I Await the Devil's Coming - Unexpurgated and Annotated by Mary MacLane Read Free Book Online Page A

Happiness will change the tenor of it, will make it an instrument of joy, will clasp hands with it and mingle itself with it, - the while I, with my wooden heart, my woman’s-body, my mind, my soul, shall be in transports. I shall be filled with pleasure so deep and pain so intense that my being’s minutest nerve will reel and stagger in intoxication, will go drunk with the fullness of Life.
    When my Happiness is given me I shall live centuries in the hours. And we shall all grow old rapidly, - I and my wooden heart, and my woman’s-body, and my mind, and my soul. Sorrow may age one in some degree. But Happiness - the real Happiness - rolls countless years off from one’s finger-tips in a single moment, and each year leaves its impress.
    It is true that life is a tragedy to those who feel. When my Happiness is given me life will be an ineffable, a nameless thing.
    It will seethe and roar; it will plunge and whirl; it will leap and shriek in convulsion; it will quiver in delicate fantasy; it will writhe and twist; it will glitter and flash and shine; it will sing gently; it will shout in exquisite excitement; it will vibrate to the roots like a great oak in a storm; it will dance; it will glide; it will gallop; it will rush; it will swell and surge; it will fly; it will soar high - high; it will go down into depths unexplored; it will rage and rave; it will yell in utter joy; it will melt; it will blaze; it will ride triumphant; it will grovel in the dust of entire pleasure; it will sound out like a terrific blare of trumpets; it will chime faintly, faintly like the remote tinkling notes of a harp; it will sob and grieve and weep; it will revel and carouse; it will shrink; it will go in pride; it will lie prone like the dead; it will float buoyantly on air; it will moan, shiver, burst, - oh, it will reek of Love and Light!
    The words of the English language are futile. There are no words in it, or in any other, to express an idea of that thing which would be my life in its Happiness.
    The words I have written describe it, it is true - but confusedly and inadequately.
    But words are for every-day use.
    When it comes my turn to meet face to face the unspeakable vision of the Happy Life I shall be rendered dumb.
    But the rains of my feeling will come in torrents!

    January 28
    I am an artist of the most artistic, the highest type. I have uncovered for myself the art that lies in obscure shadows. I have discovered the art of the day of small things.
    And that surely is Art with a capital A.
    I have acquired the art of Good Eating. Usually it is in the gray and elderly forties and fifties that people cultivate this art - if they ever do; it is indeed a rare art.
    But I know it in all its rare exquisiteness at the young slim age of nineteen. Which is one more mark of my genius, do you see?
    The art of Good Eating has two essential points: one must eat only when one is hungry, and one must take small bites.
    There are persons who eat for the sake of eating. They are gourmands and partake of the natures of the pig and the buzzard. There are persons who take bites that are not small. These also are gourmands and partake of the natures of the pig and the buzzard. There are persons who can enjoy nothing in the way of eating except a luxurious, well-appointed meal. These, it is safe to say, have not acquired the art of anything.
    But I - I have acquired the art of eating an olive.
    Now listen and I will tell you the art of eating an olive.
    I take the olive in my fingers, and I contemplate its green oval richness. It makes me think at once of the land where the green citron grows - where the cypress and myrtle are emblems; of the land of the Sun where human beings are delightfully, enchantingly wicked, - where the men are eager and passionate, and the women gracefully developed in mind and in body - and their two breasts show round and full and delicately veined beneath fine drapery.
    The mere sight of the olive conjures up this