osity that gives the lie to my bewilderment. I
sit, an audience, shedding crocodile tears at a melodrama.

"Tomorrow ... tomorrow. Who can think that word is still himself? What
difference does it make if I grow uncomfortable and swollen with
illusions? I persist. And who knows but tomorrow will be a door in my
labyrinth ... a bottom to this pit into which I have fallen?"

[Illustration: Fifth Drawing]

[V]

_From the Journal of Mallare dated December._

"Her murder was simple. We stood under an arc lamp and my hands killed
her. I remember her face looking imploringly at me. And when I went away
I leaned over and kissed her hair. She was dead in the street. It was
simple.

"Now I must kill again. It is no longer simple. I must teach her to hate
me. She will vanish then. It is clear in my thought. My hands are
useless against her now. I have held them about her neck and she
laughs.

"All day she runs around in the room. At night she comes to my bed. Her
hands wake me up. She plays with me. I lie thinking how she may be
murdered this second time. She has grown loathsome. I allow her to cover
my body with kisses and listen to her laughter. Pollutions result. I am
powerless against her lips and terrible fingers. She devours me night
after night like a succubus. I lie and masturbate with a phantom.

"But I will discover a way to kill this thing. I close my eyes and lie
powerless while she repeats the refrain I once taught her. 'Yours ...
yours. I am your woman.'

"I have hurled her out of bed, hurled her body against the wall. She
continues to laugh like a child. I think of her as real. Goliath knows I
am mad. He watches me while I struggle with this thing. He is filled
with terror. I have told him to go, but he remains.

"She sleeps in the bed that Rita used. I have seen her there. Stood
beside her listening to her breathe. If I die she will pursue me in
death. She is more real than I. I must kill her. My hands have never
touched her since the night on the couch. I have kept myself intact. I
still remain. She is a virgin. My thought is mad. It plays with the idea
of fornication. Once, screams frightened her out of my bed. I lay unable
to resist. My body reached toward her. An anger that was like death
blinded me. I cried out and saved myself. My thought crept back from the
madness. I called myself back.

"I can no longer close my eyes to her. She grimaces in the dark. And she
is at my heels in th