"What shall I say to you?" the Devil would ask.
"Say to me, 'I love you, I love you, I love you,' in your strong, steel, fascinating voice. Say it to me often, always--a million times."
"What would you have me do, little MacLane?" he would say again.
I would answer: "Hurt me, burn me, consume me with hot love, shake me violently, embrace me hard, _hard_ in your strong, steel arms, kiss me with wonderful burning kisses--press your lips to mine with passion, and your soul and mine would meet then in an anguish of joy for me!"
"Through the life everlasting--it will be as one day; or for one day--it will be as the life everlasting."
"And what kind of children will you bear me, little MacLane?" he would say.
"I will bear wonderful, beautiful children--with great pain."
"But you hate pain," the Devil will say, "and when you are in your pain you will hate me."
"But no," I will answer, "pain that comes of you whom I love will be ineffable exaltation."
"And how will you treat me, little MacLane?"
"I will cast myself at your feet; or I will minister to you with divine tenderness; or I will charm you with fantastic deviltry; when you weep, I will melt into tears; when you rejoice, I will go wild with delight; when you go deaf I will stop my ears; when you go blind I will put out my eyes; when you go lame I will cut off my legs. Oh, I will be divinely dear, unutterably sweet!"
"Indeed you are rarely sweet," the Devil will say. And I will be in transports.
The days are long--long and very weary as I await the Devil's coming.
To-day as I walked out I was impressed deeply with the wonderful beautifulness of Nature even in her barrenness. The far-distant mountains had that high, pure, transparent look, and the nearer ones were transformed completely with a wistful, beseeching attitude that reminded me of my life. It was late in the afternoon. As the sun lowered, the pure lavender of the far-away hills was tinted with faint-rose, and the gray of the nearer ones with sun-color. And the sand--my sand and barrenness--almost flushed consciously in its wide, mysterious magnitude. In the sky there was a white cloud. The sky was blue--blue almost as when I was a child. The air was very gentle. The earth seemed softened. There was an indefinite, caressing something over all that went into my soul and stirred it, and hurt it. There was that in the air which is there when something is going to happen. Only nothing ever happens. It is rare, I thought, that my sand and barrenness looks like this. I crouched on the ground, and the wondrous calm and beauty of the natural things awed and moved me with strange, still emotions.