ich curtain before the door of enchantments which I might enter
at will.

"'But there is no longer a door. Your body alone confronts me. In this
way I am reduced to enjoying my dream with my senses. Then it means
only that I have achieved nothing more by my madness than the privilege
of masturbating with the aid of an erotic phantom.

"'Alas, the reason of it is clear. Man's fiber is fouled throughout with
sex. I sought to emancipate myself from all relation to life. The
delusion of my hopes is more to be pitied than the disorder of my
vanity. For I see now that man is a collection of adjectives loaned to a
phallus. His intellect is no more than a diverting hiatus between
fornications. His soul, yes, his very egoism on which he prides himself,
is a synthetic erection.

"'To possess! What a delusion! And for its sake I threw my genius away.
I stripped the world from my eyes that it might not intrude upon the
universe within me. A paradise in which I might strut alone. Possess
myself. Yes, and here I am, aware at last of folly. For my senses belong
to life. And though I buried myself in a madness deeper than night, they
would still cling to me. Though I castrated myself, they would
remain--five invisible testicles. It is impossible to possess. Folly to
attempt. As long as the senses remain life clings like a dead whore to
my darkness. Even my madness that I prided myself upon is a babbling
witch astride a phallus, her lips bending over it with grewsome hungers.

"'There is only one castration--death. What am I now? Mad? Yes. And
worse. Disillusioned. I have closeted myself with a lecherous animal and
it turns on me. That is the reward of the privacy I hungered after.

"'And you who lie and weep on a couch are no longer the dream of a God,
but the crude marionette created by lust for its own diversion. I
thought only to go mad. But I see I have become an idiot.'

"There was no more to say. Her weeping ended and she vanished. But she
will return. In my sleep her outline wanders like an amorous ghost
haunting the grave of my senses. Ah, I must be cautious now, more
cautious, always cautious. It would be too easy to yield. And if I
yielded and returned again my defeat would be unbearable. I think it is
easier to die. Death is no more than a premature torment. Its name alone
is a suffering. Its reality but a final illusion.

"But I persist. I still remain. There is a rhythm to things that still
seduces me. A gentle curi