But I will come to him later. The plot is more entertaining than this incongruous spectator weeping and hissing out of turn.
"She began to talk once more and wildly. The sense of it dawned on me.
She was calling Goliath. He came shuffling from his usual hiding place--the curtains. A diverting little monster. I bear him no ill will.
Although I grow slightly envious of his madness. Yet his madness is a terrific flattery. It is involved and piquant and one of the things that remain for me to study cautiously. The madness of Goliath and, of course, this gentleman Niobe.
"He came out, a fact at the time that astonished me. For I had not been aware of his madness. He stood with his bent and bulbous body shaking and his hands resting like a baboon"s on the floor. I was noticing the excitement of his huge head when it came to me with a curious feeling--he was looking at her. Yes, Goliath my servant was looking not at me. But at her!
""Careful, Mallare, be careful," I thought. The insane sniveling of this lodge brother distracted me. His arms came around me and he rested his head on me and wept. Insufferable a.s.s! It was impossible to think. I remained with my eyes watching and repeating cautiously to myself the warning.
"Here was a trick too baffling for Mallare. Mallare must suspend himself, close his eyes and climb slowly back into his black heaven.
""Then Goliath too is a phantom," I thought. "But careful, be careful, Mallare. That is too easy. And you remember. It is dangerous to hide from too many memories. They will become shadows that nibble at you. He is not a phantom. Goliath is no chimera. He lives. He has reality.
""Then how does it come," I continued thinking, "that he sees that which is visible only to you? His eyes are fastened on her who is to be seen only inside the caverns of Mallare. He raises his arms. His hands touch her. I am imagining Goliath. Goliath is not in the room. This is a memory of him that has wandered onto the scene of my madness."
"Here my thinking ended. I sat contemplating the imbecile, the blubberer. He pressed himself upon me with his shameless importunings.
He snivelled and his lips moved with my name. I watched them say, "Mallare" and repeat "Mallare" till I grew dizzy with the pantomime of my name. I will study this later and discover the secret of his lips. My name drifting continually over them has a way of hypnotizing me. But later--later.
"I began thinking once more.
""This lodge brother weeps while Goliath takes liberties with my phantom. There is a connection there. But it is unimportant for the present. I must discover something else."
"Then, like a victory too long withheld, it came to me. He was mad.
Goliath, my servant, was mad. But more than that--a telepathic madness.
I have elaborated my understanding since. Goliath suffers from a contagion. His constant attendance upon me has proved fatal to his stupidity. His senses are the victims of my puppets. He has entered my world and my madness creates for him, as it does for me, shadows that deceive him. But there is no Mallare in him. Unlike me, he does not sit in amused judgment upon himself.
"It is an interesting phenomenon--this strange mesmerism. It remains to be studied. Goliath and I are mad brothers. This understanding arrived in time. Or else I would have flung myself in despair upon the ever-imploring bosom of my lugubrious sniveler.
"Rita was real to Goliath. I watched him excitedly and continued to think. I addressed myself:
""Observe," I said, "here you have a distressing visualization. Goliath, your dwarf, mimics your madness. And it is not pleasant to look at. His eyes roll with pa.s.sion. His fat lips chew upon lewd expectations. His fingers raise themselves like frightened blasphemies to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And he watches you. Yes, his eyes sneak glimpses of you. For you are his rival! You and this n.i.g.g.e.r monster are v.a.g.i.n.al comrades. It is pleasant to see that you have the decency to feel enraged." Five infatuated Mallares sputtered and wept and gnashed their teeth.
"As I talked I turned my attention to her. In my excitement over Goliath I had ignored her. Her hands were fumbling with the clothes of this doting rival. But her eyes were on me. They blazed.
""This pantomime of shadows grows involved," I thought. But I was experimenting with rhetoric. For the thing was absurdly simple. Hate still animated my phantom. And this was her revenge. She was about to give herself to the black dwarf Goliath. She was about to commit s.e.xual hari-kari.
"I watched her hands remove his clothes, his red jacket, his fine shirt.
He jumped up and down like a distracted child, his own hands bewildered with too many activities. They fondled her, they tugged at his trousers.
They became insane and flapped at his sides. She helped him, her eyes still watching me.
""At last I produce a horror worthy of myself," I thought. "The mist dagger was melodrama to be smiled at. But this--ah, here we have a refinement that reduces death to a minor obscenity. She attacks me now with a weapon worthy my indifference. It is true, my senses writhe less frightenedly. But I, Mallare--yes, Mallare the Supreme One--honor her a.s.sault with a shudder.
""Ah, who but Mallare could have invented so subtle a blasphemy, so accomplished an enemy. It is an old theological quibble, but I understand it now. G.o.d is the greatest atheist. He is proud of a disbelief in Himself.
""Yes, this phantom is the atheism of Mallare. And it is at last a true child. A parental pride excites me. Like Mallare, her father, she rises above herself. I have breathed the soul of hate into her. My hatred alive with a cleverness of its own speaks to itself.
""It says, "I am the hatred of Mallare. I desire to murder him. I am his phantom, but the suffering and insult he has heaped upon me grow unbearable. His cruelty and coldness have filled me with fury. I would have killed him but that would have been almost an infidelity. For his senses have been my lovers. I remember them with tears. I decided not to kill him because that would have meant to kill his senses. But this other one, this Insufferable and Aloof One--this Serene One staring amusedly at me out of His black heaven--how send my hatred against him?
Ah, I will conspire with his senses. I am no more than an idea in the head of G.o.d. But the head of G.o.d is but an idea that encircles me. I am a phantom within a phantom. Thus I must make myself nauseous. I must make myself too hideous. I must make myself so monstrous that the Idea which contains me will feel an anguish. And this anguish will be the applause to my hate."
"I sat shrewdly silent, for the moment was approaching. At last I perceived myself behind the logic of this Frankenstein. For it was I--I, Mallare--that was attacking myself with this hatred. It was Mallare who was arranging this little plot for himself. And why? Because then the head of Mallare, nauseated by the vileness of the a.s.sault, would disgorge forever the hallucination of Rita. It was an emetic Mallare had found necessary to administer to himself.
"Ah, my cleverness grows incredible. I am too Supreme to grasp Myself.
There are still unexplored crevices in My infinity, and out of these continue to issue surprises that divert Me.
"Goliath was undressed. His black body, lumped and like some mad caricature of itself, gleamed in the light.
""See," I said. "Note this bulbous little black man. For he is a caricature not of himself but of you. He is a rival before whom your senses wince as before some unflattering image. Yes--the image of Mallare stands saluting his charming chimera with an interesting Ethiopian erection. For though they differ in many externals, Mallare and Goliath are one. They are ornamented insulations for an identical current. And here, throbbing under an erection is the current of Mallare and of an infinity of Mallares.
""Ah, the p.e.n.i.s of this dwarf is repellent because that which Mallare so fondly called his own--his desires--is revealed to him as grotesquely promiscuous. Yes, the p.e.n.i.s is the democratic tabernacle of Life. Under its little Moorish roof, the senses of the race kneel in common prayer.
""Observe it, Mallare. It is the rendezvous of expiring illusions, the gathering place of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts and plants.
See how this curious dwarf staggers like a bewildered stranger in its shadow. He is an outcast. He is useless. He is no longer necessary. Life which made a pretense of him, enters its tabernacle and closes the doors on him. Here is the great secret. Here stands the grim tyrant before whose delicious wrath man bows himself into annihilations.
""Ah, what a marvelous tabernacle! It moves and Goliath follows. It points and Goliath runs after it. An infatuated tabernacle that fancies itself going to Heaven! It is proud. It struts. Goliath shuffles after it like a forlorn little n.i.g.g.e.r in the wake of a circus. It leaps. And Goliath gallops after it. Aha! he lies on his back impaled. But she!"
"They were on the couch. She sat beside him but her eyes still sought me. Noises issued from Goliath. He rolled on his back, kicking crooked legs and yelping.
"I watched her white body spread over him. Her eyes left me and my rhetoric dwindled into a sigh. I was alone with a spectacle. Goliath, masturbating with a phantom--but not as Mallare had done. No, not as Mallare who had lain indifferent beside his Frankenstein. For Goliath"s arms were around her, his legs entwined her. His body, an insanity in itself, made a mate beneath her more incredible than she. There was silence. Then she screamed!----
"Yes, Mallare closed his eyes. A coldness tip-toed out of his heart. She was laughing. Her laughter entered his ears--a noise that was like a witch"s flight of sound. But who was it laughed? Mallare, Mallare laughed. It was his voice in the phantom that laughed at him. It was his hallucination he had loved that now gave itself to a little monster. And it was his hate that designed this laugh, a thing that pierced the heaven in which he sat. Mallare closed his eyes, a G.o.d shuddering before His own atheism. Yes, rhetoric now. It is easy to write. My words embroider themselves.
"But then, when the laugh struck Mallare! Ah, there was curious mutiny.
They went away. The little Mallares who worship me went away, all but one. The dumb one. Yes, I write of him again. He came to me then and his tears were more horrible than the scream I had heard. His weeping came too close. His weeping grew too loud. His arms embraced me and he held his face too close to mine. And my name rose from his lips.
"I was alone with him and my fingers fought with his throat. This blubberer who had followed me home in the snow, yes this insufferable melancholiac who rained his tears into my Heaven--Mallare would have killed him.
"But he was too sly. He slipped away and sprawled around the room. He beat his hands against walls and tore at his hair. I followed watching him and coaxing him to come close once more. I smiled at him to come near again. But no, he avoided me. He stood against the curtains facing me and pointing his finger at me. His mouth was open but no sound came from it. There was only the noise of my phantom laughing.
"He stood pointing and I watched my name come like a dead shout from his lip. His throat was alive with my name.
""Mallare!" it said.
"I smiled at him. And I worshipped aloud so that he might hear. I whispered to him to come close--this lugubrious blasphemer who wears my name in his throat. But his face grew white. His arms dropped and he leaned against the curtains. His eyes closed and he fell. The Indifferent One remained. The smile of Mallare remained contemplating the prostrate ones.
"The couch was still alive. But it was dark. Her outline was already disintegrating. Goliath"s fingers stared from her back.
""The dark comedy ends," I thought. "My phantom dissolves in a suicidal o.r.g.a.s.m. And the little monster beneath her collapses amid too sudden memories. Finis! The revenge that I so cleverly manipulated is accomplished. And now Mallare disgorges a hallucination become too nauseous. I have fouled this pretty one so that my senses might abandon her. And see, they whimper under me. The dumb one lies in a corner and even his tears are ended. And this sad eyed one, weary with intolerable visions, and this one whose ears are filled with voices--all of them whimper under me. But I must feel no pity for them. Mallare rides away like a star....
""And she dissolves. Vale Rita! The red and yellow dress again. Yes ...
yes--the green and orange shawl again. Put them on. Bravo Rita! Tragedy bows in a decorative anti-climax. Little one, Mallare banishes thee from His heaven where thou becamest too intimate. Because thou sought to seduce His worshippers. Vale!--Mallare disgorges thee. Spit not at Me, little one, for I am only a smile. Spit at this dumb one, this blubberer, who has forgotten himself in a new sleep."
"And Goliath weeps. She is gone and his madness regrets her vanishing.
He sits by day and watches out of the window. At night I have found him staring at the couch where he lay with my shadow. He kneels beside it with his grotesque arms flung out, embracing memories.
"His madness flatters me. Yet it is a thing to be studied. His eyes are insane. They roll continually in their sockets. He beats himself, knocking his fists against his head. And I have discovered him on the floor doubled up, his head buried in his arms. He does not hear me but remains, while I move around, immobile as an idol. Yes, little Goliath is mad. But he cannot recover the illusion whose memory haunts his dark soul. He suffers. He beats his head and his tears are futile. For she was mine. Mallare created her. Mallare destroyed her. There is a temptation at times to return her--not to Mallare but to this poor dwarf who expires under his grief.
"I am tempted by his madness. Goliath has found no G.o.d in his black heaven. I would be his G.o.d 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.