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.I thought that the image of my father had become blurred with time; yet at thirteen I describe in the diary the man I am going to marry:A very pale and mysterious face, with very white teeth, a slow noble walk, an aloof smile.He will have a sweet and clear voice.He will tell me about his life filled with tragic adventures.I would like him proud and haughty, that he should love to read and write, and to play some instrument.This is a portrait of my father.An image engraved indelibly in mysterious regions of my being, sunk in sand, yet reappearing persistently, in fragments, in other men.The sky was full of dark clouds, which saddened me, for it seemed to me that these clouds were there expressly for me, to announce the dark clouds which would weigh down my future life.My mother allowed me to read a few novels by George Sand, and when I returned from this realm I contemplated the deep waters of the lake with a new feeling, for I had just learned what love was.My dear Diary, it is Anaïs who is speaking to you, and not someone who thinks as everybody should think.Dear Diary, pity me, but listen to me.Even then, I had literary preoccupations.This event, I sensed, was important, decisive:I should rewrite my arrival in New York [age thirteen].It seems to me that my briefness does not do justice to the occasion.I did not know that this trip to America was, deep down, my mother's effort to estrange us from my father, not only by distance, but by immersing us in a contrasting culture, the opposite of the Latin, and teaching us a language he did not know.It was a gesture made against all that he represented.In America, my mother hoped we would learn idealism, purity, as she understood it.Her own Nordic ancestry asserted itself against the Latin.Her Danish blood against her French blood (her mother was a New Orleans beauty—had lovers, abandoned her children).My mother was puritanical, or my father's behavior had turned her against sex, against man.She was secretive about sex, yet florid, natural, warm, fond of eating, earthy in other ways.But she became all Mother, sexless, all maternity, a devouring maternity enveloping us; heroic, yes, battling for her children, working, sacrificing.Accumulating in us a sense of debt, a sense that she had given her life to us, in contrast to the selfishness of my father.She upheld bour geois virtues, thrift, domestic talents, honesty, sense of duty, self-sacrifice, etc.She battled against all "resemblances" to my father.But she did let Joaquin be a musician, and she encouraged my intellectual pursuits.[August, 1933]Scene with Artaud."Before you say anything," he said, "I must tell you that I sensed from your letters that you had ceased to love me, or rather, that you had never loved me at all.Some other love has taken hold of you.Yes, I know, I guess, it is your father.So all my doubts of you were right.Your feelings are unstable, changeable.And this love of yours for your father, I must tell you, is an abomination."A venomous, bitter Artaud, all fury and rancor.I had received him with a wistful tenderness, but it did not touch him."You give everyone the illusion of maximum love.Furthermore, I do not believe I am the only one you have deceived.I sense that you love many men.I feel you hurt Allendy, and perhaps others."I was silent.I denied nothing.But I felt he was wrong to interpret it as premeditated.He sees impurity everywhere."I believe in your absolute impurity."Like a monk with his gods, purities, and impurities.Such accusations did not move me.They reminded me of a priest shouting from a pulpit, and I felt I would rather have him think me a Beatrice Cenci than one who had pretended to love him.He loved Beatrice enough to present her on stage, but in life he would set a bonfire for her and burn her.He was acting not like a poet, but like a vulgar mistress with a gun in her pocket.Apocalyptic condemnations.There was nothing beautiful about his anger.I seemed to take pleasure in his misunderstanding of me.Because he did not believe me when I tried to say "I do not want you as a lover" and now he was blaming me for my weakness.I let him.I did not seek to make him understand himself or me.I let him describe me as one "tenebrous oscillation." I let him pronounce his anathemas, curses, as a malefic, dangerous being, black magic, and he seemed more and more like an outraged castrated monk.He accused me of literary living.This has always amused me.Men can be in love with literary figures, with poetic and mythological figures, but let them meet with Artemis, with Venus, with any of the goddesses of love, and then they start hurling moral judgments.At thirteen I wrote: "Is there anyone who will understand me? I do not understand myself."But I know I am not what Artaud believes me to be.From my childhood diary:Time does nothing to my companions in school.For me each day is a novelty, and it seems to me that my character changes every day.If I do rise at the same time, I have different impressions each day.Even if I wear the same dress, it seems to me that I am not the same girl.Even if I repeat the same prayers during one year, each time they appear different to my interpretation, and I understand them differently.Today I began a new story called "Heart of Gold" and I am mixing a great deal of mystery with it.In front of me there is a deep abyss, and if I continue to fall into it, deeper and deeper, how long will it take me to reach the bottom? I imagine that life is such an abyss, and that the day I strike bottom will be the day I cease to suffer.One of these days I will say to my journal: "Dear Diary, I have touched bottom."The question is: am I like everyone else?I say to Henry: "I am not going to lie any more.Nobody is grateful for my lies.Now they will know the truth.And do you think Allendy will like what I have written about him better than what I said to him or implied by my evasions? Do you think Marguerite will prefer to know what I think of her in place of what I have told her? Truth is death-dealing, as your truths are death-dealing, Henry.You killed June psychically with your brutal honesty, as you would kill anyone you wrote about.People may not appear to be injured, but they are, irretrievably so, by a certain knowledge."I have always believed in Bergson's 'mensonge vital.' The trouble is not with my lies; the trouble is that we were all brought up on fairy tales.We were poisoned with fairy tales.Women expected love to always take a lyrical form, a romantic expression.We have all expected wonder, the marvelous.You yourself wrote me a few days ago: 'I expected so much, so much of the world and it all fell short.' I was more poisoned by fairy tales than anyone."Only I decided to work miracles.I decided that when somebody said: 'I want' that I would fulfill this want.I decided to be the fairy godmother who made things come true.And to some degree I succeeded.My faith in you has strengthened you miraculously.Only don't forget, fairy tales are based on lies.I wanted everybody to have everything they wanted! The mistake I made was to encompass too much.I could not make everyone happy, take care of everyone.I had to let some down, and they hate me for it.I over-estimated my strength.When I told a lie it was a lie which gives life.""I admit that your faith nourished me," said Henry."I could not have done anything if you had been unbelieving, and without enthusiasm.""And to my faith I add perception.My faith in you was no illusion.Look at the work you have done.Today Lowenfels praised you, and Cummings [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]