a short-necked pendulum arrested
at the height of its swing. The hands of the figure clutched talon-like
at the face and the head was thrown back as if broken at the neck. Its
features were obliterated by the hands except for the mouth which was
flung open in a skull-like laugh.

The figure on the whole was the flayed caricature of a man done so
cunningly that through the abortive hideousness of its outlines, its
human character remained untouched.

Mallare swung the figure by its base against the pedestal until it
splintered and fell to pieces. He stood whispering to himself--

"This was the lover. My statue of the lover. Dead, now."

A dozen similar caricatures in clay and bronze vanished under his
attack. Standing against the wall and blinking at the rutilant glare of
the room, Goliath the dwarf waited nervously. He had become aware that
his master was acting strangely. A look of ferocity slowly came into the
deep black of his face. His misshapen body trembled.

Mallare, the destruction ended, turned to him.

"And finally a last figure," he murmured. "Goliath, too. Do you agree,
Goliath? You will find a congenial company in the souls of these friends
I have butchered."

Goliath shook his head vigorously.

"Go 'way," he answered. Mallare nodded.

"Thanks," he smiled. "You reminded me in time. It is easy to mistake you
for one of my creations. Although I never created such eyes, improbable
eyes alive with murders. Go to bed."

Alone amid the wreckage, Mallare turned to his Journal. A precise smile
was on his lips and his eyes slanted toward the debris on the floor as
if he were watching the fragments, fearfully. His hair made a black
triangle against his forehead. He began to write:

"I am too clever to go mad. To go mad is to succumb to the sanity of
others. Since I avoid death, I must be wary of his misshapen brother.
Yet, I can prove to my satisfaction tonight that I am mad. I have
destroyed something. It was because the intricate presences of life
awaken too many despairs in me.

"Now I am alone. I must be cautious of my thought. I feel words like
rivals in my head. Alas, I must think in words. Words are the inevitable
canonizations of life. But worse, they are property loaned me and not
my own. I must have my own and live with it entirely. Yet there is some
comfort in words. They are not entirely sullied by their promiscuity.
Words are like nuts people pass each other without ever opening. The
insid