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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "My Friend Annabel Lee," Mary MacLane presents a captivating exploration of the psyche through a unique blend of lyrical prose and introspective narrative. The book serves as both a tribute and a meditation on the bond between the narrator and her vividly imagined friend, Annabel Lee, drawing inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem. MacLane's confessional style is steeped in early 20th-century feminist sentiments, offering readers a glimpse into the complexities of female friendship, loneliness, and identity in a rapidly changing society. The text reflects the author'Äôs introspective nature, as she deftly weaves her emotional struggles with broader existential themes, creating a rich tapestry that invites both contemplation and self-reflection. Mary MacLane, an American author known for her daringly candid writings, emerged as a voice of her generation. Her unconventional views on femininity and society not only garnered attention but also placed her at the forefront of early feminist literature. Having confronted her own feelings of alienation and societal expectation, MacLane's personal experiences deeply informed her portrayal of relationships, making her work resonate with authenticity and emotional depth. Readers seeking an introspective journey through the intricacies of friendship and self-discovery will find "My Friend Annabel Lee" a compelling choice. MacLane'Äôs masterful balance of between the personal and the universal makes this book essential for anyone interested in women'Äôs literature, the evolution of narrative form, and the timeless challenges of human connection.
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My Friend Annabel Lee
Table of Contents
My Friend Annabel Lee
I THE COMING OF ANNABEL LEE
BUT the only person in Boston town who has given me of the treasure of her heart, and the treasure of her mind, and the touch of her fair hand in friendship, is Annabel Lee.
Since I looked for no friendship whatsoever in Boston town, this friendship comes to me with the gentleness of sunshowers mingled with cherry-blossoms, and there is a human quality in the air that rises from the bitter salt sea.
Years ago there was one who wrote a poem about Annabel Lee—a different lady from this lady, it may be, or perhaps it is the same—and so now this poem and this lady are never far from me.
If indeed Poe did not mean this Annabel Lee when he wrote so enchanting a heart-cry, I at any rate shall always mean this Annabel Lee when Poe’s enchanting heart-cry runs in my mind.
Forsooth Poe’s Annabel Lee was not so enchanting as this Annabel Lee.
I think this as I gaze up at her graceful little figure standing on my shelf; her wonderful expressive little face; her strange white hands; her hair bound and twisted into glittering black ropes and wound tightly around her head.
Were you to see her you would say that Annabel Lee is only a very pretty little black and terra-cotta and white statue of a Japanese woman. And forthwith you would be greatly mistaken.
It is true that she had stood in extremely dusty durance vile, in a Japanese shop in Boylston street, for months before I found her. It is also true that I fell instantly in love with her, and that on payment of a few strange dollars to the shop-keeper, I rescued her from her surroundings and bore her out to where I live by the sea—the sea where these wonderful, wide, green waves are rolling, rolling, rolling always. Annabel Lee hears these waves, and I hear them, at times holding our breath and listening until our eyes are strained with listening and with some haunting terror, and the low rushing goes to our two pale souls.
For though my friend Annabel Lee lived dumbly and dustily for months in the shop in Boylston street, as if she were indeed but a porcelain statue, and though she was purchased with a price, still my friend Annabel Lee is exquisitely human.
There are days when she fills my life with herself.
She gives rise to manifold emotions which do not bring rest.
It was not I who named her Annabel Lee. That was always her name—that is who she is. It is not a Japanese name, to be sure—and she is certainly a native of Japan. But among the myriad names that are, that alone is the one which suits her; and she alone of the myriad maidens in the world is the one to wear it.
She wears it matchlessly.
I have the friendship of Annabel Lee; but for her love, that is different.
Annabel Lee is like no one you have known. She is quite unlike them all. Times I almost can feel a subtle, conscious love coming from her finger-tips to my forehead. And I, at one-and-twenty, am thrilled with thrills.
Forsooth, at one-and-twenty, in spite of Boston and all, there are moments when one can yet thrill.
But other times I look up and perchance her eyes will meet mine with a look that is cold and penetrating and contemptuous and confounding.
Other times I look up and see her eyes full of indifference, full of tranquillity, full of dull deadly quiet.
Came Annabel Lee from out of Boylston street in Boston. And lo, she was so adorable, so fascinating, so lovable, that straightway I adored her; I was fascinated by her; I loved her.
I love her tenderly. For why, I know not. How can there be accounting for the places one’s loves will rest?
Sometimes my friend Annabel Lee is negative and sometimes she is positive.
Sometimes when my mind seems to have wandered infinitely far from her I realize suddenly that ’tis she who holds it enthralled. Whatsoever I see in Boston or in the vision of the wide world my judgment of it is prejudiced in ways by the existence of my friend Annabel Lee—the more so that it’s mostly unconscious prejudice.
Annabel Lee’s is an intense personality—one meets with intense personalities now and again, in children or in bull-dogs or in persons like my friend Annabel Lee.
And I never tire of looking at Annabel Lee, and I never tire of listening to her, and I never tire of thinking about her.
And thinking of her, my mind grows wistful.
II THE FLAT SURFACES OF THINGS
“THERE are moments,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “when, willy nilly, they must all come out upon the flat surfaces of things.
“They look deep into the green water as the sun goes down, and their mood is heavy. Their heart aches, and they shed no tears. They look out over the brilliant waves as the sun comes up, and their mood is light-hearted and they enjoy the moment. Or else their heart aches at the rising and their mood is light-hearted at the setting. But let it be one or the other, there are bland moments when they see nothing but flat surfaces. If they find all at once, by a little accident, that their best-loved is a traitor friend, and they go at the sun’s setting and gaze deep into the green water, and all is dark and dead as only a traitor best-beloved can make it, and their mood is very heavy—still there is a bland moment when their stomach tells them they are hungry, and they listen to it. It is the flat surface. After weeks, or it may be days, according to who they are, their mood will not be heavy—yet still their stomach will tell them they are hungry, and they will listen. If their best-loved cease to be, suddenly—that is bad for them, oh, exceeding bad; they suffer, and it takes weeks for them to recover, and the mark of the wound never wears away. But with time’s encouraging help they do recover. But if,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “their stomach should cease to be, not only would they suffer—they would die—and whither away? That is a flat surface and a very truth. And when they consider it—for one bland moment—they laugh gently and cease to have a best-loved, entirely; they cease to fill their veins with red, red life; they become like unto mice—mice with long slim tails.
“For one bland moment.
“And, too, the bland moment is long enough for them to feel restfully, deliciously, but unconsciously, thankful that there are these flat surfaces to things and that they can thus roll at times out upon them.
“They roll upon the flat surfaces much as a horse rolls upon the flat prairie where the wind is.
“And when for the first time they fall in love, if their belt is too tight there will come a bland moment when they will be aware that their belt is thus tight—and they will not be aware of much else.
“During that bland moment they will loosen their belt.
“When they were eight or nine years old and found a fine, ripe, juicy-plum patch, and while they were picking plums a balloon suddenly appeared over their heads, their first delirious impulse was to leave all and follow the balloon over hill and dale to the very earth’s end.
“But even though a real live balloon went sailing over their heads, they considered this: that some other kids would get our plums that we had found. A balloon was glorious—a balloon was divine—but even so, there was a bland moment in which the thought of some vicious, tow-headed Swede children from over the hill, who would rush in on the plums, came just in time to make the balloon pall on them.
“But,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “by the same token, in talking over the balloon after it had vanished down the sky, there would come another bland moment when the plums would pall upon them—pall completely, and would appear hateful in their eyes for having kept from them the joy of following the divine balloon. That is another aspect of the flat surfaces of things. And they must all come out upon the flat surfaces, willy-nilly.
“And,” said Annabel Lee, glancing at me as my mind was dimly wistful; “not only must they come out upon the flat surfaces of things, but also you and I must come, willy-nilly.
“And since we must come, willy-nilly,” added the lady, “then why not stay out upon the flat surfaces? Certainly ’twill save the trouble of coming next time. Perhaps, however, it’s all in the coming.”
III MY FRIEND ANNABEL LEE
MY FRIEND Annabel Lee never fails to fascinate and confound me.
Much as she gives, there is in her infinitely more to get.
My relation with her never goes on, and it never goes back. It leads nowhere. She and I stop together in the midst of our situation and look about us. And what we see in the looking about is all and enough to consider.
And considering, I write of it.
IV BOSTON
YESTERDAY the lady was in her most amiable mood, and we talked together—about Boston, it so happened.
“Do you like Boston?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I replied; “I am fond of Boston. It fascinates me.”
“But not fonder of it than of Butte, in Montana?”
“Oh, no,” said I, hastily. “Butte in Montana is my first love. There are barren mountains there—they are with me always. Boston doesn’t go to my heart in the least, but I like it much. I like to live here.”
“I am fond of Boston—sometimes,” Annabel Lee observed. “Here by the sea it is not quite Boston. It is everything. This sea washes down by enchanted purple islands and touches at the coast of Spain. But if one can but turn one’s eyes from it for a moment, Boston is a fine and good thing, and interesting.”
“I think it is—from several points of view,” I agreed.
“Tell me what you find that interests you in Boston,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“There are many things,” I replied. “I have found a little corner down by the East Boston wharf where often I sit on cold days. The sun shines bright and warm on a narrow wooden platform between two great barrels, and I can be hidden there, but I can watch the madding crowd as it goes. The crowd is very madding down around East Boston. And I do not lack company—sometimes brave, sharp-toothed rats venture out on the ground below me. They can not see the madding crowd, but they can enjoy the sunshine and hunt mice among the rubbish.
“The dwellers in East Boston—they are the poor we have always with us. They are not the meek, the worthy, the deserving poor. They are the devilish, the ill-conditioned—one with the wharf rats that hunt for mice. Except that the rats do occasionally try to clean their soft, gray coats by licking them with their little red tongues; whereas, the poor—But why should the poor wash? Are they not the poor?
“As I rest me between my two great barrels and watch this grewsome pageant, I think: It seems a quite desperate thing to be poor in Boston, for Boston is said to be of the best-seasoned knowledge and to carry a lump of ice in its heart. From between my two barrels in East Boston I have seen humanity, oh, so brutal, oh, so barbarous as ever it could have been in merrie England in the reign of good old Harry the Eighth.——
“And so then that is very interesting.”
“In truth it is so,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“Boston is fair, and very fair.—Tell me more.”
“And times,” I said, “I sit in one of the window-seats on the stairway of the Public Library. And I look at the walls. A Frenchman with a marvelous fancy and great skill in his finger-ends has worked on those walls. He painted there the emblems of all the world’s great material things of all ages. And over them he painted a thin gray veil of those things that are not material, that come from no age, that are with us, around us, above us—as they were with the children of Israel, with the dwellers in Pompeii, with the fair cities of Greece and the inhabitants thereof.
“I have looked at the paintings and I have been dazzled and transported. What is there not upon those walls!
“I have seen, in truth, ‘the vision of the world and all the wonder that shall be.’
“I have seen the struggling of the chrysalis-soul and its bursting into light; I have seen the divinity that doth sometime hedge the earth; I have looked at a conception of Poetry and I have heard the thin, rhythmic sounds of shawms and stringed instruments; and I have heard low, voluptuous music from within the temple—human voices like sweet jessamine; I have seen the fascinating idolatry of pagans—and I have seen, pale in the evening by the light of a star, the wooden figure of the Cross; I have leaned over the edge of a chasm and beheld the things of old—the army of Hannibal before Carthage—the Norsemen going down to the sea in ships—the futile, savage fighting of Goths and Vandals; I have seen science and art within the walled cities, and I have seen frail little lambs gamboling by the side of the brook; I have seen night-shades lowering over occult works, and I have seen bees flying heavy-laden to their hives on a fine summer’s morning; I have heard a lute played where a tiny cataract leaps, and the pipes of Pan mingled with the bubbling notes of a robin in mint meadows; I have seen pages and pages of printed lines that reach from world’s end to world’s end; I have seen profound words written centuries ago in inks of many colors; I have seen and been overwhelmed by the marvels of scientific things bristling with the accurate kind of knowledge that I shall never know; withal, I have seen the complete serenity of the world’s face, as shown by the brush of the Frenchman Chavannes.
“And over all, the nebulous conception of the long, ignorant silence.
“What is there not upon those wonderful walls!
“I sit in semi-consciousness in the little window-seat and these things swim before my two gray eyes. My mind is full of the vision of murmuring, throbbing life.
“But what a thing is life, truly—for marvelous as are these pictures, those that I have seen, times, down where the rats forage among the rubbish, are more marvelous still.”
“Truly,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “there is much, much, in Boston. Tell me more.”
“Well, and there is the South Station,” I went on. “Oh, not until one has ambled and idled away a thousand hours in that place of trains and varied peoples can one know all of what is really to be found within its waiting-rooms.
