I Await the Devil's Coming - Unexpurgated and Annotated

by MacLane, Mary

  I am weary - weary, and oh, I want my red sky!

  Short as it might be, its memory, its fragrance would stay with me always - always. Bring me, Devil, my red line of sky for one hour and take all, all - everything I possess. Let me keep my Happiness for one short hour and take away all from me forever. I will be satisfied when Night has come and everything is gone.

  Oh, I await you, Devil, in a wild frenzy of impatience!

  And as I hurry back through the cool darkness of October, I feel this frenzy in every fiber of my fervid woman’s-body.

  January 19

  I come from a long line of Scotch and Canadian MacLanes. There are a great many MacLanes, but there is usually only one real MacLane in each generation. There is but one who feels again the passionate spirit of the Clans, those barbaric dwellers in the bleak but well-beloved Highlands of Scotland.

  I am the real MacLane of my generation. The real MacLane in these later centuries is always a woman. The men of my family never amount to anything worth naming - if one excepts the acme, the zenith, of pure Selfishness, with a large letter S.

  Life may be easy enough for the innumerable Canadian MacLanes who are not real. But it is certain to be more or less a Hill of Difficulty for the one who is. She finds herself somewhat alone. I have brothers and a sister and a mother in the same house with me - and I find myself somewhat alone. Between them and me there is no tenderness, no sympathy, no binding ties. Would it affect me in the least - do you suppose - if they should all die tomorrow? If I were not a real MacLane perhaps it would have been different, or perhaps I should not have missed these things.

  How much, Devil, have I lost for the privilege of being a real MacLane.

  But yes. I have also gained much.

  January 20

  I have said that I am quite alone.

  I am not quite, quite alone.

  I have one friend - of that Friendship that is real and is inlaid with the beautiful thing Truth. And because it has the beautiful thing Truth in it, this my one Friendship is somehow above and beyond me; there is something in it that I reach after in vain - for I have not that divinely beautiful thing Truth. Have I not said that I am a thief and a liar? But in this Friendship nevertheless there is a rare, ineffably sweet something that is mine. It is the one tender thing in this dull dreariness that wraps me round.

  Are there many things in this cool-hearted world so utterly exquisite as the pure love of one woman for another woman?

  My one friend is a woman some twelve or thirteen years older than I. She is as different from me as day from night. She believes in God - that God that is shown in the Bible of the Christians. And she carries with her an atmosphere of gentleness and truth. The while I am ready and waiting to dedicate my life to the Devil in exchange for Happiness - or some lesser thing. But I love Fannie Corbin with a peculiar and vivid intensity, and with all the sincerity and passion that is in me. Often I think of her, as I walk over the sand in my Nothingness, all day long. The Friendship of her and me is a fair, dear benediction upon me, but there is something in it - deep within it - that eludes me. In moments when I realize this, when I strain and reach vainly at a thing beyond me, when indeed I see in my mind a vision of the personality of Fannie Corbin, it is then that it comes on me with force that I am not good.

  But I can love her with all the ardor of a young and passionate heart.

  Yes, I can do that.

  For a year I have loved my one friend. During the eighteen years of my life before she came into it I loved no one, for there was no one.

  It is an extremely hard thing to go through eighteen years with no one to love, and no one to love you - the first eighteen years.

  But now I have my one friend to love and to worship.

  I have named my friend the “anemone lady,” a name beautifully appropriate.

  The anemone lady used to teach me Literature in the Butte High School. She used to read poetry in the class room in a clear sweet voice that made one wish one might sit there forever and listen to it.

  But now I have left the High School, and the dear anemone lady has gone from Butte. Before she went she told me she would be my friend.

  Think of it - to live and have a friend!

  My friend does not fully understand me; she thinks much too well of me. She has not a correct idea of my soul’s depths and shallows. But if she did know them she would still be my friend. She knows the heavy weight of my unrest and unhappiness. She is tenderly sympathetic. She is the one in all the world who is dear to me.

  Often I think, if only I could have my anemone lady and go and live with her in some little out-of-the-world place high upon the side of a mountain for the rest of my life - what more would I desire? My Friendship would constitute my life. The unrest, the dreariness, the Nothingness of my existence now is so dull and gray by contrast that there would be Happiness for me in that life, Happiness softly radiant, if quiet - redolent of the fresh, thin fragrance of the dear blue anemone that grows in the winds and rains of spring.

  But Miss Corbin would doubtless look somewhat askance at the idea of spending the rest of her life with me on a mountain. She is very fond of me, but her feeling for me is not like mine for her, which indeed is natural. And her life is made up mostly of sacrifices - doing for her fellow-creatures, giving of herself. She never would leave this.

  And so then the mountainside and the solitude and the friend with me are, like every good thing, but a vision.

  “Thy friend is always thy friend; not to have, nor to hold, nor to love, nor to rejoice in: but to remember.”

  And so do I remember my one friend, the anemone lady - and think often about her with passionate love.

  January 21

  Happiness, don’t you know, is of three kinds - and all are transitory. It never stays, but it comes and goes.

  There is that happiness that comes from newly-washed feet, for instance, and a pair of clean stockings on them, particularly after one has been upon a tramp into the country. Always I have identified this kind of happiness with a Maltese cat dipping a hungry, stealthy sensual tongue into a bowl of fresh, thick cream.

  There is that still happiness that has come to me at rare times when I have been with my one friend - and which does very well for people whose feelings are moderate. They need wish for nothing beyond it. They could not appreciate anything deeper.

  And there is that kind of happiness which is of the red sunset sky. There is something terrible in the thought of this indescribable mad Happiness. What a thing it is for a human being to be happy - with the red, red Happiness of the sunset sky!

  It’s like a terrific storm in summer with rain and wind, beating quiet water into wild waves, bending great trees to the ground, - convulsing the green earth with delicious pain.

  It’s like something of Schubert’s played on the violin that stirs you within to exquisite torture.

  It’s like the human voice divine singing a Scotch ballad in a manner to drag your soul from your body.

  But there are no words to tell it. It is something infinitely above and beyond words. It is the kind of Happiness the Devil will bring to me when he comes, - to me, to me! Oh, why does he not come now when I am in the midst of my youth! Why is he so long in coming?

  Often you hear a dozen stories of how the Devil was most ready and willing to take all from some one and give him his measure of Happiness. And sometimes the person was innately virtuous and so could not take the Happiness when it was offered. But Happiness is its own justification, and it should be eagerly grasped when it comes.

  A world filled with fools will never learn this.

  And so here I stand in the midst of Nothingness waiting and longing for the Devil, and he doesn’t come. I feel a choking, strangling, frenzied feeling of waiting - oh, why doesn’t my Happiness come! I have waited so long -
so long! -

  There are persons who say to me that I ought not to think of the Devil, that I ought not to think of Happiness - Happiness for me would be sure to mean something wicked (as if Happiness could ever be wicked!); that I ought to think of being good, - I ought to think of God. These are persons who help to fill the world with fools. At any rate their words are unable to affect me. I can not distinguish between right and wrong in this scheme of things. It is one of the lines of reasoning in which I have gotten to the edge, the end. I have gotten to the point to which all logic finally leads. I can only say, What is wrong? What is right? What is good? What is evil? The words are merely words, with word-meanings.

  Truth is Love and Love is the only Truth, and Love is the one thing out of all that is Real.

  God is less than nothing to me. The Devil is really the only one to whom we may turn, and he exacts payment in full for every favor.

  But surely he will come one day with Happiness for me.

  Yet, oh, how can I wait!

  To be a woman, young and all alone, is hard - hard! - is to want things, is to carry a heavy, heavy weight.

  Oh, damn! damn! damn! Damn every living thing, the world! - the universe be damned!

  Oh, I am weary, weary! Can’t you see that I am weary and pity me in my own damnation?

  January 22

  It is night. I might well be in my bed taking a needed rest. But first I shall write.

  To-day I walked far away over the sand in the teeth of a bitter wind. The wind was determined that I should turn and come back, and equally I was determined I would go on. I went on.

  There is a certain kind of wind in the autumn to walk in the midst of which causes one’s spirits to rise ecstatically. To walk in the midst of a bitter wind in January may have almost any effect.

  To-day the bitter wind swept over me and around me and into the remote corners of my brain and swept away the delusions, and buffeted my philosophy with rough insolence.

  The world is made up mostly of nothing. You may be convinced of this when a bitter wind has swept away your delusions.

  What is the wind?

  Nothing.

  What is the sky?

  Nothing.

  What do we know?

  Nothing.

  What is Fame?

  Nothing.

  What is my heart?

  Nothing.

  What is my soul?

  Nothing.

  What are we?

  We are nothing.

  We think we progress wonderfully in the arts and sciences as one century follows another. What does it amount to? It does not teach us the All-Why. It does not let us cease to wonder what it is that we are doing, where it is that we are going. It does not teach us why the green comes again to the old, old hills in the spring; why the benign balm-o’-Gilead shines wet and sweet after the rain; why the red never fails to come to the breast of the robin, the black to the crow, the gray to the little wren; why the sand and barrenness lies stretched out around us; why the clouds float high above us; why the moon stands in the sky, night after night; why the mountains and valleys live on as the years pass.

  The arts and sciences go on and on - still we wonder. We have not yet ceased to weep. And we suffer still in 1901, even as they suffered in 1801, and in 801.

  To-day we eat our good dinners with forks.

  A thousand years ago they had no forks.

  Yet, though we have forks, we are not happy. We scream and kick and struggle and weep just as they did a thousand years ago - when they had no forks.

  We are “no wiser than when Omar fell asleep.”

  And in the midst of our great Wondering, we wonder why some of us are given faith to trust without question, while the rest of us are left to eat out our life’s vitals with asking.

  I have walked once in summer by the side of a little marsh filled with mint and white hawthorn. The mint and white hawthorn have with them a vivid, rare delicious perfume. It makes you want to grovel on the ground - it makes you think you might crawl in the dust all your days, and well for you. The perfume lingers with you afterward when years have passed. You may scream and kick and struggle and weep right lustily every day of your life, but in your moments of calmness sometimes there will come back to you the fragrance of a swamp filled with mint and white hawthorn.

  It is meltingly beautiful.

  What does it mean?

  What would it tell?

  Why does the marsh, and the mint and white hawthorn, freeze over in the fall? And why do they come again voluptuous, enticing in the damp spring days - and rack the souls of wretches who look and wonder?

  - You are superb, Devil! You have done a magnificent piece of work. I kneel at your feet and worship you. You have wrought a perfection, a pinnacle of fine, invisible damnation. -

  The world is like a little marsh filled with mint and white hawthorn. It is filled with things likewise damnably beautiful. There are the green, green grass-blades and the Gray Dawns; there are swiftly-flowing rivers and the honking of wild geese, flying low; there are human voices and human eyes; there are stories of women and men who have learned to give up and to wait; there is the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley; there is Charity; there is Truth.

  The Devil has made all of these things, and also he has made human beings who can feel.

  Who was it that said, long ago, “Life is always a tragedy to those who feel?”

  In truth the Devil has constructed a place of infinite torture - the fair green earth, the world.

  But he has made that other infinite thing - Happiness. I forgive him for making me wonder since possibly he may bring me Happiness. I cast myself at his feet. I adore him.

  The first third of our lives is spent in the expectation of Happiness. Then it comes, perhaps, and stays ten years, or a month, or three days, and the rest of our lives is spent in peace and rest - with the memory of the Happiness.

  Happiness - though it is infinite - is a transient emotion.

  It is too brilliant, too magnificent, too overwhelming to be a lasting thing. And it is merely an emotion. But, ah - such an emotion! Through it the Devil rules his domains. What would one not do to have it!

  I can think of no so-called vile deed that I would scruple about if I could be happy. Everything is justified if it gives me Happiness. The Devil has done me some great favors: he has made me without a conscience, and without Virtue.

  For which I thank thee, Devil, profoundly.

  At least I shall be able to take my Happiness when it comes - even though the piles of nice distinctions between it and me be mountains high.

  But meanwhile, the world, I say, and the people are nothing, nothing, nothing. The splendid castles, the strong bridges, that we are building are of small moment. We can only go down the wide roadway wondering and weeping, and without where to lay our heads.

  January 23

  I have eaten my dinner.

  I have had, among other things, a fine, rare-broiled porterhouse steak from Omaha, and some fresh, green young onions from California. And just now I am a philosopher, pure and simple - except that there’s nothing very pure about my philosophy, nor yet very simple.

  Let the Devil come and go; let the wild waters rush over me; let nations rise and fall; let my favorite theories form themselves in line suddenly and run into the ground; let the little earth be bandied about from one belief to the other; but, I say in the midst of my young peripatetic philosophy, I need not be in complete despair - the world still contains things for me, while I have my fine rare porterhouse steak from Omaha - and my fresh green young onions from California.

  Fame may pass over my head; money may escape me; my one friend may fail me; every hope may fold its tent and steal away; Happiness may remain a sealed book; every remnant of human ties m
ay vanish; I may find myself an outcast; good things held out to me may suddenly be withdrawn; the stars may go out, one by one; the sun may go dark; yet still I may hold upright my head, if I have but my steak - and my onions.

  I may find myself crowded out from many charmed circles; I may find the ethical world too small to contain me; the social world may also exclude me; the professional world may know me not; likewise the worlds of the arts and the sciences; I may find myself superfluous in literary haunts; I may see myself going gladly back to the vile dust from whence I sprung - to live in a green forest like the melancholy Jacques; but fare they well, I will say with what cheerfulness I can summon, while I have my steak - and my onions.

  Possibly I may grow old and decrepit; my hair may turn gray; my bones may become rheumatic; I may grow weak in the knees; my ankle-joints which have withstood many a peripatetic journey may develop dropsical tendencies; my heart may miss a beat now and then; my lungs may begin to fight shy of wintry blasts; my eyes may fail me; my figure that is now in its slim gracefulness may swathe itself in layers of flesh, or worse, it may wither and decay and stoop at the shoulders; my red blood may flow sluggishly; but if I still have teeth left to eat with, why need I lament, while I still have my steak - and my onions?

  I am obscure; I am morbid; I am unhappy; my life is made up of Nothingness; I want everything and have nothing; I have been made to feel the “lure of green things growing,” and I have been made to feel also that something of them is withheld from me; I have felt the deadly tiredness that is among the birthrights of a human being; but with it all the Devil has given me a philosophy of my own - the Devil has enabled me to count, if need be, the world well lost for a fine rare porterhouse steak - and some green young onions.

  For which I thank thee, Devil, profoundly.

  Who says the Devil is not your friend? Who says that the Devil does not believe in the all-merciful Law of Compensation?