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 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.

"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 un