I, Mary MacLane/Chapter 60
MY damnedest damningest quality is Wavering—Wavering—
I might say I prefer the dawn to the twilight or the twilight to the dawn.
Neither would be true.
I love the dawn—I love the twilight.
What I unconsciously prefer is the long negative Wavering space-of-day between the two.
I might say I prefer heaven to hell or hell to heaven.
Neither would be true.
My garbled gyral nature, partaking uneasily of both, prefers to wander and hang and float about between the two.
I might say I prefer strength to weakness or weakness to strength.
Neither would be true.
What I prefer is a hellish hovering, an endless torturing Tenterhook between the two.
And that Wavering preference is against my will, against my reason, against my judgment, against my taste and liking—against my life, my welfare, my salvation: against the clear lights of my spirit.
I know I work intently and industriously at the articles of my damnation in the Wavering—Wavering—
I know it would be better to die at once: failing that, to live but to live positively as a beggar, a whore, a thief or a milliner. Knowing that, I know also I Waver: I know I shall prefer to Waver: I know I shall constantly Waver.
I am constant—I am remarkably profoundly constant—in my Wavering.
In the morning as I dress I draw on a stocking—a long black or white glistening stocking. I know I do it only because the mixed big world, which refuses to Waver, is pushing—pushing me. I would choose if I could—though loathing my choice—to stay with my bare foot and my stocking in my hand, Wavering. Between drawing it on and pausing barefoot, Wavering. I prefer not to draw on the stocking: I prefer not to be barefoot: I prefer Wavering—Wavering—
When I'm hungry I choose: not to let food alone: not to eat it: to have it by me and Waver, Waver emptily. Not to enjoy its anticipation: not to contemplate it. No—no! To Waver! I reach and take the food because the world in its pushing pushes me.
If the world stopped pushing—
One reason it will be pleasant to be dead: I can then no longer Waver.
Worms will eat me unwaveringly. Or they may then do the Wavering. But I shall no more pause with a bare foot and an empty stocking, a dish of food and a gnawing midriff.
Here I sit as yet, alive and Wavering.
The Wavering is not the pale cast of thought: it is not my way of analysis: it is only Wavering—Wavering—
Wavering is not among the blue-green Stones in my antique necklace: not by that name—not as one Stone.
It is a marked and hateful and hellish gift of this present Me who house my Soul.
It is half of this Mary MacLane—who is I—: and I know.
I am constant alone—noticeably tensely constant—in my Wavering: and less constant in Wavering than in the ghoulish preference.
An odd and subtle doom.