e
bruised. They've been bleeding. Her breasts and head were something
else. Your fists struck mercilessly at chairs and walls. When your hands
are washed you will find bruises over them that have been bleeding."

He walked on nodding his head slowly. Later he stopped. The snow was
piling itself over the grass of a small park. The swollen shapes of
trees and benches rested in the storm.

Mallare sat down on a bench and removed his gloves. Both hands were red.
Smiling tiredly, he began to rub them with the snow. His eyes waited as
the color dissolved. His hands were clean. He looked at them and
nodded.

"There are no bruises," he murmured. "The blood came from something
else."

He paused and watched the snow.

"It is curious," he whispered aloud. "Then I am still mad. Careful ...
mad. For there was blood ... and not mine. So it would seem I have been
seducing myself with optimisms. A true madman. Yes, a lunatic mumbling
excitedly to himself in the snow all night, saying:

"Sane. Mallare is quite sane."

He laughed softly.

"Oh, yes. I'm too clever for you, Mallare. Very much too clever. You
present a pair of red hands to me. I wash them carefully in the snow.
They become white. Interesting phenomena."

He chuckled softly and stared at the snow and swollen trees.

"The old circle again," he murmured. "And I begin the absorbing hide and
go seek with my senses. Who am I and where do I end? And who are they
and where do they begin? Let us study the phenomenon of red hands.
Primo--how do I know there was blood? My eyes said, 'blood.' And the
snow is red. But that is only because my eyes, infatuated with an idea,
repeat the information.

"But I, Mallare, who am no madman's pawn, no lickspittle secretary to my
senses, I say, 'no blood.' I am the Pope. I excommunicate the
phenomenon.

"Ah, if there is blood, I fought with one who could bleed. And even my
cleverness could not supply arteries in a phantom. Ergo, there is no
blood. I am still mad. I see that which is not. But it is nothing to be
disturbed about. In fact, it is a diversion."

The snow slowly covered the figure of Mallare. His drawn eyes balanced
themselves amid the flakes.

"It snows, snows," he murmured after a pause. "And I remember something.
What is it I think! Rita ... Yes, there would be blood if Rita were ...
Hm, the murdered one. There was something I didn't remember while I
walked.

"I can't. Not that way. Careful, Mallare. Be careful. T