The Devil's Mirror by Ray Russell Page A

the real world, and xam ix there too, and i am in a kind of dream, a nightmare, all alone in a nightmare and cannot wake up.
    later
    i keep remembering a woman i read about in the bookx. i cannot get her out of my mind, a man, renowned for wixdom and magnanimity, ordered her to be tortured without mercy, and hix e¢ecutionerx worked upon her from dawn to evening, mangling and breaking her body, until they were tired and could think of nothing more to do to her. the ne¢t day they burned her with platex of braxx heated red hot. for many dayx xhe wax crammed into a tiny cell five levelx underground in the airlexx dark, and locked into xtockx, and tormented in any and all wayx that occurred to her jailerx. they made her watch her young brother being tortured to death, then they ripped her flexh with a whip imbedded with iron barbx, and after that they roaxted her over a fire, and finally they let a wild bull gore her until xhe died, her name wax blandina.
    the fine man who ordered all thix done to her, marcux aureliux, hax gone down in hixtory ax the bext of all the philoxopher-kingx. one of the bookx xayx he had, quote, a nature xweet, pure, xelf-denying and unaffected, unquote.
    if that could be done by the bext of men, i tell myxelf, what might be done by ordinary men, to xay nothing of the worxt of men?
    when i think of thix, i do not yearn for adam. when i think of thix, i am glad i am alone, unloved, unable to be eve to adam, mother of a race, i even fear the coming of adam. fear it and hope for it, until i am torn apart.
    later
    i know what i have to do. i have to bring thix writing to an end, and leave it here for you, dear adam, where you will find it, if you ever come, and lead it if you know how to read, and come to know why i did not wait for you. poor adam, you will be all alone, truly all alone, and live out your life until you are old and have a long white beard, i am very xorry for you. forgive me. but i have to do what i have made up my mind to do, and i will tell you about it now, in my laxt poem...
    i will walk north into a land of white, a land cloud-clean and xoft ax eiderdown, and i will make the xnow into a gown, a bridal drexx of dazzling virgin light, in which to meet my lover and my xpouxe. upon my head a coronet of ice, with flakex of falling xnow the wedding rice, and he will carry me into hix houxe, into another life, another world, he will prepare a xnowdrift for our bed, and xhow me where i am to lay my head, and lie bexide me, both together curled, hix kixx will be ax cold ax any knife, the night when death, my huxband, makex me wife.

A Most Miraculous Organ
    The first to arrive was Haskell, the Eng. Lit. man, a specialist in the Elizabethan period. He had made full professor just the month before, and already he was cultivating the longish hair, the briar, the tweediness and the abstracted gaze he felt his role required. The briar kept going out. Obscenely sucking and smacking at it under a match flame, he said, ‘Hullo, Fairbank. Am I early?’
    His host replied, ‘Right on time. The others are late. They’ll be along presently, I imagine.’ Taking Haskell’s coat, he added, ‘What are you drinking?’
    ‘Irish, please, with just a little water. No ice.’ Suck, slurp, smack, puff.
    Professor Emeritus Marcus Fairbank, seventy and retired, was a widower and Haskell’s senior by a good thirty years. From that perspective, he could be tolerant of the younger man’s airs. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll mix your drink.’
    Within moments, most of the others were on hand—Weiss, the composer-in-residence; Graner, the historian; and stone-deaf Temple, the painter. Pedagogues all, but none save Haskell bore the outward stamp of academe. Temple looked like a butcher, an impression which red-smeared fingers only enhanced. Weiss looked like an ageing matinée idol. Graner looked like a sourpuss, which, in fact, he was. All had been pallbearers the previous year at the funeral of Fairbank’s