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

he who first stirred the secret source of my life.
    There is nothing of Drake himself in the book, I am convinced. He hates the parts I like. It was all written objectively, consciously, and even the fantasy was carefully planned. We settle this at the beginning of my next visit. Very good. I am beginning to see things more clearly. I know now why I did not trust him the first day. His actions are devoid of either feeling or imagination. They are motivated by sheer habits of living and grabbing and analyzing. He's a grasshopper. He has now hopped into my life. My feeling of dislike becomes intensified. When he tries to kiss me, I evade him.
    At the same time I concede to myself that he knows the technique of kissing better than anyone I've met. His gestures never miss their aim, no kiss ever goes astray. His hands are deft. My curiosity for sensuality is stirred. I have always been tempted by unknown pleasures. He has, like me, a sense of smell. I let him inhale me, then I slip away. Finally I lie still on the couch, but when his desire grows, I try to escape. Too late. Then I tell him the truth: woman's trouble. That does not seem to deter him. "You don't think I want that mechanical way—there are other ways." He sits up and uncovers his penis. I don't understand what he wants. He makes me get down on my knees. He offers it to my mouth. I get up as if struck by a whip.
    He is furious. I say to him, "I told you we have different ways of doing things. I warned you I was inexperienced."
    "I never believed it. I don't yet believe it. You can't be, with your sophisticated face and your passionateness. You're playing a trick on me."
    I listen to him; the analyst in me is uppermost, still on the job. He pours out stories to show me that I don't appreciate what other women do.
    In my head I answer, "
You
don't know what sensuality is. Hugo and I do. It's in us, not in your devious practices; it's in feeling, in passion, in love."
    He goes on talking. I watch him with my "sophisticated face." He does not hate me because, however repulsed, however angry I am, I have a facility for forgiveness. When I see that I have let him be aroused, it seems natural to let him release his desire between my legs. I just let him, out of pity. That, he senses. Other women, he says, would have insulted him. He understands my pity for his ridiculous, humiliating physical necessity.
    I owed him that; he had revealed a new world to me. I had understood for the first time the abnormal experiences Eduardo had warned me against. Exoticism and sensuality now had another meaning for me.
    Nothing was spared my eyes, so that I might always remember: Drake looking down at his wet handkerchief, offering me a towel, heating water on the gas stove.
    I tell Hugo the story partially, leaving out my activity, extracting the meaning for him and for me. As something forever finished, he accepts it. We efface an hour by passionate love, without twists, without aftertaste. When it is finished, it is not finished, we lie still in each other's arms, lulled by our love, by tenderness—sensuality in which the whole being can participate.
     
    Henry has imagination, an animal feeling for life, the greatest power of expression, and the truest genius I have ever known. "Our age has need of violence," he writes. And he is violence.
    Hugo admires him. At the same time he worries. He says justly, "You fall in love with people's minds. I'm going to lose you to Henry."
    "No, no, you won't lose me." I know how incendiary my imagination is. I am already devoted to Henry's work, but I separate my body from my mind. I enjoy his strength, his ugly, destructive, fearless, cathartic strength. I could write a book this minute about his genius. Almost every other word he utters causes an electric charge: on Bunuel's
Age d'Or
, on Salavin, on Waldo Frank, on Proust, on the film
Blue Angel
, on people, on animalism, on Paris, on French prostitutes, on American women, on America. He is even