Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1932) Read Online Free Page A
He has hurt her pride by desiring her opposite: ugly, common, passive women. He cannot endure her positivism, her strength. I hate Henry now, heartily. I hate men who are afraid of women's strength. Probably Jean loved her strength, her destructive power. For June is destruction.
My strength, as Hugo tells me later when I discover he hates June, is soft, indirect, delicate, insinuating, creative, tender, womanly. Hers is like that of a man. Hugo tells me she has a mannish neck, a mannish voice, and coarse hands. Don't I see? No, I do not see, or if I see, I don't care. Hugo admits he is jealous. From the very first minute they hated each other.
"Does she think that with her woman's sensibility and subtlety she can love anything in you that I have not loved?"
It is true. Hugo has been infinitely tender with me, but while he talks of June I think of our hands locked together. She does not reach the same sexual center of my being that man reaches; she does not touch that. What, then, has she moved in me? I have wanted to possess her as if I were a man, but I have also wanted her to love me with the eyes, the hands, the senses that only women have. It is a soft and subtle penetration.
I hate Henry for daring to injure her enormous and shallow pride in herself. June's superiority arouses his hatred, even a feeling of revenge. He eyes my gentle, homely maid, Emilia. His offense makes me love June.
I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her. She will be June plus all that I contain.
JANUARY 1932
We met, June and I, at American Express. I knew she would be late, and I did not mind. I was there before the hour, almost ill with tenseness. I would see her, in full daylight, advance out of the crowd. Could it be possible? I was afraid that I would stand there exactly as I had stood in other places, watching a crowd and knowing no June would ever appear because June was a product of my imagination. I could hardly believe she would arrive by those streets, cross such a boulevard, emerge out of a handful of dark, faceless people, walk into that place. What a joy to watch that crowd scurrying and then to see her striding, resplendent, incredible, towards me. I hold her warm hand. She is going for mail. Doesn't the man at American Express see the wonder of her? Nobody like her ever called for mail. Did any woman ever wear shabby shoes, a shabby black dress, a shabby dark blue cape, and an old violet hat as she wears them?
I cannot eat in her presence. But I am calm outwardly, with that Oriental placidity of bearing that is so deceptive. She drinks and smokes. She is quite mad, in a sense, subject to fears and manias. Her talk, mostly unconscious, would be revealing to an analyst, but I cannot analyze it. It is mostly lies. The contents of her imagination are realities to her. But what is she building so carefully? An aggrandizement of her personality, a fortifying and glorifying of it. In the obvious and enveloping warmth of my admiration she expands. She seems at once destructive and helpless. I want to protect her. What a joke! I, protect her whose power is infinite. Her power is so strong that I actually believe it when she tells me her destructiveness is unintentional. Has she tried to destroy me? No, she walked into my house and I was willing to endure any pain from her hands. If there is any calculation in her, it comes only afterwards, when she becomes aware of her power and wonders how she should use it. I do not think her evil potency is directed. Even she is baffled by it.
I have her in myself now as one to be pitied and protected. She is involved in perversities and tragedies she cannot live up to. I have at last caught her weakness. Her
My strength, as Hugo tells me later when I discover he hates June, is soft, indirect, delicate, insinuating, creative, tender, womanly. Hers is like that of a man. Hugo tells me she has a mannish neck, a mannish voice, and coarse hands. Don't I see? No, I do not see, or if I see, I don't care. Hugo admits he is jealous. From the very first minute they hated each other.
"Does she think that with her woman's sensibility and subtlety she can love anything in you that I have not loved?"
It is true. Hugo has been infinitely tender with me, but while he talks of June I think of our hands locked together. She does not reach the same sexual center of my being that man reaches; she does not touch that. What, then, has she moved in me? I have wanted to possess her as if I were a man, but I have also wanted her to love me with the eyes, the hands, the senses that only women have. It is a soft and subtle penetration.
I hate Henry for daring to injure her enormous and shallow pride in herself. June's superiority arouses his hatred, even a feeling of revenge. He eyes my gentle, homely maid, Emilia. His offense makes me love June.
I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her. She will be June plus all that I contain.
JANUARY 1932
We met, June and I, at American Express. I knew she would be late, and I did not mind. I was there before the hour, almost ill with tenseness. I would see her, in full daylight, advance out of the crowd. Could it be possible? I was afraid that I would stand there exactly as I had stood in other places, watching a crowd and knowing no June would ever appear because June was a product of my imagination. I could hardly believe she would arrive by those streets, cross such a boulevard, emerge out of a handful of dark, faceless people, walk into that place. What a joy to watch that crowd scurrying and then to see her striding, resplendent, incredible, towards me. I hold her warm hand. She is going for mail. Doesn't the man at American Express see the wonder of her? Nobody like her ever called for mail. Did any woman ever wear shabby shoes, a shabby black dress, a shabby dark blue cape, and an old violet hat as she wears them?
I cannot eat in her presence. But I am calm outwardly, with that Oriental placidity of bearing that is so deceptive. She drinks and smokes. She is quite mad, in a sense, subject to fears and manias. Her talk, mostly unconscious, would be revealing to an analyst, but I cannot analyze it. It is mostly lies. The contents of her imagination are realities to her. But what is she building so carefully? An aggrandizement of her personality, a fortifying and glorifying of it. In the obvious and enveloping warmth of my admiration she expands. She seems at once destructive and helpless. I want to protect her. What a joke! I, protect her whose power is infinite. Her power is so strong that I actually believe it when she tells me her destructiveness is unintentional. Has she tried to destroy me? No, she walked into my house and I was willing to endure any pain from her hands. If there is any calculation in her, it comes only afterwards, when she becomes aware of her power and wonders how she should use it. I do not think her evil potency is directed. Even she is baffled by it.
I have her in myself now as one to be pitied and protected. She is involved in perversities and tragedies she cannot live up to. I have at last caught her weakness. Her
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