"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 about proselyting in behalf of improvised G.o.ds. 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.

"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.

"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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 gra.s.s 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.

"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 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 p.a.w.n, 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. 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 G.o.d--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!"

His face whitened, his eyes remained inanimate and gleaming with terror.

Then the figure of Mallare fell forward and lay curved in the snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eighth Drawing]

[VIII]

_From the Journal of Mallare dated January._

"I am the one who contemplates. I am the Knowing One. There is nothing I do not know. It is amazing to be Mallare. I have triumphed over five worlds. I look down upon a rabble of Mallares. There are five Mallares--five sullen looking madmen. 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 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 nothing, and of them all I dislike him the most.

"His silence is mysterious. His tears are uncomfortable. A distressing a.s.s, 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 t.i.tle. Rather, Unreason, since I am after all the Indifferent One. But all this is a quibble inspired by modesty. I am G.o.d. 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 whose tongue is thick with tears and whose idiot eyes implore me--and they return. They raise their faces to me, their G.o.d, and fall prostrate 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 b.u.t.tonholing 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?'