Read Online I Await the Devil's Coming - Unexpurgated and Annotated by Mary MacLane - Free Book Online
Authors: Mary MacLane
Ads: Link
soul are listening to them intently. The voices are trying hard to tell me, to help me, but I can not understand. I know only that it is about pure, exalted things, and about the all-abiding love that is somewhere; and it is about the earth-love, and about Truth, - but I can not understand. And the voices sing of me the child - a song of the unloved, starved little being; and a song of the unloved, half-grown creature; and a song of me, a woman and all alone - awaiting the Devil’s coming.
Oh, my soul - my soul!
A female snake is born out of its mother’s white egg, and lives a while in contentment among weeds and grass, and dies.
A female dog lives some years, and has bones thrown at her, and sometimes she receives a kick or a blow, and a dog-house to sleep in, and dies.
A female bird has a nest, and worms to eat, and goes south in the winter, and presently she dies.
A female toad has a swamp or a garden, some bugs and flies, contentment - and then she dies.
And each of these has a male thing with her for a time, and shortly there are little snakes or little dogs for her to love as much as it is given her to love - she can do no more.
And they are fortunate with their little snakes and little dogs.
A female human being is born out of her mother’s fair body, branded with a strange, plague-tainted name, and let go; and lives awhile, and dies. But before she dies she awakes. There is a pain that goes with it.
And the male thing that is with her for a time is unlike a snake or a dog. It is more like a man, and there is another pain for this.
And when a little human being comes with a soul of its own there must be another awakening, for she has then reached the best and highest state that any human being can reach, though she is a female human being, and plague-tainted. And here also there is heavy soul-pain.
The name - the plague-tainted name branded upon her - means woman.
I lifted my head from the breast of the gray rock. The tears had been falling, falling. Tears are so strange! Tears from the dried-up fountain of nineteen years are like drops of water wrung out of stone. Suddenly I got up from the ground and ran quickly over the sand for several minutes. I did not dare look again at the hilltops and the deep blue, nor listen again to the voices.
Oh, with it all, I am a coward! I shrink and cringe before the pain of the dazzling lights. Yet I am waiting - longing for the most dazzling light of all: the coming of the Devil.
February 1
Oh, the wretched bitter loneliness of me!
In all the deep darkness, and the silence, there is never a faint human light, never a voice!
How can I bear it - how can I bear it!
February 2
I have been looking over the confessions of the Bashkirtseff. They are indeed rather like my Portrayal, but they are not so interesting, nor so intense. I have a stronger individuality than Marie Bashkirtseff, though her mind was probably in a higher state of development than mine, even when she was younger than I.
Most of her emotions are vacillating and inconsistent. She worships a God one day and blasphemes him the next. She never loves her God. And why, then, does she have a God? Why does she not abandon him altogether? He seems to be of no use to her - except as a convenient thing on which to fasten the blame for her misfortunes. - And, after all, that is something very useful indeed. - And she loves the people about her one day, and the next day she hates them.
But in her great passion - her ambition - Marie Bashkirtseff was beautifully consistent. And what terrific storms of woe and despair must have enveloped her when she knew that within a certain period she would be dead - removed from the world, and her work left undone! The time kept creeping nearer - she must have tasted the bitterness of death indeed. She was sure of success, sure that her high-strained ambition would be gratified to its last vestige - and then, to die! It was certainly hard lines for the little
Oh, my soul - my soul!
A female snake is born out of its mother’s white egg, and lives a while in contentment among weeds and grass, and dies.
A female dog lives some years, and has bones thrown at her, and sometimes she receives a kick or a blow, and a dog-house to sleep in, and dies.
A female bird has a nest, and worms to eat, and goes south in the winter, and presently she dies.
A female toad has a swamp or a garden, some bugs and flies, contentment - and then she dies.
And each of these has a male thing with her for a time, and shortly there are little snakes or little dogs for her to love as much as it is given her to love - she can do no more.
And they are fortunate with their little snakes and little dogs.
A female human being is born out of her mother’s fair body, branded with a strange, plague-tainted name, and let go; and lives awhile, and dies. But before she dies she awakes. There is a pain that goes with it.
And the male thing that is with her for a time is unlike a snake or a dog. It is more like a man, and there is another pain for this.
And when a little human being comes with a soul of its own there must be another awakening, for she has then reached the best and highest state that any human being can reach, though she is a female human being, and plague-tainted. And here also there is heavy soul-pain.
The name - the plague-tainted name branded upon her - means woman.
I lifted my head from the breast of the gray rock. The tears had been falling, falling. Tears are so strange! Tears from the dried-up fountain of nineteen years are like drops of water wrung out of stone. Suddenly I got up from the ground and ran quickly over the sand for several minutes. I did not dare look again at the hilltops and the deep blue, nor listen again to the voices.
Oh, with it all, I am a coward! I shrink and cringe before the pain of the dazzling lights. Yet I am waiting - longing for the most dazzling light of all: the coming of the Devil.
February 1
Oh, the wretched bitter loneliness of me!
In all the deep darkness, and the silence, there is never a faint human light, never a voice!
How can I bear it - how can I bear it!
February 2
I have been looking over the confessions of the Bashkirtseff. They are indeed rather like my Portrayal, but they are not so interesting, nor so intense. I have a stronger individuality than Marie Bashkirtseff, though her mind was probably in a higher state of development than mine, even when she was younger than I.
Most of her emotions are vacillating and inconsistent. She worships a God one day and blasphemes him the next. She never loves her God. And why, then, does she have a God? Why does she not abandon him altogether? He seems to be of no use to her - except as a convenient thing on which to fasten the blame for her misfortunes. - And, after all, that is something very useful indeed. - And she loves the people about her one day, and the next day she hates them.
But in her great passion - her ambition - Marie Bashkirtseff was beautifully consistent. And what terrific storms of woe and despair must have enveloped her when she knew that within a certain period she would be dead - removed from the world, and her work left undone! The time kept creeping nearer - she must have tasted the bitterness of death indeed. She was sure of success, sure that her high-strained ambition would be gratified to its last vestige - and then, to die! It was certainly hard lines for the little
Similar Books
