Fantazius Mallare Part 11

"Since I rid myself of her, there has been no mutiny. I sit and contemplate problems that have grown too simple for me. And when I am bored with studying Goliath's madness, I divert myself with my friend, the lodge brother. A baffling imbecile who withholds himself slyly. I have not yet come to an understanding with him. There are too few facts to go on. He is silent. He weeps. My name sleeps forever on his lips.

And once he babbled to me of blood on my hands. These are the only realities that form a key to him.

"His presence remains a discomfort. We sit and stare at each other. And I talk quietly to him.

"'You are an inconsistent a.s.s,' I say. 'You were first an obvious pathologic symptom--an illusory conscience born to adorn the grief of my senses that fancied they had murdered Rita, the phantom. But then when you found her alive, what did you do? Did you vanish as, in all logic, you should? For Rita was not murdered and therefore where the necessity of a conscience to celebrate her crime?

"'But you remained and grew more dolorous. Then you are something else.

I suspect you of being the adroit amba.s.sador the madmen have sent into my heaven to plead their cause. Yet why do you not plead? As an amba.s.sador you are a tongue-tied, sniveling idiot. Therefore again, you escape logic. And without logic my madness becomes slyly incomprehensible to me.

"'We watch each other like two careful wrestlers, eh? But what hold do you want? Tell me and I will let you try your strength. No--tears, nothing else. You weep, weep until the sight of you is an impossible ennui.

"'Ah, perhaps you are a memory of Mallare. Something forgotten. Logic approaches you as I think. Something forgotten. And you are overcome at my infidelity. Like Goliath you mourn a vanished one. But there is this difference. Whereas Goliath is real and the object of his mourning is a phantom--you and not I are the phantom. Yes, a phantom mourns me. But speak then. I have no objection to memory. Let me hear what this is all about and I will admit what you say. I will admit it all beforehand.

"'But no. You expect something else. You expect Mallare to fall at your feet and embrace you. I can see that in your eyes--a monotonous expectation that grows ludicrous. Yes, your tears grow ludicrous. I tolerate you for only one purpose. You are a problem that diverts me.

For if I desired I could do with you as I did with Rita. There are ways to make you too nauseous.

"'Yes, I might invent another hate for myself. My hands might tear you as they tore her. And then, filled with a fury against me, you too might turn to Goliath. He is still mad, my dwarf, and susceptible to the phantoms I send him. Do you want to go to him as she did? Aha! You wince. Remember then that Mallare has it in his power to send you to his dwarf, to make you take her place over his terrible body. And Mallare will do this if you annoy him too much. And then, sickened with you as he was with her, he will disgorge another shadow. Let us be frank about this. I warn you.'

"Thus I sit and talk quietly to this weeping one. And when I stop I watch his lips move with my name.

"'Mallare,' they say.

"This is his only answer to my overtures. But I will win him over. He will come close to my smile and kneel finally before me. He will confess who he is and what my name means.

"I grow tired. Goliath stands by his shrine and weeps. He waits beside a couch as if it were another Mallare able to give birth to a phantom.

Poor dwarf, unlike Mallare he has not learned that suffering is an illusion, that couches and Medusas are illusions. Unlike Mallare there is no smile hanging its star above him.

"Sleep comes. A forgotten world babbles with shadows outside my windows.

It is time to say goodnight to my friend, the lodge brother. Turn your tears to the cold moon, my friend. Mallare goes away. Far away into a house where he is alone."

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

[IX]

_The last entry in the Journal of Mallare--undated._

"Talk to me, Mallare. Tell me. Where am I? He grows larger, this dumb one. He moves away, growing larger. He defies distance. He grows too large to see. But his tears remain.

"Whisper to me, Mallare. He vanishes and I must sneak after him. Call me back. He is strange. His darkness lures me out of my heaven. A little whisper will save me. You will say to me, 'Here is G.o.d.' I will come back.

"My words tire of him. He will not listen. His tears! dear G.o.d, are You so human that they silence You? He has come into my loneliness. And there is no use debating with him any longer. Since he followed me home in the snow his weeping has never wavered. I must talk not to him but to Mallare. I must debate with Mallare. But where is he, this Supreme One?

Mallare, where art thou?

"Yes, my madness becomes an increasing novelty. I remain. But I grow smaller. I am too small. Where is my smile? It hides from me. But his tears fall. This dumb one knows how to weep. Alas, I drown.

"Come to my side. I will whisper. I am in love. Yes, do not be astonished. I am in love with her. You recall her? She was like a curtain fluttering before the door of enchantments. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were like little blind faces raised in prayer. Yes, Rita, my radiant one. The phantom I constructed. The Phoenix that arose in my soul. And that I slew again. I am in love. But my magic no longer works. She does not return.

"I will whisper. I kneel with Goliath beside the couch. Ah, Mallare, Mallare--I am mad with love. I weep and beat my head. And this other one calls me away. His shape grows larger and his darkness lifts me toward it. He pulls me from the couch. Talk to me, Mallare. I am mad, but talk to me and I will understand. Dear, shining Mallare ... Tell me 'no' and I will break my love. I will put my fist through the window out of which I watch for her. And it will be finished.

"But I weep. My eyes have caught his trick. I weep for her. Do you understand this? My beautiful one whom I disgorged. Yes, Rita. I die with love of her. I kneel by the bed that knew her. Whisper back to me, Mallare, that I am mad. And I will laugh. But without you I grow too small to laugh.

"There is pain in the shadows. I ask, where am I? Go way, then, Mallare.

Leave me. I persist without Mallare. I remain. Let me dissolve into this. Let me sprawl before the door of enchantments. It is illusion.

Let it be. She will come out. Rita, my vanished one, come back to me.

It is I who ask. Not the Cold One, not the Indifferent One, not Mallare.

But I ... I.

"I will hold you in my arms. I will feed your mist with kisses. My body will warm you. I will be kind. I am not Mallare. He is gone. He hides.

He will not come back. I will kneel before the door that sings with you.

I am mad with love. See, Rita, I am like Goliath. My eyes roll. I am mad and you may come to me without fear.

"Windows break in me again. I remember this from long ago. Hey, you blubbering one! Do you want me! Hey, you brother sniveler, come back! I laugh. Do you understand this? A laughter without definitions. Ah, forgive me. You sat and wept and I scolded. Come back and sit again. I will fall at your feet. Your eyes asked that. But now--where are your feet? There is no shape. How am I to know where? Come back. Here, sit in this chair beside me. G.o.d! In silence, I utter my name. But it is a name that has flown away, flown away.

"Hey, you, bring me my name. The little name, the one that made a pantomime on your lips. The one that stared at me with letters. Bring me my name, I will understand its meaning. My other name has flown away.

Listen. Let me whisper. Bring it to me and I will place it like a gate before the door of enchantments. I will kneel to it. Windows break in my head. Mallare ... are you Mallare? No, you are this. You are a babble of words that stands on its nose.

"Laugh at me, Mallare. Let me hear your laugh far away. Or I go. Listen, Mallare. I turn my back on this darkness. I do not kneel at empty couches. No. I wait for you. You were my G.o.d. You, the One who contemplated. Yes, my arms are out to You. Come ... a whisper out of silences. Hey, Mallare. I dissolve. I become a little phantom. A useless little phantom. I drift like Rita. And they attack me. Hands, voices and trembling ones. They are brave because it is dark. Your worshippers, Mallare, they turn on me. They break windows. Pity me. This is the cross.

[Hebrew: Eli, eli, lama azavtani?]

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