“‘At last I produce a horror worthy of myself,’ I thought. ‘The mist dagger was melodrama to be smiled at. But this—ah, here we have a refinement that reduces death to a minor obscenity. She attacks me now with a weapon worthy my indifference. It is true, my senses [One Hundred Fifty-five] writhe less frightenedly. But I, Mallare—yes, Mallare the Supreme One—honor her assault with a shudder.
“‘Ah, who but Mallare could have invented so subtle a blasphemy, so accomplished an enemy. It is an old theological quibble, but I understand it now. God is the greatest atheist. He is proud of a disbelief in Himself.
“‘Yes, this phantom is the atheism of Mallare. And it is at last a true child. A parental pride excites me. Like Mallare, her father, she rises above herself. I have breathed the soul of hate into her. My hatred alive with a cleverness of its own speaks to itself.
“‘It says, ‘I am the hatred of Mallare. I desire to murder him. I am his phantom, but the suffering and insult he has heaped upon me grow unbearable. His cruelty and coldness have filled me with fury. I would have killed him but that would have been almost an infidelity. For his senses have been my lovers. I remember them with tears. I decided not to kill him because that would have meant to kill [One Hundred Fifty-six] his senses. But this other one, this Insufferable and Aloof One—this Serene One staring amusedly at me out of His black heaven—how send my hatred against him? Ah, I will conspire with his senses. I am no more than an idea in the head of God. But the head of God is but an idea that encircles me. I am a phantom within a phantom. Thus I must make myself nauseous. I must make myself too hideous. I must make myself so monstrous that the Idea which contains me will feel an anguish. And this anguish will be the applause to my hate.’
“I sat shrewdly silent, for the moment was approaching. At last I perceived myself behind the logic of this Frankenstein. For it was I—I, Mallare—that was attacking myself with this hatred. It was Mallare who was arranging this little plot for himself. And why? Because then the head of Mallare, nauseated by the vileness of the assault, would disgorge forever the hallucination of Rita. It was an emetic Mallare had found necessary to administer to himself.
[One Hundred Fifty-seven]
“Ah, my cleverness grows incredible. I am too Supreme to grasp Myself. There are still unexplored crevices in My infinity, and out of these continue to issue surprises that divert Me.
“Goliath was undressed. His black body, lumped and like some mad caricature of itself, gleamed in the light.
“‘See,’ I said. ‘Note this bulbous little black man. For he is a caricature not of himself but of you. He is a rival before whom your senses wince as before some unflattering image. Yes—the image of Mallare stands saluting his charming chimera with an interesting Ethiopian erection. For though they differ in many externals, Mallare and Goliath are one. They are ornamented insulations for an identical current. And here, throbbing under an erection is the current of Mallare and of an infinity of Mallares.
“‘Ah, the penis of this dwarf is repellent because that which Mallare so fondly called his own—his desires—is revealed to him as [One Hundred Fifty-eight] grotesquely promiscuous. Yes, the penis is the democratic tabernacle of Life. Under its little Moorish roof, the senses of the race kneel in common prayer.
“‘Observe it, Mallare. It is the rendezvous of expiring illusions, the gathering place of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts and plants. See how this curious dwarf staggers like a bewildered stranger in its shadow. He is an outcast. He is useless. He is no longer necessary. Life which made a pretense of him, enters its tabernacle and closes the doors on him. Here is the great secret. Here stands the grim tyrant before whose delicious wrath man bows himself into annihilations.