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

I feel like getting down on my knees before you."
    We chose the sandals. She refused anything else, anything that was not symbolical or representative of me. Everything I wore she would wear, although she had never wanted to imitate anyone else before.
    When we walked together through the streets, bodies close together, arm in arm, hands locked, I could not talk. We were walking over the world, over reality, into ecstasy. When she smelled my handkerchief, she inhaled me. When I clothed her beauty, I possessed her.
    She said, "There are so many things I would love to do with you. With you I would take opium." June, who does not accept a gift which has no symbolical significance; June, who washes laundry to buy herself a bit of perfume; June, who is not afraid of poverty and drabness and who is untouched by it, untouched by the drunkenness of her friends; June, who judges, selects, discards people with severity, who knows, when she is telling her endless anecdotes, that they are ways of escape, keeping herself all the more secret behind that profuse talk. Secretly mine.
     
    Hugo begins to understand. Reality exists only between him and me, in our love. All the rest, dreams. Our love is solved. I can be faithful. I was terrifyingly happy during the night.
    But I must kiss her, I must kiss her.
    If she had wanted to, yesterday I would have sat on the floor, with my head against her knees. But she would not have it. Yet at the station while we wait for the train she begs for my hand. I call out her name. We stand pressed together, faces almost touching. I smile at her while the train leaves. I turn away.
    The stationmaster wants to sell me some charity tickets. I buy them and give them to him, wishing him luck at the lottery. He gets the benefit of my wanting to give to June, to whom one cannot give anything.
    What a secret language we talk, undertones, overtones, nuances, abstractions, symbols. Then we return to Hugo and to Henry, filled with an incandescence which frightens them both. Henry is uneasy. Hugo is sad. What is this powerful magical thing we give ourselves to, June and I, when we are together? Wonder! Wonder! It comes with her.
    Last night, after June, filled with June, I could not bear Hugo reading the newspapers and talking about trusts and a successful day. He understood—he does understand—but he couldn't share, he could not grasp the incandescent. He teased me. He was humorous. He was immensely lovable and warm. But I could not come back.
    So I lay on the couch, smoking, and thinking of June. At the station, I had fainted.
     
    The intensity is shattering us both. She is glad to be leaving. She is less yielding than I am. She really wants to escape from that which is giving her life. She does not like my power, whereas I take joy in submitting to her.
    When we met for half an hour today to discuss Henry's future, she asked me to take care of him, and then she gave me her silver bracelet with a cat's-eye stone, when she has so few possessions. I refused at first, and then the joy of wearing her bracelet, a part of her, filled me. I carry it like a symbol. It is precious to me.
    Hugo noticed it and hated it. He wanted to take it from me, to tease me. I clung to it with all my strength while he crushed my hands, letting him hurt me.
    June was afraid that Henry would turn me against her. What does she fear? I said to her, "There is a fantastic secret between us. I only know about you through my own knowledge. Faith. What is Henry's knowledge to me?"
    Then I met Henry accidentally at the bank. I saw that he hated me, and I was startled. June had said that he was uneasy and restless, because he is more jealous of women than of men. June, inevitably, sows madness. Henry, who thought me a "rare" person, now hates me. Hugo, who rarely hates, hates her.
    Today she said that when she talked to Henry about me she tried to be very natural and direct so as not to imply anything unusual. She told him, "Anaïs was just bored