From the Journal of Mallare dated December.

“Her murder was simple. 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.[Ninety]
“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 masturbate 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 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 [Ninety-one] 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.[Ninety-two]
“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. [Ninety-three] 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.”