ct, a miracle of cleverness. This phantom
has gone mad. It is madder than I. It fancies itself able to slay me. It
advances upon me with its dagger of mist and it intends to fall upon me.
This mysterious logic that grows of itself like a fungus in darkness,
where will it end? Already it towers around me--a monstrous weed rising
out of my madness, and I am chilled by its shadow.'

"And I continued to think:

"'I desired to be rid of her. My desire finally overleaped my befuddled
senses. And now this desire has become a new soul for my phantom. Yet I
planned no details in my desire. I did not will this melodramatic
denouement. Then it is obvious that my desire is like a seed filled with
hidden life. I blow a thought into my phantom and that thought develops
and hatches. This is a phenomenon to be written about.'

"As I thought she came closer and finally stood over me. Her eyes, I
observed, were completely mad. Yes, they were like horrible fires. And
her face was a marvel of mimicry. The cleverness of my thought appalled
me. I said nothing, however, and watched her. She began to talk. I had
become used to this phase of the hallucination. But this time my senses
shuddered at her words. They who had been so eager to sate themselves
in the possession of this chimera and who had betrayed my omnipotence,
they now suffered the penalty of their blindness. For it was evident
that to them, this chimera was still real. She was an avenger towering
with a knife above them.

"But Mallare smiled.

"'See,' he murmured aloud, 'here is the reward of your folly. You would
philander with this shadow. You would disport yourself in abominable
fornications with this hallucination. Very well, I am amused at your
clownish terror even more than I was amused at your burlesque ecstasies.
Tremble now for here is a Medusa, a Messalina come to destroy you.
Whimper and grovel, but observe in your idiot cowardice how Mallare, the
indifferent one, sits and smiles--still supreme, still a spectator
ravished by the dark comedy.'

"I could not resist this moment of triumph. I laughed although there was
no one to enjoy my laughter. And I watched her. She was still talking,
deep, meaningless words. For it was her habit to talk in the gypsy
language when moved. Often this fact baffled me. But I perceive now that
my thought was a seed containing my omniscience in microcosm. God does
not invent languages but He understands them since it is unnecessary for