is happy? I suspect
my happiness. It is a clown's suit in which my mourning disguises
itself. Mallare has fallen out of his black heaven. And he picks himself
up like a good burgher. He grunts and chuckles and looks at the skies,
alas, without curiosity. Lucifer, fallen, finds diversion as a janitor
in red tights. Ergo, I have proved something. I am in Hell and with
Lucifer I know its secret--happiness.

"Where is Mallare who fancied himself a madman? Who sought to climb over
his senses and found himself impaled by a tower of Babel? Where are his
angers, his disgusts that were the noble shadows thrown by his egoism to
blot out a world? Ballad of rhetorical questions. My vanity preens
itself with reminiscences. I smile. I am depressed and content. Answers
whisper. Mallare is on his feet. His experiments are ended. His mania to
possess himself is a snow that falls forgotten in his past. Vale, the
lunatic. Vale, the man in the moon. Ave, Mallare.

"It snows. I walk. I think. I smile. And this too for a time is a
diversion--that people no longer distract me. I carelessly restore the
world. Let there be people, I say. And, alas, there are. I abdicate. I
hand my Godhood back to the race.

"Morning begins like another snow in the distance. Ah, here comes one
tired-eyed out of a house. It is astounding to think that he is human
like myself. He and I are actors in the same play, yet ignorant of each
other's lines. But I may guess at his part. He is frightened. He looks
furtively toward me. And he walks rather lamely. Aha, a fornicator! He
has left a warm bed, illegally occupied for the night. A woman in a
rumpled night dress moaned under him. The plot is simple. How pleasing
it was for a moment. She came so close. She was like an incredibly
intimate secret. He gasped physiological instructions. And--finis! The
captains and the kings depart. The recessional of the douche! Do you
love me yet, do you love me yet?

"And now he walks in the cold street. He must hurry away. There are
complications, but they make a minor drama. Off stage business. He is
aware of contrasts. A moment ago--her arms, her gasps. A moment ago
warmth, intimacy. And now, the snow, the cold, and life. Memory like
fool's gold jingles in his pocket. Life is real, life is earnest. He
regrets his orgasms. They will interfere with business.

"The male rampant! What a sinister comedian! The mythical despoiler. Hm,
his head bows down. The snow disturbs him. Sad,