as a part of myself. I speak to her and it
seems as if my words are talking to each other. Yet her eyes intrude and
frighten me."

Now, as he studied her, the illusion he desired again filled him. His
eyes turned inward saw only a dark-eyed phantom, a woman of mist that
was no more than a hallucination drifting through his thought. He
addressed this image of Rita softly.

"It is pleasant to be in love with you," he said. "Because love hitherto
has been one of the abominations. In the world I have destroyed love
existed. It was the foul paradox of egoism. Man, feeling suddenly the
torment of his incompleteness, embraced woman. He was inspired by the
mania to transform his desires into possessions.

"His heart taunted him. His brain filled with despairing vacuums. And he
said to himself, 'I have become a deserted room. A woman will enter. Her
beauty and desire will be gifts that will furnish me once more. She
will be something I possess within myself.'

"In this illusion was contained the foul paradox of egoism. For in the
world I have destroyed, egoism died in the embrace of love. The mania
for possession which flattered man into seeking woman was no more than a
shrewd mirage of his senses, that tricked him into the fornications
necessary only incidentally to himself but vital to the world which he
fancied love obliterated.

"For all these strenuous admirations of beauty--what are they but the
subterfuges by which man hopefully conceals his lacking egoism from
himself? He admires the tints of hair. His thought trembles before the
curve of a neck. Graceful images unravel in his mind at the sight of a
woman's breasts. To himself he declaims, 'I am in love with her. She is
beautiful. I will take her beauty in my arms. There is an emptiness in
me that clamors for the charm and mystery of this woman.'

"Accordingly he embraces her. There is tenderness between them. Their
bodies, indeed, seem to have become overtones that mate in a delicious
and inaudible melody. But this melody must be brought closer so that its
beauty may be more definitely enjoyed. This melody must be played on
instruments and not on thin air.

"And, selah! The egoist beautifying himself with love, finds himself
removing his shoes, tearing off his underwear, fondling a warm thigh and
steering his phallus toward its absurd destiny. The transvaluations--the
ineffable and inarticulate mysteries he fancied himself embracing--turn
out to be a woman with