In the front of my shirt-waist there are nine cambric handkerchiefs
cunningly distributed. My figure is very pretty, to be sure, but not
so well developed as it will be in five years--if I live so long.
And so I help it out materially with nine cambric handkerchiefs.
You can see by my picture that my waist curves gracefully out. Only
it is not all flesh--some of it is handkerchief. It amuses me to
do this. It is one of my petty vanities.
Likewise by an ingenious arrangement of my striped moreen petticoat
I contrive to display a more evident pair of hips than Nature seems
to have intended for me at this stage. Doubtless they also will
take on fuller proportions when some years have passed. Still I
am not dissatisfied with them as they are. It is not as if they
were too well developed--in which case I should have need of all
my skill in arranging my moreen petticoat so as to lessen their
effect. It is easy enough to add on to these things, but one would
experience serious difficulty in attempting to take from them. I
hate that heavy, aggressive kind of hips. Moreover, small, graceful
ones are desirable when one is nineteen. The world at large judges
you more leniently on that account--usually. Narrow, shapely
hips may give one an effect of youth and harmlessness which is a
distinct advantage, when, for instance, one is writing a Portrayal
and so will be at the world’s mercy. I believe I should not think
of attempting to write a Portrayal if I had hips like a pair of
saddle-bags. Certainly it would avail me nothing.
Sometimes I look at my face in a mirror and find it not plain but
ugly. And there are other times when I look and find it not pretty
but beautiful with a Madonna-like sweetness.
I told you I might say more about the liver that is within me
before I have done. Well, then, I will say this: that the world,
if it had a liver like mine, would be very different from what it
is. The world would be many-colored and mobile and passionate and
nervous and high-strung and intensely alive and poetic and romantic
and philosophical and egotistic and pathetic, and, oh, racked to
the verge of madness with the spirit of unrest--if the world had a
liver like mine. It is not all of these now. It is rather stupid.
Gods and little fishes! would not the world be wonderful if all
in it were like me? And it would be if it had a liver like mine.
For it is my liver mostly that makes me what I am--apart from my
genius. My liver is fine and perfect, but sensitive, and, well--it’s
a dangerous thing to have within you.
It is the liver of the MacLanes.
It is the foundation of the curious castle of my existence.
And after all, fine, brave, stupid world, you may be grateful to
the Devil that yours is not like it.
I have seventeen little engraved portraits of Napoleon that I keep
in one of my bureau-drawers. Often late in the evening, between
nine and ten o’clock, when I come in from a walk over the sand and
barrenness, I take these pictures from the drawer and gaze at them
carefully a long time and think of that man until I am stirred to
the depths.
And then easily and naturally I fall in love with Napoleon.
If only he were living now, I think to myself, I would make my
way to him by whatever means and cast myself at his feet. I would
entreat him with the most passionate humbleness of spirit to take
me into his life for three days. To be the wife of Napoleon for
three days--that would be enough for a lifetime! I would be much
more than satisfied if I could get three such days out of life.
I suppose a man is either a villain or a fool, though some of them
seem to be a judicious mingling of both. The type of the distinct
villain is preferable to a mixture of the two, and to a plain fool.
I like a villain anyway--a villain that can be rather tender at
times. And so, then, as I look at the pictures I fall in love with
the incomparable Napoleon. The seventeen pictures are all different
and all alike. I fall in love with each picture separately.
In one he is ugly and unattractive--and strong. I fall in love
with him.
In another he is cruel and heartless and utterly selfish--and
strong. I fall in love with him.
In a third he has a fat, pudgy look, and is quite insignificant--and
strong. I fall in love with him.
In a fourth he is grandly sad and full of despair--and strong. I
fall in love with him.
In the fifth he is greasy and greedy and common-looking--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the sixth he is masterly and superior and exalted--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the seventh he is romantic and beautiful--and strong. I fall in
love with him.
In the eighth he is obviously sensual and reeking with uncleanness--and
strong. I fall in love with him.
In the ninth he is unearthly and mysterious and unreal--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the tenth he is black and sullen-browed, and ill-humored--and
strong. I fall in love with him.
In the eleventh he is inferior and trifling and inane--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the twelfth he is rough and ruffianly and uncouth--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the thirteenth he is little and wolfish and vile--and strong.
I fall in love with him.
In the fourteenth he is calm and confident and intellectual--and
strong. I fall in love with him.
In the fifteenth he is vacillating and fretful and his mouth is
like a woman’s--and still he is strong. I fall in love with him.
In the sixteenth he is slow and heavy and brutal--and strong. I
fall in love with him.
In the seventeenth he is rather tender--and strong. I fall vividly
in love with him.
Napoleon was rather like the Devil, I think as I sit in the
straight-backed chair with my feet on the bureau and gaze long and
intently at the seventeen pictures, late in the evening.
Then I wearily put them away, maddened with the sense of Nothingness,
and take Little Fido and go to bed.
Sometimes, early in the evening just before dinner, I sit in the
stiff-backed chair with my elbows on the window-sill and my head
resting on one hand, and I look out of the window at a Pile of
Stones and a Barrel of Lime. These are in the vacant lot next to
this house.
I fix my eyes intently on the Pile of Stones and the Barrel of
Lime. And I fix my thoughts on them also. And some of my widest
thoughts come to me then.
I feel an overwhelming wave of a kind of pantheism which, at the
moment I feel it, begins slowly to grow less and less and continues
in this until finally it dwindles to a Pile of Stones and a Barrel
of Lime.
I feel at the moment that the universe is a Pile of Stones and a
Barrel of Lime. They alone are the Real Things.
Take anything at any point and deceive yourself into thinking that
you are happy with it. But look at it heavily; dig down underneath
the layers and layers of rose-colored mists and you will find that
your Thing is a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
A struggle or two, a fight, an agony, a passing--and then the only
Real Things: a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
Damn everything! Afterward you will find that you have done all
your damning for naught. For there is nothing worthy of damnation
except a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime--and they are not
damnable. They have never harmed you, and moreover they alone are
the Real Things.
Julius Caesar made many wars. Sir Francis Drake went sailing over
the seas. It was all child’s play and counts for nothing. Here are
the Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
And so this is how it is early in the evening just before dinner, when
I sit in the uncomfortable chair with my elbows on the window-sill
and my head resting on one hand.
I have two pictures of Marie Bashkirtseff high upon my wall.
Often I lean my head on the back of the chair with my feet on
the bureau--always with my feet on the bureau--and look at these
pictures.
In one of them she is eighteen years old and wears a green frock
which is extremely becoming--of which fact the person inside of
it seems fully aware. The other picture is taken from her last
photograph, when she was twenty-four.
Marie Bashkirtseff is a very beautiful creature. And evidently _she_
is not obliged to arrange a moreen petticoat over her plumpness. She
has a wonderfully voluptuous look for a woman of eighteen years. In
the later picture vanity is written in every line of her graceful
form and in every feature of that charming face. The picture fairly
yells: “I am Marie Bashkirtseff--and, oh, I am splendid!”
And as I look at the pictures I am glad. For though she was admirable
and splendid, and all, she was no such genius as I. She had a genius
of her own, it is true. But the Bashkirtseff, with her voluptuous
body and her attractive personality, is after all a bit ordinary.
My genius, though not powerful, is rare and deep, and no one has
ever had or ever will have a genius like it.
Mary MacLane, if you live--if you live, my darling, the world
will one day recognize your genius. And when once the world has
recognized such genius as this--oh, then no one will ever think of
profaning it by comparing it with any Bashkirtseff!
But I would give up this genius eagerly, gladly--at once and
forever--for one dear, bright day free from loneliness.
The portraits of the Bashkirtseff are certainly beautiful, but there
is something about them that is--well, not common, but bourgeois
at least, as if she were a German waitress of unusual appearance,
or an aristocratic shop-girl, or a nurse with good taste who would
walk out on pleasant forenoons wheeling a go-cart--something of
that sort. Perhaps it is because her neck is too short, or because
her wrists are too muscular-looking. I thank a gracious Devil as
I look up at the pictures that I have not those particular points
and that particular bourgeois air. I am bound to confess that I
have one of my own, but mine is Highland Scotch--and anyway, I am
Mary MacLane.
Marie Bashkirtseff is beautiful enough, however, that she can easily
afford to look rather second-rate.