Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1932) (30 page)

The only thing psychoanalysis achieves is to make one more conscious of one's misfortunes. I have gained a clearer and more terrifying knowledge of the dangers in my course. It has not taught me to laugh. I sit here tonight as somberly as I sat when I was a child. Henry alone, the most alive of all men, has the power to make me blissful.

I had a stupendous scene with Allendy. I brought him two pages of "explanations," which at first bewildered him. I stressed two moments which made me withdraw from him: one, when he said, "And what is to become of poor Hugo if I let myself go? If he finds out I have betrayed him, his cure will be impossible." Scruples. Like John's scruples. They are unbearable to me, because I have suffered too much from scruples, and so I love Henry's unscrupulousness. June's. They create a balance which puts me at ease. But, as Allendy points out, balance is not to be sought by association with others; it must exist within one's self. I should be free enough of scruples not to need to be swept off my feet by the unscrupulousness of another.

The second complaint: Allendy's great tenderness, aroused by a reading of my childhood journal. I hate all semblance of tenderness, because it reminds me of Eduardo's and Hugo's treatment of me, which nearly wrecked me. Here, Allendy was angry because he misinterpreted my words. Was I comparing him to Eduardo and Hugo? But I had enough presence of mind, although I was weeping, to say how aware I was that my reaction deformed the true sense of tenderness, that there was no weakness in him but, rather, an abnormal craving for aggressiveness and reassurance in me. He talked softly then, explaining how a separation of the erotic and the sentimental was no solution, that although my experience with love, before Henry, had been a failure, I would get no happiness from a purely erotic connection.

At first he wandered in the maze of ramifications I had created. I wanted to confuse him, to elude the exact truth. To my great surprise he suddenly discarded everything I had been saying and said, "You were under the impression last time, because I talked quietly about Hugo and my work, that I loved you less. And immediately you withdrew from me, in order not to suffer. You hardened yourself. It is your childhood tragedy repeating itself. If, when you were a child, you had been made to realize that your father had to live his own life, that he was forced to abandon you, that in spite of this he loved you, you would not have suffered so terribly. And it is always the same. If Hugo is busy in the bank, you feel he is neglecting you. If I talk about work, you are hurt. Believe me, you are deeply mistaken. I love you in a way which is far deeper and more true than what you seek. I sensed that you still needed an analyst, that you were not well. I was determined that no attraction to you should interfere with my care of you. If I were wildly impatient merely to possess you, you would soon realize what a meager gift I was making you. I want more than that. I want to do away with this conflict which causes you so much pain."

"You cannot do any more for me," I said. "Since I have begun to depend on you I feel weaker than ever before. I have disappointed you by acting neurotically at the very moment when I should have shown the wisdom of your guidance. I don't want to ever come back to you. I feel that I must go and work and live and forget about all this."

"That is no solution. This time you must face the whole thing with me. I will help you. I must lay aside all personal desire for the moment, and you must give up this doubt completely today. It always ruins your happiness. If you can accept what I tell you this time—that I love you, that we must wait, that you must realize how entangled I am with Hugo and Eduardo, that I must, first of all, finish my task as a doctor before I take any pleasure in our personal relationship—then we may conquer your reaction for good."

He talked so fervently, so justly. I lay back in my chair, weeping silently, realizing how right he was, racked with pain, not only because of my struggle to win him but because of the accumulated bitterness of all my unhappy relationships.

When I left him, I felt dazed. I almost fell asleep in the train.

To Henry: "Do you remember the time I told you I was in great revolt against Allendy and analysis? He had made me reach a point where, by great effort of logic on his part, he had resolved my chaos, established a pattern. I was furious to think I could be made to fit within one of those 'few fundamental patterns.'

"For me, it became a question of upsetting the pattern. I set out to do this with the most ingenious lies, the most elaborate piece of acting I have ever done in my life. I used all my talent for analysis and logic, which he admitted I had to a great degree, my own ease at giving explanations. As I hinted to you, I did not hesitate to play with his own personal feelings, every bit of power I had I used, to create a drama, to elude his theory, to complicate and throw veils. I lied and lied more carefully, more calculatingly than June, with all the strength of my mind. I wish I could tell you how and why.... Anyway, I did it all without endangering our love: it was a battle of wits in which I have taken the utmost delight. And do you know what? Allendy has beaten us, Allendy has found the truth, he has analyzed all of it right, has detected the lies, has sailed (I won't say blithely) through all my tortuousness, and finally proved today again the truth of those damned 'fundamental patterns' which explain the behavior of all human beings. I tell you this: I would never let June go to him, for June would simply cease to exist, since June is all ramifications of neuroses. It would be a crime to explain her away.... And tomorrow I go to Allendy and we start another drama, or I start another drama, with a lie or a phrase, a drama of another kind, the struggle to explain, which is in itself deeply dramatic (are not our talks about June sometimes as dramatic as the event we are discussing?). I find that I do not know what to believe, that I have not decided yet whether analysis simplifies and undramatizes our existence or whether it is the most subtle, the most insidious, the most magnificent way of making dramas more terrible, more maddening.... All I know is that drama is by no means dead in the so-called laboratory. This is as passionate a game as it has been for you to live with June. And then when you see the analyst himself caught in the currents, then you are ready to believe there is drama everywhere...."

My letter to Henry reveals my lies to him, necessary lies, mostly lies meant to heighten my confidence.

I spend a night with my beloved. I ask only that he does not return to America with June, which reveals to him how much I care. And he makes me swear that whatever happens when June comes I must believe in him and in his love. It is a difficult thing for me to do, but Allendy has taught me to believe, so I promise. Then Henry asks, "If I had the means today and I asked you to come away with me for good, would you do it?"

"Because of Hugo and June I would not, could not But if there were no June and no Hugo, I would go away with you, even if we had no means."

He is surprised. "Sometimes I wondered if it was a game for you." But he sees my face and is moved to silence. A night of clear, calm talk, when sensuality is almost superfluous.

Allendy is watching over my life. He has hypnotized me into a trusting somnolescence. He wants me to be lulled by my happiness, to rest on his love. We decide, for Hugo's sake (Hugo has become jealous of him), that I should not come to see him for ten or twelve days. It is also like a test of my confidence. Suddenly I relax my fevered desire for him and accept his nobility, his seriousness, his self-sacrifice, his concern for my happiness, and I feel humble. What makes me humble is that he believes I love him, and I feel that I am lying. It moves me to think I can lie to this great, sincere man. I wonder whether he knows better than I whom I love or whether I am deceiving him, as I have deceived them all. In 1921, when I was still corresponding with Eduardo, I was already in love with Hugo. If Hugo knew that in Havana, while we were exchanging love letters, I was stirred by Ramiro Collazo. If Henry knew that I love Allendy's kisses, and if Allendy knew how deeply I want to live with Henry...

Allendy believes my life with Henry, my low life, is not true or real or lasting, whereas I know I belong to it. He says, "You have traversed shady experiences, but I feel that you have remained pure. They are temporary curiosities, a hunger for experience." Whatever experience I enter I come out unscathed. Everyone believes in my sincerity and purity, even Henry.

Allendy wants me to see my love for Henry as a literary or dramatic excursion and my love for him as an expression of my true self, whereas I believe it is exactly the opposite. Henry has me, mind and womb; Allendy is my "experience."

There is continuous music from our new radio. Hugo listens while he beatifically contemplates the benefits of Allendy's help. The announcer talks in a strange language from Budapest. I think about my lies to Allendy and wonder why I lie. For example, I have worried inordinately about Henry's troubles with his eyes. If he should become as blind as Joyce, what would become of him? I say to myself, "I ought to give up everything and go and live with him and take care of him." When I tell Allendy about my fear, I exaggerate the danger Henry is in.

Lies are a sign of weakness. It seems to me that I do not have the courage to tell Allendy openly I do not love him, and so, instead, I want him to see what I am ready to do for Henry.

An afternoon with Henry. He begins by telling me that our conversation the other night was the deepest and closest we have had, that it has changed him, given him strength. "To run away from June, I feel now, is no solution. I have always run away from women. Today I feel that I want to face June and the problem she represents. I want to test my own strength. Anaïs, you have spoiled me, and now I cannot be satisfied with a marriage based on passion alone. What you have given me I never imagined I could find in a woman. The way we talk and work together, the way you adapt yourself, the way we fit together like hand and glove. With you, I have found myself. I used to live with Fred and listen to him, but nothing that he said really hit me until I lived with you those few days during Hugo's trip. I realize how insidiously you have affected me. I had scarcely felt it, yet suddenly I realize the extent of your influence. You made everything click."

I said, "I will accept June as a devastating tornado while our love remains deeply rooted."

"Oh, if you could do that! Do you know my greatest anguish has been that you might begin to battle with June, that I would be caught between you, not knowing what to do for you, because June paralyzes me with her savagery. If you could understand and wait. It may be a tornado, but I will take my stand once and forever against what June represents. I need to fight this battle out. It is the great issue of my whole life."

"I will understand. I will not make it more terrible for you."

And here we are, Henry and I, talking in such a way that the end of the afternoon finds us rich, eager to write, to live. When we lie down together, I am in such a frenzy that I cannot wait for our unison.

Later we sit in the dim light of the iridescent aquarium, bowed with turmoil. Henry gets up and walks about the room. "I cannot go away, Anaïs. I should be here. I am your husband." I want to cling to him, to hold him, to imprison him. "If I stay another minute," he continues, "I will do something mad."

"Go away quickly," I say. "I can't bear this." As we go down the stairs he smells the dinner cooking. I bring his hands to my face. "Stay, Henry, stay."

"What you desire," said Allendy, "is of lesser value than what you have found."

Because of him, tonight I even understand how John loved me in his own way. I believe in Henry's love. I believe that even if June wins, Henry will love me forever. What tempts me strongly is to face June with Henry, to let her torture us both, to love her, to win her love and Henry's. I plan to use the courage Allendy gives me in greater schemes of self-torture and self-destruction.

No wonder Henry and I shake our heads over our similarities: we hate happiness.

Hugo talks about his session with Allendy. He tells him that love is now like a hunger to him, that he feels the desire to eat me, to bite into me (at last!). And that he has done so. Allendy begins to laugh heartily and asks, "Did she like it?" "It's strange," said Hugo, "but she seems to." Whereupon Allendy laughs even more. And for some queer reason this arouses Hugo's jealousy of Allendy. He had the impression that Allendy took delight in this talk and would have liked to have a bite at me himself.

At this, it is I who laugh madly. Hugo continues seriously, "This psychoanalysis is a tremendous thing, but what a still more terrific thing it must be when the feelings get involved. What if, for instance, Allendy took an interest in you."

Here I get so hysterical that Hugo is almost angry. 'What do you find so funny about all this?"

"Your smartness," I said. "Psychoanalysis certainly puts new and amusing ideas into your head."

I realize it is nothing but coquetry with Allendy, coquetry and little feeling. He is a man I want to make suffer, I want to make him wander, to give
him
an adventure! Born of men who sailed the seas, this big healthy man is now imprisoned in his book-lined cave. I like to see him standing at the door of his house, eyes glowing like the blue Mallorcan sea.

"To proceed from the dream outward..." When I first heard these words of Jung's, they fired me. I used the idea in my pages on June. Today as I repeated the words to Henry they affected him strongly. He has been writing down his dreams for me, and then antecedents and associations. What an afternoon. It was so cold in Henry's place that we got into bed to warm each other. Then talk, mountains of manuscripts, hills of books, and rivulets of wine. (Hugo comes over while I write this, bends down and kisses me. I had just time enough to turn the page.) I am in a great fever, frantically pulling at the bars of my prison. Henry smiled sadly when I had to leave, at eight-thirty. He realizes now that his not knowing he was a man of great value almost led to his self-destruction. Will I be given time to place him on his throne? "Are you really quite warm enough?" he asks, closing my coat around me. The other night he was stumbling against obstacles on the dark road, his weak eyes blinded by automobile lights. In danger.