly 
 the situation it had created. 
 
 "My madness plays with a dangerous 
 toy," he pondered. "She is a woman and her 
 eyes are filled with desire. Perhaps she has not 
 even understood the things I have told her. I 
 must be careful, however, not to betray my 
 illusions with this lingering sanity. When I 
 am with her I conceive her a phantom a 
 something which has stepped out of my mad- 
 ness to divert it. Her body becomes like one 
 of the dreams in my brain. Her little hands 
 
 [Fifty-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 reach like cobra heads among my intimacies. 
 She is very beautiful that way. In my mind I 
 caress her as a part of myself. I speak to her 
 and it seems as if my words are talking to each 
 other. Yet her eyes intrude and frighten me." 
 
 Now, as he studied her, the illusion he 
 desired again filled him. His eyes turned 
 inward saw only a dark-eyed phantom, a 
 woman of mist that was no more than a hallu- 
 cination drifting through his thought. He 
 addressed this image of Rita softly. 
 
 "It is pleasant to be in love with you," he 
 said. "Because love hitherto has been one of 
 the abominations. In the world I have 
 destroyed love existed. It was the foul par- 
 adox of egoism. Man, feeling suddenly the 
 torment of his incompleteness, embraced 
 woman. He was inspired by the mania to trans- 
 form his desires into possessions. 
 
 "His heart taunted him. His brain filled 
 with despairing vacuums. And he said to him- 
 self, 'I have become a deserted room. A woman 
 will enter. Her beauty and desire will be gifts 
 
 [Fifty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 that will furnish me once more. She will be 
 something I possess within myself.' 
 
 "In this illusion was contained the foul 
 paradox of egoism. For in the world I have 
 destroyed, egoism died in the embrace of love. 
 The mania for possession which flattered man 
 into seeking woman was no more than a 
 shrewd mirage of his senses, that tricked him 
 into the fornications necessary only incident- 
 ally to himself but vital to the world which he 
 fancied love obliterated. 
 
 "For all these strenuous admirations of 
 beauty what are they but the subterfuges by 
 which man hopefully conceals his lacking 
 egoism from himself? He admires the tints of 
 hair. His thought trembles before the curve 
 of a neck. Graceful images unravel in his 
 mind at the sight of a woman's breasts. To 
 himself he declaims, 'I am in love with her. 
 She is beautiful. I will take her beauty in my 
 arms. There is an emptiness in me that clam- 
 ors for the charm and mystery of this woman.' 
 
 [Fifty-four} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Accordingly he embraces her. There 
 is tenderness between them. Their bodies, 
 indeed, seem to have become overtones that 
 mate in a delicious and inaudible melody. But 
 this melody must be brought closer so that its 
 beauty may be more definitely enjoyed. This 
 melody must be played on instruments and not 
 on thin air. 
 
 "And, selah! The egoist beautifying him- 
 self with love, finds himself removing his 
 shoes, tearing off his underwear, fondling a 
 warm thigh and steering his phallus toward 
 its absurd destiny. The transvaluations the 
 ineffable and inarticulate mysteries he fan- 
 cied himself embracing turn out to be a 
 woman with her legs wrapped around him. 
 His desires for the infinite sate themselves in 
 the feeble tickle of orgasm. Cerberus seduced 
 from his Godhood by a dog biscuit! 
 
 "As for those animals whose egoism has 
 never escaped their testicles, they are not to be 
 spoken of as men. Their imagination dis- 
 charges itself through their penis. They are 
 
 {Fifty- five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 the husbands in the world I have destroyed. 
 They understand neither beauty nor disillu- 
 sion. The vagina is a door at which they 
 deliver regularly like industrious milkmen. 
 They are the sexual workmen to whom forni- 
 cation is as much a necessity as poverty is to 
 incompetents. 
 
 "I alone have found the way in which to 
 love. I love and grow richer. I am mad. Yet 
 how admirable my madness is! My eyes and 
 senses are enslaved by a radiant phantom. As 
 I talk your outlines grow luminous. Your eyes 
 become like conquered Satans. They crawl 
 inside my brain like amorous spiders. Your 
 lips are the libretto of a dream. Your breasts 
 are little blind faces raised in prayer. Your 
 body flutters like a rich curtain before the door 
 of enchantments. I look within. Thus I pos- 
 sess you and my senses without leaving them- 
 selves, enter the infinity of my mind." 
 
 Mallare's eyes closed. He remained rigid 
 in his chair. A murmur that Rita could no 
 
 [Fifty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 longer hear came from his lips, as if voices 
 were speaking out of a depth. 
 
 "Rita . . . Rita," they said, "See, eyes 
 prowling like golden tigers. Cobra hands 
 playing over my soul. Mine ... I walk with 
 you through gardens, deeper and endless." 
 
 The murmur ended. Rita, watching from 
 the couch, lay trembling. Warm tongues 
 spoke within her body. Her breasts tightened 
 until they felt impaled on their own nipples. 
 Her child's mind was alive with impulses 
 driving her like slow whips. She would crawl 
 shivering to his feet. Her breasts would press 
 their pain against his knees. Desire like an im- 
 possible anger filled her. She closed her eyes 
 and felt herself moving from the couch. She 
 would lie at his feet. 
 
 Her hands reached out. Mallare regarded 
 her blankly for a moment. A wildness slowly 
 filled his eyes. He sprang up. Goliath crouch- 
 ing in a corner of the dim room watched his 
 master raise the velveted figure in his hands 
 and fling it with a cry against the wall. 
 
 [Fifty-seven} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Fool!" he shouted. "Intruder!" 
 
 Goliath cringed as his master rushed past 
 him to the door. He listened to his feet flying 
 down the stairs toward the night. 
 
 Rita lay with her head hanging over the 
 couch. Her lips were opened. Her teeth 
 gleamed like little deaths. She lay motionless 
 as Mallare had flung her. 
 
 Goliath shuffled to the couch. His huge 
 black face stared over her closed eyes. 
 
 [Fifty-eight] 
 
[HI] 
 
 E REMEMBERED that he 
 had thrown the girl against 
 the wall and he paused. The 
 street was black. Great shad- 
 ows balanced themselves on 
 his eyes. 
 
 "I have escaped from 
 myself," he muttered. 
 
 He stood trying to remember himself. But 
 his mind was like a night. Shapes tip-toed 
 through its dark. A hooded figure loomed in 
 his mind. It swung toward him as if it were 
 flying out of his eyes. Other figures swept by. 
 They assumed strange postures as they passed. 
 His thoughts regarded them ti redly. He 
 
 [Fifty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 desired to join the figures fleeing out of him. 
 Then he would vanish with them. 
 
 "I am too clever for that," he murmured 
 aloud. "Yet it would be pleasing. To think in 
 dark, hooded figures; ah they have adven- 
 tures! And I would sit like a night alive with 
 witches." 
 
 He stared with a smile at the street. 
 
 "I no longer see or understand," he whis- 
 pered. His hands felt his sides. 
 
 "Yet here I am. There is a life within me 
 that I dare not enter. I must remember this. 
 Write 'Forbidden' over its black doors. To 
 succumb to my madness would be to lose it." 
 
 He resumed his walk. 
 
 "She intruded," he remembered. "Per- 
 haps I have killed her. That would be pleas- 
 ant. Except that she was necessary as an image. 
 I am the mirror and she is an image alive in 
 me. Her desire is a happy shadow I embrace." 
 
 Mallare's eyes opened to the night. 
 
 [Sixty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Strange," he thought, "I see and yet what 
 I look at remains invisible. But tonight out- 
 lines dance. The night is a maniac suffering 
 from ennui. His dark eyes are weary with the 
 emptiness they create. Vainly he searches for 
 life, his eyes devouring it, and leaving only his 
 own image for him to contemplate. 
 
 "I am not so mad as that. Or I, too, would 
 sit like the night gorged with monotonous shad- 
 ows. Instead, I translate. A memory of sanity 
 gives diverting outline to the shadows in me. 
 I am not a maniac like the night. My mind 
 closes like a darkness over the world but I 
 enjoy myself walking amid insane houses, star- 
 ing at windows that look like drunken octagons, 
 observing lamp posts that simper with evil, 
 promenading fan shaped streets that scribble 
 themselves like arithmetic over my face. 
 
 "These must be the things I look at. But 
 they are my improvement. The world is not so 
 outrageous if one is sufficiently mad to pull it 
 into taffy shapes and incredible scrawls. 
 
 [Sixty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "But I must be warned. My madness 
 sought to avenge itself at her intrusion. It over- 
 came me with its anger. She was not content 
 to let me possess the beautiful image of her. 
 Although I have explained the thing to her 
 clearly. It is possible she does not understand. 
 I will talk to her again with greater lucidity. 
 I will tell her that I do not desire her except 
 as a dream for my mirror. But I have said that 
 to her." 
 
 Under the green-white sputter of a street 
 lamp, Mallare halted. His mind was preoccu- 
 pied with unraveling the mystery of Rita. He 
 stood, a tall figure without a hat, a slant of black 
 hair across his forehead, and ignoring eyes. 
 A beggar in a ragged overcoat shuffled, head 
 down, toward him. 
 
 "She is only a child," Mallare thought, 
 "but it is evident that passion already lifts her 
 breasts. Her simplicity is betrayed by incipient 
 orgasms prowling for an outlet. This, she fan- 
 cies, is love. It is fortunate she is a virgin. Still, 
 I must not rely too greatly on that. For vir- 
 ginity is an insidious bed fellow for a maiden. 
 
 [Sixty-two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 Forefingers and phallic shadows have ravished 
 her in dreams. And if she is a virgin in spirit 
 as well as body, she is still a woman and there- 
 fore dangerous. 
 
 "Ah, what loathsome and lecherous mouths 
 women are! Offering their urine ducts as a 
 mystic Paradise! Stretching themselves on 
 their backs and seducing egoists with the unct- 
 uous lie of possession. The mania for posses- 
 sion that most refined of all instincts the 
 most heroic of insanities ! How easily they cir- 
 cumvent it! To desire is merely to love. But 
 to create in oneself the objects of desire that 
 is to be mad and above life. Beyond it. 
 
 "I must explain this to her. If she loves 
 me well enough she will understand. All things 
 are possible in love. I will explain to her that 
 I possess her at will without the loathsome 
 absurdities of sex." 
 
 The beggar paused and mumbled beside 
 Mallare. Watery, reddened eyes waited 
 patiently f or thealms asked. Mallarehadf alien 
 into silence. He stood regarding the beggar 
 
 {Sixty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS oM A L L A R E 
 
 intently. His thought labored for a moment, 
 scratching in silence at doors swinging slowly 
 shut. His thought withdrew and Mallare was 
 alone. 
 
 He stood up tall and stern in a darkened 
 chamber. His eyes stared intently at the figure 
 of Rita. Her face, pale and alive, smiled 
 imploring in the mendicant's place. He talked, 
 but the beggar, still patient, heard no sound. 
 
 "You have followed me," said Mallare 
 inside his chamber. "Very well. It is useless 
 to explain matters to you. You pursue me with 
 your lecherous body. I have warned you. Now 
 I will kill you. I will take your throat in my 
 hands and that will be an end of you. You will 
 fall down." 
 
 The beggar uttered a cry of terror. Mal- 
 lare's hands had reached suddenly to his throat 
 and their fingers, like inviolable decisions, 
 closed on it. The ragged one screamed. A man 
 with a slant of black hair across his forehead 
 who had stood smiling at him had without 
 sound or warning reached out his hands to 
 
 [Sixty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 murder him. The beggar gasped and writhed, 
 his eyes staring with horror into the immobile 
 face of his assailant. And within himself Mal- 
 lare continued the strange conversation. 
 
 "You see how simple it is," he said. "After 
 you are dead I will continue to enjoy for a time 
 the uninterrupted image of you. You will 
 haunt my thought until you grow dim. But I 
 will possess the vanishing shadow. . . . But 
 now you die." 
 
 Mallare tightened his hold on the beggar's 
 neck and the man's cries ended. His head fell 
 forward. Mallare held the dead figure erect, 
 shaking it gently and smiling at the one in his 
 thought. 
 
 "Ah, Rita," he whispered, "it is over now." 
 
 His hands released the throat they were 
 holding. The beggar fell to the ground. Mal- 
 lare stared at the body and then knelt beside 
 it. His hands passed over the dead face. 
 
 "Poor Rita," he continued. "No longer 
 dangerous." 
 
 [Sixty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 He bent over and kissed the matted hair 
 of the dead man. 
 
 "Death," he said aloud as he rose, "is an 
 easy friendship. You would have been sorry a 
 moment ago. But now you are neither sorry 
 nor glad. See, your body is a humble little 
 gratitude." 
 
 Mallare walked away. His thought, like 
 a cautious monitor, re-entered the doors that 
 had closed upon it. 
 
 "Curious," he said aloud, "she followed me 
 and I killed her. Madness is, alas, too logical. 
 I remember almost nothing of the incident. It 
 is a part of the shadows not of me. Still I know 
 it exists. My hands feel tired. But there is 
 nothing to regret. She came too close. And 
 now she lies dead in a strange street. They will 
 find her and perhaps ask me about it. What do 
 I know? Nothing. My memory is innocent. It 
 is after all my superior. I must remain, unques- 
 tioning, at its side. This is a pact." 
 
 He returned to his home. The familiar 
 room greeted him like a friendship. He sat 
 
 [Sixty -six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 down and closed his eyes. Goliath had gone to 
 bed. And she was no longer here. 
 
 His hands felt tired. He was alone again. 
 But he would remember her. Eyes like con- 
 quered Satans. They would crawl again like 
 spiders through his brain. Breasts like little 
 blind faces raised in prayer. Her body flut- 
 tering like a rich curtain before the door of 
 enchantments. These were still his. 
 
 "Tomorrow, Rita," he murmured aloud to 
 his thoughts. 
 
 A figure stirred on the couch. She had 
 watched him come in, his hair disheveled, his 
 body dragging. Her eyes had followed him as 
 he sat down. But she had waited motionless. 
 Perhaps he had come back to kill her. She lay 
 shivering. Then his voice called her name. 
 
 Standing slowly, Rita waited. He was 
 asleep but he had called her. She moved cau- 
 tiously over the heavy carpet. Mallare opened 
 his eyes. He looked at the burning-eyed figure 
 of the girl his hands remembered having killed 
 in the strange street. 
 
 [Sixty-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "A hallucination," his thought muttered. 
 "But the dead do not come back." 
 
 The scene under the green-white street 
 lamp played its swift detail through his mind 
 again. He remembered the white throat, the 
 pale, imploring face. A shudder passed his 
 heart. He had murdered her. Yet here she 
 stood once more, looking at him. 
 
 Mallare smiled. 
 
 "Ah," he thought. "Mad, completely mad. 
 Yet it is not as unpleasant as I feared. Why, 
 indeed, am I startled? This is what I desired. 
 To create for myself out of myself. And here 
 my phantoms have become so rich and strong 
 that they confront me. I desired to be God. 
 And I have answered my own prayer. It is an 
 illusion. Its substance is only the life my mad- 
 ness gives it. Yet I, who am the companion of 
 my madness, may enjoy it." 
 
 Rita shivered again as he laughed. 
 
 "Come closer," he whispered to her. "Or 
 are you too timorous a hallucination, Rita? 
 
 [Sixty-eight} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 Come closer and let me see. What a curious 
 sensation ! To caress the figures of my madness ! 
 Then there is no longer any sanity in me. For 
 my fingers are aware of hair. Ah, dear child, 
 Mallare is completely mad since at last his 
 senses betray him. But they betray him sweetly. 
 For though I babble to myself you have no 
 existence, though I smile at the thought of 
 caressing a phantom, my senses derive a mys- 
 terious pleasure from this contact with noth- 
 ingness. Curious . . . curious . . . come 
 closer, Rita. Now smile at me. Yes, your lips 
 move. You are an automaton born of my words. 
 Give me your hand. It is warm and trembling. 
 Ah, my phantom is in love with me. But that 
 love, too, is an illusion I create. No, do not 
 come too close. Let me grow accustomed first 
 to my madness. You are happy, eh? How mar- 
 velous your eyes! They were beautiful before 
 when they crawled like round spiders through 
 my brain. But elusive. They fled from me, 
 my madness pursuing them into dark, empty 
 corners. 
 
 [Sixty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 "But now I have grown cleverer. It is 
 necessary to be superbly clever in order to fool 
 one's senses like this. But take off your clothes, 
 little one. I want to see how clever I am. Has 
 my phantom a body, too, or is it only a face and 
 an illusion of fabric I have created? Your vel- 
 vet dress, Rita, take it off. Ah, what a virginal 
 phantom." 
 
 Rita, trembling before the gleam of the 
 eyes that had opened to her, listened anxiously. 
 An ecstasy drifted like a cloud over her senses. 
 He had touched her. His hands had passed 
 over her head as she had dreamed they might. 
 His eyes were smiling with intimacy at her 
 face. But he had warned her never to speak. 
 She must not spoil it by speaking. She stood 
 swaying before him. 
 
 "Your velvet dress," he repeated. 
 
 Her hands reached dreamily to her body. 
 He would see now how beautiful she was. The 
 men in the caravan had called her beautiful. 
 But she had run from them. That was long 
 ago. Now she would show him how the skin 
 
 [Seventy} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 of her body looked, how her breasts made pretty 
 curves, and how she had washed herself in the 
 perfumes he had given her. 
 
 "Ah," murmured Mallare, his eyes filling 
 with wonder. "How incredibly clever my mad- 
 ness has become ! My little phantom undresses. 
 Illusion yet my conveniently stupid senses are 
 deceived. But what delicious deception! See, 
 her throat and breasts are white. Her body is 
 white. I may reach out and touch the flesh of 
 her thighs. I am as indecent as God for I have 
 given her sex. But what a plagiarist I am ! My 
 phantom is as charming and naive as an art 
 student's copy. Still, she is not a woman and 
 therefore not hateful. Without life, even this 
 may be considered entertaining." 
 
 His hands moved cautiously over her body, 
 his fingers slipping experimentally over the 
 flesh of her buttocks and thighs. 
 
 "Interesting," he smiled. "Like St. 
 Anthony I create obalisques for my seduction. 
 Ah, but there is a difference. This is mine . . . 
 
 mine!' 
 
 [Seventy-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 His eyes gleamed with a quick frenzy at 
 the naked figure. 
 
 "Speak. I desire you to speak, little one. 
 If I can believe in the illusion of flesh and eager 
 eyes, then I can believe in the illusion of sound. 
 Come speak. I am at the mercy of my madness. 
 If you speak to me, little one, I will under- 
 stand. Mystupidsensesthatretain their earthly 
 logic will be ravished at the sound of yourvoice. 
 But I will chuckle at my cleverness. Tell me, 
 are you mine? Can you say, 'I am yours'? Can 
 you give yourself to me and deceive me with 
 the beautiful illusion of submission? Tell me. 
 Speak to me." 
 
 Her eyes burning toward him, Rita nodded 
 her head. 
 
 "Yours," she whispered. "Whatever you 
 say, I am." 
 
 'it 
 
 speaks to me and I hear. It says 'yours.' I 
 become too involved. Or perhaps this is only 
 a dream. Of course, what else can it be? Part 
 of me has fallen asleep and is dreaming. And 
 
 [Seventy-two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 because I am mad I fancy myself awake. And 
 my senses obey me. Desire whispers to them, 
 'Hear voices. See flesh. Feel desire,' and like 
 five little awkward masochists they prostrate 
 themselves before my madness. 
 
 "But my senses are of no great interest. 
 There is this other this mania of possession of 
 which passion, compounded of all the senses, is 
 but an unimportant fragment. I am a man with 
 a woman inside him. I possess the secret of the 
 hermaphroditic Gods. I am complete." 
 
 Rita kneeled beside him and his hands 
 stroked her black hair. Her face remained 
 raised in adoration. Mallare, observing her 
 eyes, nodded satisfactions at them. 
 
 "Who but Mallare could have done this?" 
 he whispered aloud to her. "Mallare, infat- 
 uated with himself, desires still a further adora- 
 tion. So he creates infatuated phantoms. I am 
 tired now. My hands are tired. Return, little 
 one, to the couch of my madness and sleep for 
 a time in its shadows." 
 
 [Seventy-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 Mallare shut his eyes and his hands 
 dropped to his side. Rita arose and smiled at 
 him. He had spoken strangely, but his words 
 were no longer mysteries since he had caressed 
 her. She would lie now at his feet as she had 
 dreamed of doing. She stretched herself out 
 on the thick carpet. 
 
 Her childish mind fondled its unexpected 
 memories. He had looked at her body and 
 spoken beautiful words to it. She remembered 
 the talk of the old ones of the caravan. A 
 woman belongs to a man. This meant that she 
 belonged to him. She had said, "Yours." 
 
 Her face smiled itself to sleep. 
 
 [Seventy -four] 
 
[IV] 
 
 ROM the Journal of Mall are 
 dated November. 
 
 "I no longer understand 
 myself. My thoughts stretch 
 themselves into baffling elas- 
 ticities. My) brain is a laby- 
 rinth through which reason 
 
 searches in vain for itself. I walk cautiously. 
 
 Yet I am lost. 
 
 "To think has become like adding a con- 
 tinually increasing column of figures. I sit and 
 add. The figures will add up into a finite sum 
 and this sum will be the understanding of 
 myself. I apply myself carefully to each figure 
 
 [Stventy-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 and say, 'two and three are five. Five and 
 seven are twelve.' But as I reach what seems 
 an end I find more figures waiting me. 
 
 "I can no longer add up the fragments or 
 interpret them. I must be content now to sit 
 and wait until this part of me my relation to 
 myself splinters into fragments and I become 
 a dice box shaking with mysterious and invis- 
 ible combinations. 
 
 "It is the phantom Rita that is threatening 
 to drive me into darkness. Since I murdered 
 her in the street, the hallucination has become 
 overwhelming. It is with me almost contin- 
 ually. When I open my eyes from sleep I find 
 it waiting at my bed. The hallucination leaves 
 me when I am outside, although at times a trace 
 of it returns and I seem more to feel its pres- 
 ence within me than behold it with my senses. 
 
 "Yes, I am clinging desperately to these 
 moments of objectivity which enable me to 
 write. But even they threaten to betray me. For 
 as I write doubts dance like macabre figures 
 among my words. The very sentences seem to 
 
 [Seventy-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 stretch themselves into ridiculous postures. 
 And I must almost close my eyes and stumble 
 blindly through a storm of denouements. 
 
 "I desired to create for myself a world 
 within which I might love and hate to be a 
 God lost within his dream. Madness was neces- 
 sary, so I embraced it. But my dream becomes 
 the product of a Frankenstein. She the hal- 
 lucination is more real to my senses than am 
 I. And I can no longer control her. My senses 
 are unfaithful to me. They philander clown- 
 ishly with this mirage of my thought Then 
 what is there left? I. This grim figure stum- 
 bling with his head down through a storm of 
 denouements. I persist an unwelcome visitor, 
 a bargain-hunting tourist in Bedlam. I remain. 
 
 "But it is a boast that laughs back at me. 
 For I will soon be a little plaything of my 
 phantom. Last night I walked until I thought 
 I had rid myself. Her eyes alone lingered. Her 
 hands moved like slow dancers. But I walked 
 and said to myself, 'I am tired of nonsense. I 
 am tired of this monotonous hallucination. At 
 
 [Seventy-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 least let me be unfaithful to my dream since I 
 am the God who created it.' 
 
 "I walked to the street where a month ago 
 she had followed me under the arc lamp. It 
 was cold and I grew tired. I came back to sleep. 
 'Gone, she is gone,' I whispered to myself. The 
 room appeared empty. I was cautious, know- 
 ing the ruses of this thing in my mind. For my 
 madness and I are no longer friends. My mad- 
 ness hides for me and plays tricks. 
 
 "But she returned. I smiled at her. It is 
 folly to grow angry with one's own hallucina- 
 tions. That would be a double madness. As 
 she stood before me, my treacherous senses 
 leaped to their sterile feast. And I smiled. 
 
 " 'My egoism has betrayed me,' I rea- 
 soned. 'The love that gleams from the eyes of 
 this hallucination is the invention of my ego- 
 ism. Alas, I love myself too much, for the 
 passion for Mallare with which my madness 
 endows this illusion of a woman, threatens me. 
 My senses have already abandoned me. They 
 no longer obey the direction of my will. And 
 
 [Seventy-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 I must stand like a scold, laughing and sneer- 
 ing at them as they yield themselves to her. 
 She is more powerful, therefore, than I, even 
 though her existence is no more than a shadow 
 cast in front of my eyes.' 
 
 "I reasoned in this fashion and continued 
 to smile. It would be best, perhaps, to humor 
 her. Who knows but even hallucinations are 
 subject to wiles and coquetry. A disturbing 
 fancy, this one of the distortions that insist 
 upon raising their mocking heads from the 
 midst of my cautious sentences. 
 
 "She came and knelt beside me and I 
 shook my head at her. She was dressed in a 
 gown I had never seen before. It was red. I 
 spoke aloud and said 
 
 " 'See, how abominably clever I am. My 
 madness is a jack of all trades. It makes new 
 dresses for its phantoms. It arranges their 
 coiffures. It even puts rouge on their cheeks.' " 
 
 "But as I talked her hands reached out to 
 me. To look into her eyes that are always alive 
 with flames is to succumb. For then I find 
 
 [Seventy-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 myself dreaming my dream is not a dream. 
 My senses clamor that I join them. 
 
 " 'Forget. Forget,' they whisper, 'come 
 with us.' 
 
 "But I chose to persist. I remain. To sit 
 in an empty whorehouse and masturbate. . . . 
 No! If this hallucination grows powerful 
 enough to trick my senses into clownish forni- 
 cations, let my madness enjoy them. Not I. 
 We are no longer friends, my madness and I. 
 
 "She pressed her cheek against my leg. I 
 could feel her body trembling. 
 
 "I remained motionless and spoke to her. 
 'Each night you grow bolder,' I said. 'I am no 
 different from other Gods in that I seem to 
 have endowed you with the instinct of pro- 
 fanation. But at least Eve did not turn on 
 Jehovah with the whore tricks learned from 
 His apple. There is consolation, however, in 
 the fact that I, too, can remain indifferent. 
 Indifference is the wisdom of God. 
 
 "'You may play with me. Yet I know 
 that the burn of your hand on my body is an 
 
 [Eighty} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 absurdity, of interest only to my idiot senses. 
 My arms reach out to embrace you. Your 
 breasts surprise my fingers. Come, sit in my 
 lap if you wish. No, I would rather enjoy you 
 as before standing before me naked. Take off 
 your clothes.' 
 
 "While I talked she clung to me. Her lips 
 passed, kisses over my face. I continued, how- 
 ever, to observe; to remain a spectator. She 
 removed her clothes, tearing them from her 
 body and laughing. And standing before me 
 naked but for her black silk stockings and red 
 slippers, she held out her arms. But I shook 
 my head and smiled. 
 
 "'I am the victim of an overwhelming 
 desire to masturbate,' I said to her, 'since I find 
 it difficult to resist you. But if I yield to the 
 mysterious reality you have assumed I will 
 become too grotesque for my vanity to tolerate. 
 I will remain aware while possessing you that 
 my penis is beating a ludicrous tattoo on a 
 sofa cushion. I choose rather to emulate the 
 pride of St. Anthony, who shrewdly refused to 
 play the whoremonger with shadows.' 
 
 [Eighty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "I smiled at her and she laughed. She 
 crouched on her feet staring up at me. Raising 
 my eyes from her, I saw Goliath. He was stand- 
 ing in the curtains of his room, watching me 
 with a curious, open-mouthed fury. I saw that 
 the little monster was beginning to understand 
 that I was mad, and this irritated me. There 
 was danger in him, since even through his 
 stupid head must have passed a wonder of what 
 had happened to Rita. 
 
 "I frowned at Goliath and his head rolled 
 f rightenedly on his heavy shoulders. 
 
 "Why do you bother me when I wish 
 to be alone?' I cried. 'Go to your bed and 
 leave me. 7 
 
 "I stood up and went for him. His head 
 fell and he dragged himself back into his room. 
 This was, perhaps, the most curious thing in 
 the incident. ( I am ashamed of being seen with 
 this nude phantom,' I thought. For a moment 
 the mad idea came to me that she was visible to 
 Goliath that he was watching us me and 
 this figment of mine. My anger was shame. 
 
 [Eighty-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 My senses are logical in their pretenses. How 
 can I stand out against them, if they grow 
 cleverer than I, more persuasive than I, and 
 lead me finally into the total madness of accept- 
 ing them as Mallare the one Mallare, the 
 lunatic who has escaped himself? I must not 
 escape. 
 
 "When I returned she was still crouching 
 on the floor. I decided to experiment. Perhaps 
 there was still some lingering sense in me that 
 would fail to succumb to this astonishing 
 makebelieve. 
 
 " 'Come here. On the couch,' I ordered her. 
 
 "She obeyed. She stretched herself out 
 and I sat beside her. The odor of her body was 
 distinct. Perfumes spread a clever gloss over 
 the woman smell, the bitter salt odor that stirred 
 from between her closed thighs. I smiled, for 
 the logic of this illusion grows entertaining. 
 But I had decided on experiments. My hands 
 stroked her hair, feeling of its strands. My 
 fingers pressed at the skull beneath the warm 
 skin of her head. Then I held her breasts, that 
 
 [Eighty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 had once seemed to me like two little blind 
 faces raised in prayer. But imagery no longer 
 decorates my thought. My hallucination is no 
 longer a weaver of magical phrases. But stark, 
 real its heart beating under ribs, its skin 
 glowing with perspiration, its nipples standing 
 out. As I caressed her I heard her say: 
 
 " 'Yours. Yours. I am your woman.' 
 
 "Her thighs opened and her arms that had 
 been held toward me fell to her sides. My 
 hand slipped between. There was warm flesh. 
 Yes, it was flesh to my mind. And I sat for 
 moments allowing the illusion to stir a passion 
 in me. I would throw myself on this thing, 
 hold it in my arms, give myself to it. Where 
 was the wrong in that, since it was only myself 
 I ravished a phantom mocking me behind 
 my eyes? 
 
 "Goliath saved me. I saw him standing 
 once more in the curtains of his room. His 
 long arms were beating against his sides, the 
 black fingers opening and shutting like frantic 
 talons. He stood with his head rolling as if he 
 
 [Eighty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 were trying to stand erect. His eyes were 
 insane. 
 
 "I sprang away, again pulled by the unmis- 
 takable emotion of shame. He glared at me 
 for a moment, but as my hand caught his face 
 he toppled over and lay whining. I picked 
 him up and threw him into his bed and locked 
 the door of his room. 
 
 "When I returned she still lay. Her eyes 
 were closed. She looked at me and I saw she 
 was weeping. 
 
 " 'Since you are not to be reasoned out of 
 existence, since you seem to resist what is left 
 of my sanity there is nothing to do but tol- 
 erate you/ 
 
 "I sat in my chair and spoke to her. 
 
 "'It will end in my loathing you,' I said. 
 'I created you in order to possess you beyond 
 the realism of the senses. For a time your body 
 was like a rich curtain before the door of 
 enchantments which I might enter at will. 
 
 " 'But there is no longer a door. Your body 
 alone confronts me. In this way I am reduced 
 
 [Eighty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS GM A L L A R E 
 
 to enjoying my dream with my senses. Then it 
 means only that I have achieved nothing more 
 by my madness than the privilege of mastur- 
 bating with the aid of an erotic phantom. 
 
 " 'Alas, the reason of it is clear. Man's 
 fiber is fouled throughout with sex. I sought 
 to emancipate myself from all relation to life. 
 The delusion of my hopes is more to be pitied 
 than the disorder of my vanity. For I see now 
 that man is a collection of adjectives loaned to a 
 phallus. His intellect is no more than a divert- 
 ing hiatus between fornications. His soul, yes, 
 his very egoism on which he prides himself, is 
 a synthetic erection. 
 
 " ( To possess! What a delusion! And for 
 its sake I threw my genius away. I stripped the 
 world from my eyes that it might not intrude 
 upon the universe within me. A paradise in 
 which I might strut alone. Possess myself . Yes, 
 and here I am, aware at last of folly. For my 
 senses belong to life. And though I buried 
 myself in a madness deeper than night, they 
 would still cling to me. Though I castrated 
 
 [Eighty-sis] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 myself, they would remain five invisible tes- 
 ticles. It is impossible to possess. Folly to 
 attempt. As long as the senses remain life clings 
 like a dead whore to my darkness. Even my 
 madness that I prided myself upon is a bab- 
 bling witch astride a phallus, her lips bending 
 over it with grewsome hungers. 
 
 " 'There is only one castration death. 
 What am I now? Mad? Yes. And worse. 
 Disillusioned. I have closeted myself with a 
 lecherous animal and it turns on me. That is 
 the reward of the privacy I hungered after. 
 
 " 'And you who lie and weep on a couch 
 are no longer the dream of a God, but the crude 
 marionette created by lust for its own diver- 
 sion. I thought only to go mad. But I see I 
 have become an idiot.' 
 
 "There was no more to say. Her weeping 
 ended and she vanished. But she will return. 
 In my sleep her outline wanders like an amor- 
 ous ghost haunting the grave of my senses. Ah, 
 I must be cautious now, more cautious, always 
 cautious. It would be too easy to yield. And if 
 
 [Eighty-seven } 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 I yielded and returned again my defeat would 
 be unbearable. I think it is easier to die. Death 
 is no more than a premature torment. Its name 
 alone is a suffering. Its reality but a final 
 illusion. 
 
 "But I persist. I still remain. There is a 
 rhythm to things that still seduces me. A gentle 
 curiosity that gives the lie to my bewilderment. 
 I sit, an audience, shedding crocodile tears at 
 a melodrama. 
 
 "Tomorrow . . . tomorrow. Who can 
 think that word is still himself? What differ- 
 ence does it make if I grow uncomfortable and 
 swollen with illusions? I persist. And who 
 knows but tomorrow will be a door in my laby- 
 rinth ... a bottom to this pit into which I 
 have fallen?" 
 
 [Eighty-eight'} 
 
[V] 
 
 ROM the Journal of Mallare 
 dated December. 
 
 "Her murder was sim- 
 ple. We stood under an arc 
 lamp and my hands killed 
 her. I remember her face 
 looking imploringly at me. 
 And when I went away I leaned over and 
 kissed her hair. She was dead in the street. It 
 was simple. 
 
 "Now I must kill again. It is no longer 
 simple. I must teach her to hate me. She will 
 vanish then. It is clear in my thought. My 
 hands are useless against her now. I have held 
 them about her neck and she laughs. 
 
 [Eighty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "All day she runs around in the room. At 
 night she comes to my bed. Her hands wake 
 me up. She plays with me. I lie thinking how 
 she may be murdered this second time. She 
 has grown loathsome. I allow her to cover my 
 body with kisses and listen to her laughter. 
 Pollutions result. I am powerless against her 
 lips and terrible fingers. She devours me night 
 after night like a succubus. I lie and mastur- 
 bate with a phantom. 
 
 "But I will discover a way to kill this 
 thing. I close my eyes and lie powerless while 
 she repeats the refrain I once taught her. 
 'Yours . . . yours. I am your woman.' 
 
 "I have hurled her out of bed, hurled her 
 body against the wall. She continues to laugh 
 like a child. I think of her as real. Goliath 
 knows I am mad. He watches me while I strug- 
 gle with this thing. He is filled with terror. I 
 have told him to go, but he remains. 
 
 "She sleeps in the bed that Rita used. I 
 have seen her there. Stood beside her listening 
 to her breathe. If I die she will pursue me in 
 
 [Ninety] 
 
FAKTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 death. She is more real than I. I must kill her. 
 My hands have never touched her since the 
 night on the couch. I have kept myself intact. 
 I still remain. She is a virgin. My thought is 
 mad. It plays with the idea of fornication. 
 Once, screams frightened her out of my bed. I 
 lay unable to resist. My body reached toward 
 her. An anger that was like death blinded me. 
 I cried out and saved myself. My thought crept 
 back from the madness. I called myself back. 
 
 "I can no longer close my eyes to her. She 
 grimaces in the dark. And she is at my heels in 
 the street. I have decided there is a way to rid 
 myself of her. 
 
 "Mallare . . . Mallareisnomore. Mad- 
 ness jostles him off the scene. He annihilated 
 a world and a new monster sprang up in its 
 place. 
 
 "My words return. Ah, tired warriors 
 covered with the grime of battle they troop 
 back to my mind out of the dark. Mallare 
 returns. But what a caricature! See him like 
 a fanatic priest driving the devil out of his 
 soul with whips. 
 
 [Ntnfty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "This would be a God, this hermaphroditic 
 prostitute who fondles himself at night. Mal- 
 lare . . . weep. Whips will not rid you of 
 this monster. Mallare, the plaything. 
 
 "But there is a way to be rid of her. Hate 
 will darken the gleam of her 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 fore- 
 head. 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. 
 
 [Ninety-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 They kick gravely at a carcass. Lie beneath 
 them and watch Mai la re dance away, whirl 
 away with lecherous shadows in his arms. But 
 she will die too. I am thinking of death. Mal- 
 lare 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." 
 
 {.Ninety-three} 
 
[VI] 
 
 HE sat looking out of the 
 window. He had gone away 
 early in the morning. It was 
 growing dark now. The 
 cold street dwindled. Win- 
 dows lighted up. People 
 that looked from the dis- 
 tance 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 
 
 [Ninety- five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 some- 
 one 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. 
 
 [Ninety-six'] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 mem- 
 ories of him into herself . . . . He had smiled. 
 Hisbodyhadshivered. Hisfingershadclutched 
 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. 
 
 [Ninety-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 remem- 
 bered 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. Every- 
 one slept but Rita. The horses had dreams and 
 whispered to themselves. 
 
 Alongthe 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. 
 
 [Ninety-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 com- 
 ing. 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 
 
 {.Ninety-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 petti- 
 coats 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 some- 
 thing 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 
 
 [One Hundred} 
 
FAKTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 laugh- 
 ing. His finger was pointing to her. He stood 
 watching her with his eyes screeching like par- 
 rots 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. 
 
 [One Hundred One} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 devourher. 
 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. 
 
 [One Hundred Two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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. Sun- 
 light made red shadows in the room. 
 
 "Where is he?" she asked. 
 
 She slid to the floor and then stood up care- 
 fully. 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 her- 
 self 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. 
 
 lOne Hundred Three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 He had gone away. He had beaten her 
 not because he loved. He hated her. And he 
 had taken himself away from her. She under- 
 stood. He no longer wanted her. He had 
 laughed and tried to kill her. 
 
 With a scream she rushed into his bed- 
 room 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 
 
 [One Hundred Four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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. 
 
 [One Hundred 
 
PVF 
 
 WML 
 
[VII] 
 
 |ALLARE, 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 hap- 
 pened. 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. 
 
 [One Hundred Seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 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 any- 
 thing. What I see, hear, smell, touch is noth- 
 ing. I can no longer summon my senses as wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 "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 phe- 
 nomenon. But if he acquired the habit of see- 
 ing 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 reduceshis furniture into phantoms. He 
 converts his emotions into music, his nervous 
 disorders into literature, his three elemental 
 
 [On* Hundred Eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 desires into thought. He is continually hold- 
 ing 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 mathe- 
 matics 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 interpreta- 
 
 [O*e Hundred Nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 tions, his canonized interpretations ; all his sys- 
 tems, his philosophies; all his Gods and Phan- 
 toms 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 con- 
 fusion, 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 with- 
 drew silently. The snow covered them. Mal- 
 lare 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 
 
 [One Hundred Ten \ 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 sor- 
 row 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 imbe- 
 cile 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 inex- 
 
 IGne Hundred Eleven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 plicable 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 strik- 
 ing 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 wrest- 
 ing 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 
 
 [One Hundred Twelve} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 van- 
 ishes 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 pala- 
 verers 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 
 
 [One Hundred Thirteen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 con- 
 victions. 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 realist- 
 ically. 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. 
 
 [One Hundred Fourteen} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 What happened in the room? Ah, what a 
 grotesque memory it makes. Mallare knock- 
 ing his fists against the air. Mallare throwing 
 himself around like an epileptic. Sinking his 
 fingers into nothing a shadow boxer pummel- 
 ling 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. r 
 
 "But I am certain I did. Why, certain? 
 Because my logic establishes the fact. Still, I 
 would feel better about something, if my mem- 
 ory 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 
 
 [One Hundred Fifteen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 elu- 
 sive 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 van- 
 ished from my mind. I pursue it. A matter of 
 remarkable importance. It evades me ; there- 
 fore 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 arbi- 
 trarily identifying the moment of its departure. 
 But it is better that way than to blunder on 
 
 [One Hundred Sixteen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 
 
 [One Hundred Seventeen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness. 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. Luci- 
 fer, 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 reminiscenses. 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 
 
 [One Hundred Eighteen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 that falls forgottea in his past. Vale, the luna- 
 tic. 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 reces- 
 
 [One Hundred Nineteen] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 sional 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 busi- 
 ness. 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 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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. 
 
 "Darkened houses, silence Rabelais and 
 Boccacio debate the immaculate conception. 
 Eros, patron saint of the laundryman, conducts 
 ancient rituals. 
 
 "Ah, these indefatigable and unctuous 
 fornicators, rolling their eyes piously between 
 orgasms ; embroidering noble mottoes on their 
 pleasure towels ! [These prim exquisites, care- 
 fully and with raised eyebrows, folding their 
 toilet paper into proper squares !] Who can be 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 angry with them? God drove them out of 
 Paradise punishment enough. They revenge 
 themselves with a monotonous enthusiasm. Ah, 
 these fellatian moralists! It is folly to take 
 their hypocricies to heart. The plot is too deli- 
 cious for tears. These two-fisted citizens, these 
 purity braggarts masturbating with one finger 
 unemployed and pointing scornfully at their 
 neighbors ! 
 
 "Charming street. It offers consolations, 
 simple ones, to be sure. But nevertheless, con- 
 solations. My madness was not as mad as this 
 dark street. This is a prettier witches' night 
 than the one I aspired to. I am amused and 
 my amusement is an insult that inspires me. If 
 one cannot become God, one can at least sit and 
 sneer happily at the handiwork of his rival. 
 
 "The dawn comes into my head. Poor 
 Mallare, who must readjust his vocabulary to 
 coherences. The night flies away. How simple 
 this little scene becomes. Mysteries vanish. 
 Doors open. Window blinds raise themselves. 
 And now people stick their heads out into the 
 
 {One Hundred Twenty -two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 cold. Wagons, trucks, crowds begin. They 
 hurry to work, older by a night. 
 
 "My sanity laughs at them, but sadly. I 
 detect an obligate to my mirth. The comedy 
 is poignant only because I am a part of it. 
 These hurrying ones with their tired faces and 
 eager shoulders are my brothers and sisters 
 sharing with me the spectacle they make. They 
 are a disillusioning mirror in which I see 
 myself a million times. Yes, they look back at 
 me, and their weariness, their hopelessness sad- 
 dens me. Man sees himself by gazing into the 
 world and is overcome. It is only a lunatic 
 who can keep merry in the face of so monstrous 
 an image. 
 
 "My happiness is without merriment. I 
 return quickly. I have already the habit of 
 coherence. In a few hours I will go back again 
 and begin with canvas and paint once more. 
 My madness is a lost argument. I am a little 
 tired. But, alas, he who has danced and slept 
 with Medusa goes home weary. 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-three} 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 "It will take time before my amusement 
 ripens into rages. And without rages work is 
 impossible. I will wait. Now I am too indif- 
 ferent for anything but happiness. It is easy 
 to walk and forget one's self and one's senses. 
 It will come back. Mallare will return and 
 expend himself naively in decorations once 
 more. 
 
 "When I am strong again I will hunt up a 
 woman. Poor Rita, whom I have murdered 
 twice, illustrating the paradox of possession. 
 Man, the slave of his senses, possesses only 
 what his five masters offer him as gifts. 
 
 "I will find a clever one this time whom 
 jests do not frighten. One who does not burn 
 incense before her vagina and cover it with an 
 altar piece. How unctuously women embrace 
 ideas which increase the value and importance 
 of their urinal ducts! Modesty, morality, pru- 
 rience, piety, are the effulgent underwear 
 behind which they increase the mystery and 
 charm of the mons veneris. Alas, they are the 
 artists of sex and not men. Man has even 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 thrown away the seductive cod-piece. The 
 origins of ideas are varied and multiple. But 
 whatever their origins, it is women who utilize 
 them. What an incredible sex! Vaginomaniacs. 
 
 "I will hunt up a vulgar woman, one who 
 does not piously regard her vulva as an orifice 
 to be approached with Gregorian chants. I 
 must be careful to avoid those veteran mastur- 
 bators marching heroically under the gon- 
 falons of virginity. It is a difficult business, 
 finding a woman. A modest one will offend 
 my intellect. A shameless one will harass my 
 virility. A stupid one will be unable to appre- 
 ciate my largess. An intelligent one will pene- 
 trate my impotency. 
 
 "But why women? The devil take them 
 all. I am almost tired of the disillusions they 
 have to offer. The homely ones go away grate- 
 ful for something they never received. The 
 pretty ones go away chuckling secretly over 
 something they never gave. It is a confused 
 and unintelligible waste of time. It will be 
 enough to paint, to talk, to sip tea, to wander 
 
 lOne Hundred Twenty-five} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 about proselyting in behalf of improvised 
 Gods. I will divert myself, making love to 
 women out of range of their bedrooms. I will 
 engage them conversationally and ravish them 
 with erect and quivering adjectives. It is not 
 necessary to undress a woman to know her. She 
 reveals herself almost as piquantly in moods. 
 I will be the father of moods. And, as a recrea- 
 tion, I will sit and watch the days in their 
 unchanging flight. I bristle with rhetoric. It 
 is a symptom of sanity. I am grateful for this 
 ability to bore myself." 
 
 It was morning. Mallare paused against 
 a window. He stood, staring into the life of 
 the street. His eyes were drawn and the cor- 
 ners of his wide, thin mouth smiled feebly. 
 
 Snow was falling. The morning dissolved 
 itself. Traffic drifted busily and without sound 
 behind the snow an excited pantomime that 
 filled the air with misplaced, ventriloquial 
 whispers. 
 
 Mallare remained smiling into the gentle 
 storm. Snow covered his head and shoulder. 
 
 \One Hundred Twenty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "The snow falls," he thought tiredly. "It 
 snows, snows. White flakes lose themselves and 
 are grateful for the earth. An invisible ending 
 that flatters them. Well, I have walked all 
 night and rid myself of wisdoms. I am hungry. 
 It's possible I haven't eaten for months. In 
 order to eat, however, I need money." 
 
 He slipped one of the gloves from his hand 
 and felt in his pocket. A satisfied smile came 
 to his eyes. 
 
 "Excellent," he thought. "Or I would 
 have celebrated my sanity by starving to death." 
 
 Withdrawing his hand from his pocket, he 
 found himself regarding it. It grinned back at 
 him like a stranger. It was red. 
 
 "Blood," he murmured. His eyes glanced 
 quickly around and he replaced the glove. He 
 continued to walk. 
 
 "Blood," he repeated to himself. The 
 word made an ending in his thought. He 
 walked slowly staring at it. His silence lifted. 
 A voice crept into him and began to speak 
 from a distance. 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-seven} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Careful," it murmured. "Be cautious. 
 Remember you were mad. You had almost 
 forgotten. There is something to think about, 
 now. You will walk slowly and think. It's 
 not as easy as it seemed. Be careful. 
 
 "Your fists fought with a phantom. Blows, 
 wild blows. The grotesque memory the mad- 
 man pummelling the air. That was you. And 
 your hands are bruised. They've been bleed- 
 ing. Her breasts and head were something 
 else. Your fists struck mercilessly at chairs and 
 walls. When your hands are washed you will 
 find bruises over them that have been bleeding." 
 
 He walked on nodding his head slowly. 
 Later he stopped. The snow was piling itself 
 over the grass of a small park. The swollen 
 shapes of trees and benches rested in the storm. 
 
 Mallare sat down on a bench and removed 
 his gloves. Both hands were red. Smiling 
 tiredly, he began to rub them with the snow. 
 His eyes waited as the color dissolved. His 
 hands were clean. He looked at them and 
 nodded. 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "There are no bruises," he murmured. 
 "The blood came from something else." 
 
 He paused and watched the snow. 
 
 "It is curious," he whispered aloud. "Then 
 I am still mad. Careful . . . mad. For there 
 was blood . . . and not mine. So it would seem 
 I have been seducing myself with optimisms. A 
 true madman. Yes, a lunatic mumbling excit- 
 edly to himself in the snow all night, saying: 
 
 "Sane. Mallare is quite sane." 
 He laughed softly. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I'm too clever for you, Mallare. 
 Very much too clever. You present a pair of 
 red hands to me. I wash them carefully in 
 the snow. They become white. Interesting 
 phenomena." 
 
 Hq chuckled softly and stared at the snow 
 and swollen trees. 
 
 "The old circle again," he murmured. 
 "And I begin the absorbing hide and go seek 
 with my senses. Who am I and where do I 
 end? And who are they and where do they 
 
 [One Hundred Twenty-nine} 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 begin? Let us study the phenomenon of red 
 hands. Primo how do I know there was 
 blood? My eyes said, 'blood.' And the snow 
 is red. But that is only because my eyes, infat- 
 uated with an idea, repeat the information. 
 
 "But I, Mallare, who am no madman's 
 pawn, no lickspittle secretary to my senses, I 
 say, 'no blood.' I am the Pope. I excommuni- 
 cate the phenomenon. 
 
 "Ah, if there is blood, I fought with one 
 who could bleed. And even my cleverness 
 could not supply arteries in a phantom. Ergo, 
 there is no blood. I am still mad. I see that 
 which is not. But it is nothing to be disturbed 
 about. In fact, it is a diversion." 
 
 The snow slowly covered the figure of 
 Mallare. His drawn eyes balanced themselves 
 amid the flakes. 
 
 "It snows, snows," he murmured after a 
 pause. "And I remember something. What is 
 it I think! Rita . . . Yes, there would be 
 blood if Rita were . . . Hm, the murdered 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty] 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 one. There was something I didn't remember 
 while I walked. 
 
 "I can't. Not that way. Careful, Mallare. 
 Be careful. There are thoughts impossible to 
 think. Yes, impossible." 
 
 , Again silence filled him. His drawn eyes 
 widened. 
 
 "Mallare," he whispered, "you are a mad- 
 man. I know. This chokes. Yes. It was I I, 
 Mallare. It is I who have been mad. I have 
 been mad myself . Not you. No, not you! But 
 the God the Strange Pose. I can't. An impos- 
 sible denouement. My head breaks. Her 
 blood . . . Rita." 
 
 He stared open mouthed at a question that 
 circled toward him out of the snow. Words 
 babbled in his head. He shook himself away 
 from them and stared. 
 
 "She was alive!" he cried aloud. "My 
 phantom lived. It was I who was the phantom. 
 And she alive!" 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 His face whitened, his eyes remained inan- 
 imate and gleaming with terror. Then the 
 figure of Mallare fell forward and lay curved 
 in the snow. 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-two} 
 
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[VIII] 
 
 ROM the Journal of Mallare 
 dated January. 
 
 "I am the one who con- 
 templates. I am the Know- 
 ing One. There is nothing I 
 do not know. It is amazing 
 to be Mallare. I have tri- 
 umphed over five worlds. I 
 look down upon a rabble of Mallares. There 
 are five Mallares five sullen looking mad- 
 men. One of them sits and listens to voices. 
 Another of them wanders about, staring with 
 sad eyes at intolerable visions. Another of 
 them lies on his back, babbling excitedly with 
 the darkness. Another of them eats and sleeps 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-three} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 like a prosperous grocer. And there is a fifth 
 Mallare who weeps. A baffling rogue who 
 puts his arms around me and blubbers on my 
 shoulder like a lodge brother. He says noth- 
 ing, and of them all I dislike him the most. 
 
 "His silence is mysterious. His tears are 
 uncomfortable. A distressing ass, weeping, 
 blubbering. He implores me. Aha, I have it. 
 I know his secret. He is memory a memory 
 of myself following me around like a heart- 
 broken mother a wayward son. 
 
 Five Mallares, five sinister comedians to 
 entertain me. And I, what can I call myself 
 pure reason? No, a disgusting title. Rather, 
 Unreason, since I am after all the Indifferent 
 One. But all this is a quibble inspired by mod- 
 esty. I am God. I am that which men have 
 worshipped the aloof one, the pitiless and 
 amused one. 
 
 "The five tribes of Mallare rage and curse 
 beneath me, fill the air with profanations, weep 
 and gibber in the night. But I sit inviolate and 
 wait for them even for that blubbering one 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-four} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 whose tongue is thick with tears and whose 
 idiot eyes implore me and they return. They 
 raise their faces to me, their God, and fall pros- 
 trate before my smile. 
 
 "Yes, it is the weeping one who causes me 
 the most trouble. A reluctant worshipper who 
 annoys me. He clings like another phantom. 
 A meddlesome imbecile who keeps buttonhol- 
 ing me and pouring out tales of woe. And who 
 keeps my name on his lips. I can see it moving 
 on his lips. But he is dumb. I have his secret 
 though. This dumb one came to me in the 
 snow. I was faint. Hunger had thrown me to 
 the ground. When I stood up he was beside 
 me. His lips moved excitedly but they made 
 no sound. And we walked home together. 
 
 " 'Who is this pathetic intruder?' I thought. 
 'He walks beside me gesturing with his lips 
 and weeping, weeping. He falls on my neck 
 and embraces me. His eyes roll with panic. 
 What new variant of madness is this?' 
 
 "It is curious that of all the Mallares he 
 alone is speechless. The others keep up their 
 incessent babbling and screaming true citi- 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 zens of Bedlam. But this dumb one who 
 attached himself to me in the snow, even his 
 lips have stopped moving now, except to form 
 my name slowly as he blubbers on my shoulder. 
 
 "I am kind to him and forgiving. I smile. 
 I even coax him to speak, to move his lips once 
 more. In the snow when he followed me home 
 I was able to detect words his silence spoke. 
 
 "'Blood on your hands,' he repeated. 
 Think, think, Mallare.' 
 
 "I humored him and looked at my hands. 
 They were clean. And I answered him sooth- 
 ingly. 
 
 "'You are an interesting quirk,' I said. 
 'My senses that fancy they have killed a woman 
 have given birth to an illusion of guilt. And 
 you are that illusion. My madness dresses itself 
 in logic like a fishwife hanging rhinestones in 
 her hair. 
 
 " 'Be calm,' I said, 'Mallare has slain only 
 a phantom, and the murder of illusions is a 
 highly respectable privilege whose exercise is 
 rewarded on earth as well as in heaven.' 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-six} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "But this creature was not to be diverted 
 from himself. 
 
 " 'He is another one of them/ I thought. 
 'He walks and implores and wrings his hand 
 and babbles, 'blood, blood that was real.' And 
 there is nothing to be! done with him. Another 
 pathologic symptom asks the hospitality of 
 Mallare, and I must make the proper pretense 
 of graciousness and cordiality. 
 
 " 'But first I must identify my guest. Take 
 his measure out of the corner of my eye and 
 understand him. Very well, I have been the 
 victim of a hallucination which my senses 
 accepted as real. And which I was able to 
 murder only by pretending I too believed it 
 real. Therefore, having committed this illu- 
 sory crime, there results this illusory sense of 
 guilt.' 
 
 "And thus we walked home, this dumb 
 one and I, his absurd grief confusing me. I 
 will confess. My name on his lips frightened 
 me at first. As it sometimes does now. For he 
 has become more than an illusion of guilt. He 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 is, this sly fellow, a memory, inarticulate and 
 envious. He envies me because I am clever 
 enough to laugh at my madness. However, I 
 will consider him later, in his various guises, 
 for of all the Mallares, dumb though he is and 
 ludicrous with inane tears, he interests me the 
 most. 
 
 "We walked home and I finally fell to 
 belaboring him. A pest, a mendicant, a croak- 
 ing idiot I cursed him out roundly and 
 refused him further attention. This is the 
 wisest course sometimes. It is dangerous to 
 humor too carelessly these sprawling Mallares. 
 They are slyly at war with my omnipotence. 
 I can understand the anger of God. Sacrilege 
 confuses Him. And We are all alike We 
 Gods. We are forced into an attitude of indif- 
 ference in order that We may keep Ourselves 
 intact. Thus We look down with Consummate 
 dispassion upon Our hallucinations Our 
 worlds. And it is this dispassion that men wor- 
 ship in Us, unable to understand Our lack of 
 interest and terrified by Our aloofness they 
 prostrate themselves before an infinite mystery. 
 
 [One Hundred Thirty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Yet, though the theology of God has 
 become the secret of My unreason, I find 
 Myself dangerously susceptible. It is when I 
 seek to appease My loneliness by raising one of 
 the babbling ones to My side. He enters My 
 black heaven with a pretense of gratitude, 
 fawning before Me and accepting My fellow- 
 ship with humility. There follows then a 
 moment of insidious diversion. Slowly a con- 
 fusion fills Me. Yes, even I am open to con- 
 fusion. It is a pity I have for the babbling one. 
 
 "I listen to his complaints. The sad-eyed 
 Mallare staring at intolerable visions. Mal- 
 lare, the dark chatterer. Or this other one 
 My friend the weeping lodge brother. Yes, I 
 pity them and soothe them. But I find Myself 
 singularly moved. Their prayers move Me. 
 They begin to whisper that I return with them. 
 I am tempted to follow them, to let them take 
 My hand and lead Me into their strange houses. 
 
 "But I smile in time and My smile, fixed 
 arid profound, overcomes them. They pros- 
 trate themselves once more before the mystery 
 
 Hundred Thirty-nine} 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 of My indifference. And I remain the God of 
 Mallare. 
 
 "On this day the dumb one sprawled along 
 home with me, there were many curious things 
 happened. I had walked all night in the snow 
 weary with hunger. Rita, who had driven me 
 into a moment of fury I had destroyed her 
 for the time. A strange destruction during 
 which I pummelled the air like averitable 
 madman. But the ruse had served to rid me of 
 the hallucination for the night. Finally, tired 
 with walking and hunger, I fell from a bench 
 in the park. 
 
 "When I awoke I recalled at once the gro- 
 tesque struggle of the night. And with this 
 dumb, weeping creature dogging my steps, I 
 returned home. She was still with me. I 
 smiled, although I confess there was despair in 
 my thought. For I had fancied the miserable 
 business of the night had put an end to the 
 hallucination. No, she was still there. She was 
 waiting for me on the couch. 
 
 "But my mind had not deceived itself. It 
 was as I had thought. I had planned to rid 
 
 [One Hundred Forty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 myself of her by hating this phantom until my 
 hate had darkened it. Then there would be 
 nothing but an imperceptible shadow of her 
 remaining, one with which my senses could no 
 longer seduce themselves. 
 
 "And when I came into the room I saw 
 my plot was working. For her eyes no longer 
 gleamed. A radiance had left her. 
 
 "'My hate begins to operate upon this 
 chimera,' I thought. I frowned at her and sat 
 down, worn out with the walking of the night. 
 
 "'I have undermined the infatuation of 
 this phantom,' I thought. I would have been 
 elate but it occurred to me there was an incon- 
 sistency. This dumb one, this sniveling one, per- 
 sisted. And how should he, who was dependent 
 upon her death for his existence, persist in her 
 presence?' This was a question for Mallare, 
 the indifferent one. This was a query to answer. 
 
 "Ah, I will write more about this blub- 
 berer, for the answer to him is piquantly 
 involved. It is like a head with too many hats. 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-one} 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 But not now I will not write about him now. 
 I will only bear him in mind. 
 
 "She watched me from the couch and I 
 became aware of something. I studied her 
 cautiously. Her eyes no longer gleamed with 
 love. There was a radiance absent. 
 
 "'Aha,' I thought, 'she hates. Mallare 
 recovers the strings to his Frankenstein. His 
 puppet dances again to his will. See, my senses 
 no longer leap to her. They tremble warily 
 before the hate in her eyes.' 
 
 "I watched her as she watched me. And 
 then an incredible thing happened. She arose 
 from the couch and came slowly toward me 
 and she held a knife in her hand. She came 
 toward me with the knife at her side. 
 
 " 'Clever,' I thought. 'In fact, a miracle 
 of cleverness. This phantom has gone mad. It 
 is madder than I. It fancies itself able to slay 
 me. It advances upon me with its dagger of 
 mist and it intends to fall upon me. This mys- 
 terious logic that grows of itself like a fungus 
 in darkness, where will it end? Already it 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 towers around me a monstrous weed rising 
 out of my madness, and I am chilled by its 
 shadow.' 
 
 "And I continued to think: 
 
 "'I desired to be rid of her. My desire 
 finally overleaped my befuddled senses. And 
 now this desire has become a new soul for my 
 phantom. Yet I planned no details in my desire. 
 I did not will this melodramatic denouement. 
 Then it is obvious that my desire is like a seed 
 filled with hidden life. I blow a thought into 
 my phantom and that thought develops and 
 hatches. This is a phenomenon to be written 
 about.' 
 
 "As I thought she came closer and finally 
 stood over me. Her eyes, I observed, were com- 
 pletely mad. Yes, they were like horrible fires. 
 And her face was a marvel of mimicry. The 
 cleverness of my thought appalled me. I said 
 nothing, however, and watched her. She began 
 to talk. I had become used to this phase of the 
 hallucination. But this time my senses shud- 
 dered at her words. They who had been so 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 eager to sate themselves in the possession of 
 this chimera and who had betrayed my omni- 
 potence, they now suffered the penalty of their 
 blindness. For it was evident that to them, this 
 chimera was still real. She was an avenger 
 towering with a knife above them. 
 
 "But Mallare smiled. 
 
 "'See,' he murmured aloud, 'here is the 
 reward of your folly. You would philander 
 with this shadow. You would disport yourself 
 in abominable fornications with this hallucina- 
 tion. Very well, I am amused at your clownish 
 terror even more than I was amused at your 
 burlesque ecstasies. Tremble now for here is 
 a Medusa, a Messilina come to destroy you. 
 Whimper and grovel, but observe in your idiot 
 cowardice how Mallare, the indifferent one, 
 sits and smiles still supreme, still a spectator 
 ravished by the dark comedy.' 
 
 "I could not resist this moment of triumph. 
 I laughed although there was no one to enjoy 
 my laughter. And I watched her. She was still 
 talking, deep, meaningless words. For it was 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-four} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 her habit to talk in the gypsy language when 
 moved. Often this fact baffled me. But I per- 
 ceive now that my thought was a seed contain- 
 ing my omniscience in microcosm. God does 
 not invent languages but He understands them 
 since it is unnecessary for Him to know, in His 
 indifference, what they are saying. And the 
 language my phantom spoke, although foreign 
 to me, was nevertheless an integral part of my 
 thought another of the manifestations with 
 which God naively astounds Himself. It is 
 His only diversion. 
 
 "I was curious concerning the effect upon 
 my senses of this illusory attack. And, I must 
 confess these things simply, there came to me 
 the idea that Mallare might be slain by the 
 cowardice of his senses. There would be noth- 
 ing illogical in that. For if this chimera had 
 been able to trick them into the illusion of love, 
 it was entirely natural that it should be able to 
 trick them now into the illusion of death. With 
 the exception that death is an illusion even 
 Mallare, the indifferent one, might not survive. 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-five} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "Ah, Mallare, Mallare ! He wanders pen- 
 sively amid treacherous shadows Mallare 
 an image debating subtly the existence of its 
 mirror. I sigh. But it is one of the relaxations 
 of God to pity Himself His uselessness. 
 
 "Her talk came to an end and she raised 
 her knife. Die or not, the thing was too incred- 
 ible a farce to leave me unmoved. Yes, I 
 laughed out of sheer delight. The drollery of 
 this phantom hacking at Mallare with a non- 
 existent dagger . . . a mad windmill charging 
 Don Quixote! Superb! 
 
 "I perceive now a moral in the situation 
 that I did not think of at the time. Sacrilege is 
 a vital danger to God. His omnipotence is 
 dependent upon the submission of His crea- 
 tures. And they who, inspired with the quaint 
 illusion of their own reality, turn upon Him 
 ah, they destroy themselves. But their destruc- 
 tion impoverishes their God. 
 
 "At the time, however, the spectacle alone 
 and not its significances, preoccupied me. I 
 laughed and reached my hand to the dagger. 
 A sadistic gesture, for I desired to give my 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 senses a taste of its reality and thus enjoy their 
 squirming. Marvelous dagger! The point of it 
 was sharp. Mallare can invent daggers, beau- 
 tiful daggers that poise melodramatically over 
 his heart, that move slowly in quest of his life's 
 blood! S'death, a property man of parts! 
 
 " 'Clever dagger,' I murmured. 'Do you 
 enjoy the illusion of yourself as much as this 
 chimera wielding you quivers with the illusion 
 of impending murder?' 
 
 "It paused before me and I nodded. My 
 laughter had halted it. It was evident that my 
 thought operating in this phantom was con- 
 fused by my laughter. I nodded again. 
 
 " 'It would be logical and extremely pleas- 
 ant,' I thought, 'if this creature, shrinking 
 before the sacrilege of destroying its creator, 
 turned on itself and accomplished a more prob- 
 able assassination.' 
 
 "She stood before me and I was pleased to 
 see her hatred increase. It was amazingly 
 vivid. I observed the viciousness of her fea- 
 tures. Her face had become contorted. Its fury 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-seven} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 was like a mask. But she had dropped the knife. 
 I could not refrain smiling an encouragement 
 at her the naive applause an author bestows 
 upon his puppets. 
 
 "But the plot still contained surprises. Yes 
 astonishing denouements began to crowd the 
 stage. For she started to undress. Here was 
 a trick that baffled Mallare. I winced with 
 distaste. 
 
 " 'The consistency which I have hitherto 
 admired in my madness seems 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 writ- 
 ten 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 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 improvement a foretaste of victory. The dis- 
 integration 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 
 
 [One Hundred Forty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 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 aston- 
 ished 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 bab- 
 oon's on the floor. I was noticing the excite- 
 ment 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 dis- 
 tracted 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 cau- 
 tiously to myself the warning. 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "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 contem- 
 plating the imbecile, the blubberer. He pressed 
 himslf upon me with his shameless importun- 
 ings. He snivelled and his lips moved with 
 my name. I watched them say, 'Mallare' and 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-one] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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. 
 
 iOnc Hundred Fifty-two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "It is an interesting phenomenon this 
 strange mesmerism. It remains to be studied. 
 Goliath and I are mad brothers. This under- 
 standing arrived in time. Or else I would have 
 flung myself in despair upon the ever-implor- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 tressing 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 com- 
 rades. It is pleasant to see that you have the 
 decency to feel enraged. Five infatuated Mai- 
 lares sputtered and wept and gnashed their 
 teeth. 
 
 "As I talked I turned my attention to her. 
 In my excitement over Goliath I had ignored 
 
 [O* Hundred Fifty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS eM A L L A R E 
 
 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 sim- 
 ple. 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 fon- 
 dled 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 melo- 
 drama 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 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 writhe less f rightenedly. But I, Mallare yes, 
 Mallare the Supreme One honor her assault 
 with a shudder. 
 
 " 'Ah, who but Mallare could haveinvented 
 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 Mal- 
 lare. 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 infidel- 
 ity. 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 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-five] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 his senses. But this other one, this Insufferable 
 and Aloof One this Serene One staring amus- 
 edly 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, nau- 
 seated by the vileness of the assault, would dis- 
 gorge forever the hallucination of Rita. It was 
 an emetic Mallare had found necessary to 
 administer to himself. 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-six} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "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 him- 
 self but of you. He is a rival before whom 
 your senses wince as before some unflattering 
 image. Yes the image of M alia re stands 
 saluting his charming chimera with an inter- 
 esting 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 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-seven} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 rendez- 
 vous of expiring illusions, the gathering place 
 of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts 
 and plants. See how this curious dwarf stag- 
 gers 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!' 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-eight] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "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 dwin- 
 dled 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 Franken- 
 stein. For Goliath's arms were around her, his 
 legs entwined her. His body, an insanity in 
 itself, made a mate beneath her more incred- 
 ible than she. There was silence. Then she 
 screamed! 
 
 "Yes, Mallare closed his eyes. A coldness 
 tiptoed 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 
 
 [One Hundred Fifty-nine] 
 
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 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 phan- 
 tom 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 pros- 
 trate ones. 
 
 "The couch was still alive. But it was 
 dark. Her outline was already disintegrating. 
 Goliath's fingers stared from her back. 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-one} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 " 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 inti- 
 mate. Because thou sought to seduce His wor- 
 shippers. Vale! Mallare disgorges thee. Spit 
 not at Me, little one, for I am only a smile. Spit 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-two} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 at this dumb one, this blubberer, who has for- 
 gotten 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 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-three] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 not to Mallare but to this poor dwarf who 
 expires under his 5 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 for- 
 ever on his lips. And oncd he babbled to me of 
 blood on my hands. These are the only reali- 
 ties that form a key to him. 
 
 "His presence remains a discomfort. We 
 sit and stare at each other. And I talk quietly 
 to him. 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-four] 
 
FANTAZIUS oM A L L A R E 
 
 " '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 mur- 
 dered and therefore where the necessity of a 
 conscience to celebrate her crime? 
 
 " 'But you remained and grew more dol- 
 orous. Then you are something else. I suspect 
 you of being the adroit ambassador the mad- 
 men 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 incom- 
 prehensible 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. 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-fiz\c] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 " 'Ah, perhaps you are a memory of Mal- 
 lare. 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 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-six] 
 
FANTAZIUS cMALLARE 
 
 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 Mal- 
 lare 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 weep- 
 ing 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 myname 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 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-seven] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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." 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-eight] 
 
[IX] 
 
 HE 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. 
 a My words tire of him. He will not listen. 
 His tears! dear God, are You so human that 
 
 [One Hundred Sixty-nine] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 they silence You? He has come into my loneli- 
 ness. 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 enchant- 
 ments. 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. 
 
 [One Hundred Seventy] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 "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, Mal- 
 lare, 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 
 
 [One Hundred Seventy-one} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 Mal- 
 lare. 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 remem- 
 ber this from long ago. Hey, you blubbering 
 one ! Do you want me ! Hey, you brother sniv- 
 eler, come back! I laugh. Do you understand 
 this? A laughter without definitions. Ah, for- 
 give 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 
 
 [One Hundred Serenty-two] 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 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 dis- 
 solve. 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 wor- 
 
 [One Hundred Seventy-three} 
 
FANTAZIUS cM A L L A R E 
 
 shippers, Mallare, they turn on me. They break 
 windows. Pity me. This is the cross. 
 
 unary no* ^ ,^ 
 
 [One Hundred Seventy-four] 
 

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