Chapter 4

"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 struggle 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 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 ... Mallare is no more. Madness 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.

"This would be a God, this hermaphroditic prostitute who fondles himself at night. Mallare ... 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 forehead. Mouth wide and thin. No longer mine. They belong to the mirror. Mallare's words whimper before them.

"Weep ... weep, impotent one. The feet of your madness walk solemnly over you. They kick gravely at a carcass. Lie beneath them and watch Mallare dance away, whirl away with lecherous shadows in his arms. But she will die too. I am thinking of death. Mallare the egoist asks alms of death!

"Windows break inside me. I look out of broken windows. I am gone and away. Empty rooms. My hands feel walls. Mallare asks pity of darkness. Pity him."

[VI]

She sat looking out of the window. He had gone away early in the morning. It was growing dark now. The cold street dwindled. Windows lighted up. People that looked from the distance like black toys moved through the darkening street.

She could tell when he came because his walk was different. The hours built pointed roofs to her dream. She played behind happy walls but her eyes remained outside, watching from the window.

This was part of a game--to hide away and wait. To put on her clothes carefully in the morning; bright silks and petticoats and a dress on top; jewels on her fingers; bracelets and earrings; gold bands through her hair. To make her cheeks red and paint black lines in her eyes; then paint her lips and fingers red--these things hid her. She must be hidden when he came--concealed behind paints and clothes so that when he looked at her it would be someone else he saw.

A tall man with black hair. His face was white. His eyes were silent and hidden. But when they looked at her they screeched like parrots. They ruffled up and yellow points came into them.

He liked to walk up and down pretending she was nowhere, pretending there was no Rita, pretending he was looking for her. Then she ran around and one by one she took off the things--the dress, the petticoats, the silks, the jewels and bracelets and gold bands. Each one she took off was for him. It was a game. She came out of hiding places. Each one she took off was a secret she confessed to him.

She sat at the window dreaming of the ways she belonged to him. Her thought was a pantomime which prostrated itself before his memory. She remembered sacrifices.... He would lie cold in his bed. Then she crawled to his side. She dared not look at his eyes. They were above her and kept themselves hidden. She vanished before the thought of them.

Then his body grew warm under her hands. Her lips made his body tremble. He was white and naked like her. He was a fire to which she fed herself. The moment came when there was no longer any Rita. A little ember lay burning happily in his passion.

When he fell asleep she went away. In her own bed she lay dreaming words that were like hiding places. Only he could lure her out of them. After he fell asleep she carried memories of him into herself.... He had smiled. His body had shivered. His fingers had clutched at her face. He had picked her up and fought with her. When he did this it was as if he lifted her to his eyes and she could look at him--as if the wind lifted the flames about.

The street was dark. But he would come soon. He only stayed away till it grew dark. Now it was his time again. The street and all the lights would open the door and come into the room. And she would be waiting, hidden away. It was exciting to wait. It was the way he kissed her--by making her wait and pretending when he came that there was no Rita.

The night was like a story that frightened. As she watched from the window she remembered the caravan along the roads. Fires and dark faces and red handkerchiefs. The night along the roads changed the trees into birds that flew away. The wagons went to sleep. Everyone slept but Rita. The horses had dreams and whispered to themselves.

Along the roads where the caravan stopped there would be a fire at night to watch. Rita sat alone looking at the flames. Dreams came out of the fire and walked away. Then, hours afterward, they came back when the fire was low. They stood around the coals and finally crawled into the ground. Darkness remained. The wagons became ghosts. She grew sad and wanted to go away with the night like the dreams that crept back into the dead fire.

Now his eyes were like the hiding places she had wished. She trembled. He was coming. She could see him out of the window, walking slowly in the street below. She closed her eyes.

The door opened and her heart bowed itself. Her fingers, stiffened with colored rings, pressed at her breasts. Now there was a game to play. He walked up and down pretending Rita was hidden. He was cold and far away. His face walked like a dead man back and forth in the room. Goliath shuffled as fast as he could and hid himself in the curtains. She crouched in the chair, her knees drawn up, her eyes cringing with delight.

She could watch his face. When he was far away she had further to go to reach him, and each step was like a kiss she gave him. His anger, his words, his cold face and his hands striking her were wild roads down which she ran toward a fire that waited.

He paid no attention but walked up and down and his eyes ignored her. But he would begin to talk soon. She would undress for him. One by one, rings, bands of gold, silks and petticoats--each that came off was like a part of her already burning.

She stood up naked. Only she was left now. Her body caressed her with its desires. She must go on undressing. There was something more to give him. She would remove something of herself--her arms, her breasts, her white thighs. She gave these to him with her dresses and jewels. They were things for him to burn up.

He was looking at her because she had crawled to his feet. This was when he began to talk to her--when she placed her arms around his feet and bent her head to the floor.

"Yours," she whispered.

He was motionless and far away and tall above her. He stood like the night. His white face was the cold moon. She waited and heard the wind blow against the windows. She waited for him to grow warm.

His hands lifted her up. He held them around her neck, his fingers tightening. She opened her eyes and loved him. He talked to her. She listened and wished to die in his hands, if he desired her, if it would make his eyes smile at her.

But his fingers loosened and he threw her down. She lay smiling on the floor as he walked away. He went on talking, louder and louder. His voice was like a sword swinging. He was angry. His words were soft and quick.

She looked up only when he laughed. He was standing against the red curtains laughing. His finger was pointing to her. He stood watching her with his eyes screeching like parrots and laughing as he pointed.

Kneeling, she covered her face with her hands. His laughter came nearer. His hands began to strike. Pain leaped to greet them. Pain, like wings, raised her body to his eyes. His hands were striking and tearing. They played a game with her body.

Candles lighted in her head. He was laughing and throwing himself against her. She felt blood come out of her and cover her with little flames. But he would let her come close soon. After he had struck her and become like a fire she would crawl close to him and he would let her give herself, what was left of herself.

His hands knocked her down again and she lay without moving. He was still laughing and pulling at her. She kneeled and covered her face. Her head kept nodding at him.

Now she would die. He would devour her. Her body fell and rose as if he were swinging her around his head. His hands drove nails through her breasts. Her voice ran away from her and screamed. But she continued to nod her head and to come toward him out of the hiding places. His blows were binding her body with red ropes. But soon she would lie against him and give herself to his passion. She would feel his body burning from the blows he had given her. She closed her eyes and screamed. He grew larger and she was no longer able to understand the pain....

When she awoke Goliath was bending over her. He was whispering excitedly. Sunlight made red shadows in the room.

"Where is he?" she asked.

She slid to the floor and then stood up carefully. Pain halted her and she moaned. But her eyes continued to hunt the room.

"Where is he?" she asked again.

Goliath watched her and his head rolled excitedly. She straightened and dragged herself to the door of his room. It was empty.

"Mallare," she cried. Her hands beat against her head, "Mallare."

Goliath remained watching her naked figure stumbling through the rooms as she called the name. She returned to the couch and threw herself face down. She lay moaning and tearing the cushions with her fingers.

He had gone away. He had beaten her not because he loved. He hated her. And he had taken himself away from her. She understood. He no longer wanted her. He had laughed and tried to kill her.

With a scream she rushed into his bedroom and threw herself against the unused pillows. Her arms struck at them. She began to talk aloud in the language she knew.

"Gone away, gone away," she cried. "I am yours and you gone away."

But words were too involved. She beat at the pillows and screamed. When he came back she would kill him. While he sat in his chair writing she would creep close and drive a knife. That was what would happen to him because he no longer loved her and because he had beaten her to say goodbye.

It was day outside. When it grew dark again he would come back. She would wait, but not as before. She was no longer his.

In her room Rita bathed herself and searched for her old clothes. She found them hidden--the wide dress with red and yellow stripes, the many blue and scarlet petticoats that she had worn when he brought her home from the caravan; the long black earrings, the green and orange shawl for her head. She put these on. They hid the vivid marks on her body.

Dressed in her gypsy clothes she came into the room again. It would be long to wait. But darkness would come and then he would open the door again. She lay down on the couch and sighed.

[VII]

Mallare, wrapped in a heavy overcoat, his hands in thick gloves, walked from his door into the street. The cold straightened him. The deserted night mirrored itself in a thin coating of snow that overlay the roof-tops.

"They sleep," he thought. His head bent toward the wind. "The streets are empty. The night is mine. I must think of what has happened. There is something inexplicable in what has happened. My hands fought with a phantom. That, of course, is nonsense.

"How do I know my hands fought? Merely because I remember them striking. Yet that may have been an illusion too! Then why are my hands tired? Why do my arms ache? Another illusion, of course. Logic is independent of truth. Logic is the persuasive repetition of ideas by which man hypnotizes himself. I must beware of logic. It will but tie me hopelessly to hallucination. I must think without evidence. I do not know anything. What I see, hear, smell, touch is nothing. I can no longer summon my senses as witnesses.

"And is that unusual? I must sink to moralizings in order to understand myself. What is reality but the habit of illusion. Man sees the unexpected once and identifies it as hallucination. He sees it twice and calls it phenomenon. But if he acquired the habit of seeing the unexpected, he accepts it as reality.

"In the same manner in which he builds phantoms into furniture, converts his Gods into sciences, his myths into laws; in that way he also reduces his furniture into phantoms. He converts his emotions into music, his nervous disorders into literature, his three elemental desires into thought. He is continually holding a mirror to nature and worshipping the childish phantoms within the mirror.

"This is the basis of egoism--the mania to change realities into unreality. Because man is the tool of reality. Of unreality he is the God. It is this desire to dominate which inspires him to avoid truths over which he has no sway and to invent myths. Gods and virtues over which he may set himself up as creator and policeman. It is this which causes him to cloud the simplicities of nature in a maze of interpretations. It is by his interpretations that he achieves the illusion of importance. Ignored by the planets, he invents the myth of mathematics and reduces the universe to a succession of fractions and Greek letters on a blackboard.

"This, of course, for man the egoist. The more humorous spectacle is the one in which man finds himself awed by his own lies. His Gods, his myths, his phantoms come home to roost. He stands blinking in a veritable storm of lies. His yesterday's lies, his today's lies, his tomorrow's lies--all his obsolete interpretations, his canonized interpretations; all his systems, his philosophies; all his Gods and Phantoms--these riot and war around him. Error endlessly assassinates itself in a futile effort to escape its immortality.

"And in the midst of this horrendous confusion, stands man--naive and powerless. But he has his sanity. He blows it up carefully like a soap bubble and strikes a defiant posture in its center. And against the walls of his bubble, his phantoms storm in vain. Within his bubble he proceeds calmly to assert himself."

It was snowing. The night, white with snow, stared like a blind man. A phantom world hung in the air. Houses and street withdrew silently. The snow covered them. Mallare walked on, staring into the heavy weave of flakes.

"A great white leopard prowling silently," he murmured. "It snows. The moon has come down and walks beside me. The wind blows and the moon gallops away on a white horse. A gentle annihilation. The night has fallen asleep and this is a dream that pirouettes in its head. The street becomes a bridal couch.

"Ah, the snow is like my madness. It snows, snows. I climb silently among soft branches and white leaves. Delirium sleeps with a finger to its pale lips. I must continue to think. The storm hangs like a forgotten sorrow in my heart. But my thought persists. It crawls like a little wind through the forgotten storm. It rides carefully from flake to flake.

"I overtake myself. What a quaint imbecile I am. Or rather, was. In my effort to emancipate myself from life, I succeeded only in handing myself over to my senses. And my senses, I perceive, belong not to me but to the procreative principles of biology. They have been loaned to me by a master chemist. When I die my cherished soul will disintegrate into nothing. It will become a useless thing. It will unquestionably go to a Heaven which is as non-existent as itself. Heaven is the emptiness into which souls vanish. Very good. But my senses, these are immortal. They will, in some inexplicable way, I am certain, continue their idiot career.

"I must consider them. I have learned one thing. They are indifferent to reality and unreality. They contain life within themselves. All that exists outside them is extraneous--shadows among which they divert themselves.

"The hallucination that overpowered me but never seduced my intelligence became a reality to them. She was a shadow with which my senses diverted themselves. Then why do I look upon the business as illogical? The illogical thing is not that I feel tired from striking her who had no tangible existence, but that I should be able to reason beyond the reach of my senses. Yes, that I should succeed in wresting them from their prey. For the shadows with which the senses divert themselves are tyrants they may never hope to abandon. Man is at the mercy of his phantoms. Behold, I arrive at a conclusion which means I am bored with the subject.

"I prefer the snow. But there is time for the snow. I must establish premises. Climb out of the abyss on a ladder of premises. What did I say about logic? Oh, yes, the persuasive repetition. One flake remains invisible. A thousand flakes are of no account. It is only when the flakes repeat themselves too endlessly for my eye to distinguish that I finally ignore them and walk contentedly in a storm. Thus with logic. When I have surrounded myself with an infinity of assurances, my error vanishes in the constant repetition of itself. And I am reassured. And sane.

"Yet I must think simply. The snow seduces me into fellow labyrinths. I've destroyed her. My senses were in love with her. They responded to her kisses. She was a Thought able to ravish my body. This is what the pathologists would identify as a triumph of the psychic sex center. What charming palaverers--the pathologists! Man crawls in a circle around himself and fancies himself an invader--a pathologist.

"A matter of no interest. What I have done, as the Christian Scientists ably put it, is to rid myself of this Thought. But why was it necessary to strike at it with my hands, to tear it with my fingers? This worries me. But did I do these things? I must convince myself that I didn't. I remember sinking my hands into her body, pulling at her flesh. I remember blows given. She screamed. I struck her and flung her down. These things I recall.

"But they do not interfere with my convictions. For of what are they proof? The blows I gave were no more than a shrewd make-believe. To my senses she was real, and it was necessary therefore to destroy her realistically. It was easy for my mind to ignore this Thought. I was never its victim. I merely created it. My senses that belong to life and not to me, however, became victimized.

"I do not recall myself as a spectator of the struggle. I remember it now as I might remember participating in an honest fight. A very clever ruse. It is evident I loaned myself. I surrendered adroitly to my idiotic senses. Therefore for that hour I was completely mad. What happened in the room? Ah, what a grotesque memory it makes. Mallare knocking his fists against the air. Mallare throwing himself around like an epileptic. Sinking his fingers into nothing--a shadow boxer pummelling frenziedly at space. That was madness.

"But it served its purpose. For I've destroyed her. Rita, Rita is gone. Yet there's a curious twist in that. I am lacking one memory. One very important memory hides from me. I calculate its time and place, but, like a recalcitrant comet, it fails to enter the appointed void. Alas, I no longer remember killing her in the street.

"But I am certain I did. Why, certain? Because my logic establishes the fact. Still, I would feel better about something, if my memory were more docile. But what is memory? The soul of dead illusion. Since it withholds itself, I will create a memory.

"There was a lamp shining over my head. I was walking. And then I stood still. Oh, yes, shadows. I grew eloquent with shadows. And she appeared in the midst of this eloquence. My hands choked her. She had followed me into the street and I choked her. But I do not remember this. At least, the thing grows elusive and unsatisfactory. Why? Ah, the snow covers me. I will cover my confusion with a sigh like the snow.

"No, I see the thing now. Was she ever real? There were gypsy wagons and an old man. A camp fire and this girl with the green and orange shawl. Yes, these were realities. But how do I know? Hm, I place my finger on the sore spot. There is a point where reality and unreality meet. And this point has vanished from my mind. I pursue it. A matter of remarkable importance. It evades me; therefore I will arbitrarily locate it. The point between reality and unreality is the arc lamp in the street. Up to that point Rita was real. I killed her at that point and she became unreal. This statement cures me. Nevertheless, my sanity is a myth. I have invented it, by arbitrarily identifying the moment of its departure. But it is better that way than to blunder on without knowing how mad I am or whether I am mad at all, or whether I ever have been mad. A lie believed in is an antidote for confusion.

"It doesn't matter. Excellent logic. She is destroyed. And I am none the worse, except for a disillusion more--and an uncertainty. My uncertainty is removed by logic, or at least concealed by it. And I am sane. I return to life--another Napoleon walking backwards. My experiments have led me around a circle. I meet myself where I started, but naked of hopes.

"It snows and I am amiable. Something has happened. My hatred, where is that? This street is pleasant. The light of the snow cheers me. I am, in fact, buoyant. Ah, I understand. A balloon come down to earth and vain once more of its buoyancy--its ability to bob along the pavement.

"It is curious. I delude myself that I am thinking. But my alleged thoughts do not further my ideas. They merely convert them into little pictures easy for me to understand and diverting to look at.

"Still, if I am happy ... but how does one know one is happy? I suspect my happiness. It is a clown's suit in which my mourning disguises itself. Mallare has fallen out of his black heaven. And he picks himself up like a good burgher. He grunts and chuckles and looks at the skies, alas, without curiosity. Lucifer, fallen, finds diversion as a janitor in red tights. Ergo, I have proved something. I am in Hell and with Lucifer I know its secret--happiness.