“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 God—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!”
[One Hundred Thirty-two]
His face whitened, his eyes remained inanimate and gleaming with terror. Then the figure of Mallare fell forward and lay curved in the snow.
[opp. 132]
Eighth Drawing