Black Marsden Read Online Free PDF

of midnight to noon private confessional diaries, unsung or unheralded doodles and sketches—men of chalk, men of coal, the beggar as king; and my early suspicions returned that Marsden may have stolen into my room and tapped my book of infinity.
    But even as the suspicion strengthened I was filled with a different kind of alarm. Who could be so acquainted with my innermost dreams of criminality, of divinity, love of humanity as well as hatred of humanity except a chimera or projection of myself? Who could unravel so intimately, so quickly, at a stroke and a glance the intricate labyrinth of a diary?
    Thus I found myself riddled and torn by the possibility that Marsden (whether as doctor, thief or judge), Knife (whether as beggar or assassin), Jennifer (whether as Gorgon or open-ended beauty) were wholly unreal, wholly non-existent. Or wholly related to a terrifying trial of indwelling bias and community, a terrifying scrutiny of indwelling truth so unpredictably fierce and real it could likewise expire in a flash, faint or fade into the innocent floorboards one trod. My head was spinning with a fabric of invisibles—the invisibles one endured in one sense (logical empirical unreality), or in the other sense (illogical immanent reality).
    Marsden was speaking—“Excuse me, Goodrich. I find myself suddenly stricken with exhaustion. I am an older man than you think.” He gave his weird smile. “Much older than you think. I am compelled sometimes to rest a little.”
    I stepped forward wishing to put my hand on his arm (which Knife had relinquished for a moment), assure myself beyond a shadow of doubt that he was both solid as well as visible. But he kept me at arm’s length. “Knife will see to me, Goodrich. It is kind of you nevertheless.” Knife’s deadpan matter-of-factness was unbroken and as he and Marsden left the room I was filled with the curious sensation of fading blood, of the most beautiful and the fiercest phantoms I desired and yet could not reach. I could not stop myself crying out aloud when they were gone: “They are not real. Not real at all.”
    “Very real. Very real,” said Jennifer. “Ask Mrs. Glenwearie. She knows we are real. She has to feed us like children. Do you know, Clive,”—I sensed she was teasing me—“I want a child. I do.” She came right up to me now and I desired to touch her, hold her. But I was afraid my hands would go through space, pass through her body. “How is your hand?” she asked suddenly . “There is a red line on it.”
    “It’s nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”
    “It’s real,” she said. “That thin red line.” And kissed me with lips so pliant and soft I felt the tip of her tongue on mine. She drew back instantly as I sought to put my arms around her.
    “You are a cunning one, Clive. Come now, confess. First a kiss to prove me real. Then something more to prove me even more real. Then more and still more. How permissive is reality? Is there an end to the question of proof? Mardie would say it’s the dance of many veils. Do you know, Clive, I am to play Salome in Mardie’s theatre? He wants me to play a thoroughly virtuous Salome.”
    “Virtuous? But surely that’s a violation of the part….”
    “Quite so,” said Jennifer and she mimicked Marsden. “What is virtue? Virtue is a succession of violations towards the seat of love—towards the possession of head or heart. Virtue is a cruel insistence on a property of reality.”
    As she mimicked him I could indeed hear Marsden’s voice speaking through her, schooling her for Salome through his phenomenon of personality.
    “Are you his mistress?” I cried. The words came from me before I could stop them. Jennifer looked somewhat surprised. “Mardie would be flattered if he could hear you ask me that. Dearly flattered. He may be a wise old man but he has his weaknesses.” The tone of her voice changed subtly, grew a little fierce and helpless and cold. “Mardie couldn’t give me a