Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1932) by Anaïs Nin Read Free Book Online Page B

elbows. I felt like June. My dog Ruby sat at my side, and so my black coat and velvet jacket were covered with his white hair. An Italian who had tried all during the trip to catch my attention finally, in desperation, came up and offered me a brush. This amused me, and I laughed. When I was through brushing (and his brush was full of white hairs), I thanked him. He said very nervously, "Will you come and have coffee with me?" I said no, as I thought, what would it have been like if I had painted my eyes?
     
    Hugo says my letter to Henry is the slipperiest thing he has ever seen. I begin so honestly and frankly. I seem to be June's opposite, but in the end I am just as slippery. He thinks I will disturb Henry and upset his style for a while—his raw strength, his "pisses and fucks," in which he was so secure.
    When I wrote to Henry, I was so grateful for his fullness and richness that I wanted to give him everything that was in my mind. I began with great impetus, I was frank, but as I approached the final gift, the gift of
my
June and my thoughts about her, I felt reticent. I employed much craft and elusiveness to interest him, while keeping what was precious to me.
    I sit down before a letter or my journal with a desire for honesty, but perhaps in the end I am the biggest liar of them all, bigger than June, bigger than Albertine, because of the semblance of sincerity.
     
    His real name was Heinrich—how I prefer that. He is German. To me he seems like a Slav, but he has the German sentimentality and romanticism about women. Sex is
love
to him. His morbid imagination is German. He has a love of ugliness. He doesn't mind the smell of urine and of cabbage. He loves cursing, and slang, prostitutes, apache quarters, squalor, toughness.
    He writes his letters to me on the back of discarded "Notes"—fifty ways of saying "drunk," information on poisons, names of books, bits of conversation. Or lists like this: "Visit Café des Mariniers on river bank near Exposition Bridge off Champs Elysées—sort of boarding house for fishermen. Eat 'Bouillabaisse,' Caveau des Oubliettes Rouges. Le Paradis, rue Pigalle—rough point, pickpockets, apaches, etc. Fred Payne's Bar, 14 rue Pigalle (see the Art Galerie downstairs, rendezvous of English and American show girls). Café de la Régence, 261 rue St. Honoré (Napoleon and Robespierre played chess here. See their table)."
    Henry's letters give me the feeling of plentitude I get so rarely. I take great joy in answering them, but the bulk of them overwhelm me. I have barely answered one when he writes another. Comments on Proust, descriptions, moods, his own life, his indefatigable sexuality, the way he immediately gets tangled in action. Too much action, to my mind. Undigested. No wonder he marvels at Proust. No wonder I watch his life with a realization that my life will never resemble his, for mine is slowed up by thought.
     
    To Henry: "Last night I read your novel. There were some passages in it which were
éblouissants
, staggeringly beautiful. Particularly the description of a dream you had, the description of the jazzy night with Valeska, the whole of the last part when the life with Blanche comes to a climax.... Other things are flat, lifeless, vulgarly realistic, photographic. Still other things—the older mistress, Cora, even Naomi, are not
born
yet. There is a slapdash, careless rushing by. You have come a long way from that. Your writing has had to keep pace with your living, and because of your animal vitality you have lived too much....
    "I have a strange sureness that I know just what should be left out, exactly as you knew what should be left out of my book. I think the novel is worth weeding out. Would you let me?"
     
    To Henry: "Please understand, Henry, that I'm in full rebellion against my own mind, that when I live, I live by impulse, by emotion, by white heat. June understood that. My mind didn't exist when we walked insanely through Paris, oblivious to people, to