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. [One Hundred Eight] 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 [One Hundred Nine] 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, [One Hundred Ten] 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 [One Hundred Eleven] 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 [One Hundred Twelve] 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 [One Hundred Thirteen] 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 [One Hundred Fourteen] 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. [One Hundred Fifteen] 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 [One Hundred Sixteen] 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 [One Hundred Seventeen] 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 Eighteen] into little pictures easy for me to understand and diverting to look at.

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

“Where is Mallare who fancied himself a madman? Who sought to climb over his senses and found himself impaled by a tower of Babel? Where are his angers, his disgusts that were the noble shadows thrown by his egoism to blot out a world? Ballad of rhetorical questions. My vanity preens itself with reminiscences. I smile. I am depressed and content. Answers whisper. Mallare is on his feet. His experiments are ended. His mania to possess himself is a snow [One Hundred Nineteen] that falls forgotten in his past. Vale, the lunatic. Vale, the man in the moon. Ave, Mallare.

“It snows. I walk. I think. I smile. And this too for a time is a diversion—that people no longer distract me. I carelessly restore the world. Let there be people, I say. And, alas, there are. I abdicate. I hand my Godhood back to the race.

“Morning begins like another snow in the distance. Ah, here comes one tired-eyed out of a house. It is astounding to think that he is human like myself. He and I are actors in the same play, yet ignorant of each other’s lines. But I may guess at his part. He is frightened. He looks furtively toward me. And he walks rather lamely. Aha, a fornicator! He has left a warm bed, illegally occupied for the night. A woman in a rumpled night dress moaned under him. The plot is simple. How pleasing it was for a moment. She came so close. She was like an incredibly intimate secret. He gasped physiological instructions. And—finis! The captains and the kings depart. The recessional [One Hundred Twenty] of the douche! Do you love me yet, do you love me yet?

“And now he walks in the cold street. He must hurry away. There are complications, but they make a minor drama. Off stage business. He is aware of contrasts. A moment ago—her arms, her gasps. A moment ago warmth, intimacy. And now, the snow, the cold, and life. Memory like fool’s gold jingles in his pocket. Life is real, life is earnest. He regrets his orgasms. They will interfere with business.

“The male rampant! What a sinister comedian! The mythical despoiler. Hm, his head bows down. The snow disturbs him. Sad, weary, remorseful, he drags himself home. He has lessened his virility and it worries him. There is a plot in this. Some day I will write it out—a love story of the sexes. Poor, weary one, he has enriched Delilah.

“Ah, I am amused. It will be pleasant to observe people once more. Sanity has its [One Hundred Twenty-one] 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 Boccaccio 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, carefully and with raised eyebrows, folding their toilet paper into proper squares!] Who can be [One Hundred Twenty-two] 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 hypocrisies to heart. The plot is too delicious 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, consolations. 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-three] cold. Wagons, trucks, crowds begin. They hurry to work, older by a night.

“My sanity laughs at them, but sadly. I detect an obligato 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 saddens 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-four]
“It will take time before my amusement ripens into rages. And without rages work is impossible. I will wait. Now I am too indifferent 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, prurience, 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-five] 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 masturbators marching heroically under the gonfalons 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 appreciate my largess. An intelligent one will penetrate 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 grateful 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 [One Hundred Twenty-six] 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 recreation, 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 corners 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-seven]
“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-eight]
“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 madman pummelling the air. That was you. And your hands are bruised. They’ve been bleeding. 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-nine]
“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 excitedly 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.”

He 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 Thirty] 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, infatuated 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 excommunicate 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-one] 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 madman. 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 impossible 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-two]
His face whitened, his eyes remained inanimate and gleaming with terror. Then the figure of Mallare fell forward and lay curved in the snow.