The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 4: 1944-1947

I will not shut with no re-iterating my admiration in your process which i cannot really outline but and for the gorgeous and fearless movement of symbols, the single merging into the opposite in ideal metamorphosis, just like the subject matters of Stravinsky's "Petrouchka. " A storm from snow. i used to be engaged on This starvation, while my typewriter broke down. I went out into the snow with it to get it repaired. while I got here again, i didn't believe like writing the continuation of Djuna's existence on the orphan asylum and her starvation. I felt like writing approximately snow. I wrote each picture, each sensation, each delusion I had skilled in the course of my stroll. The storm from snow had thrown me again into the previous, into my blameless early life, surrounded by means of wishes, at 16, intimidated, demanding. I in comparison my youth with the frozen youth of others round me at the present time. all of them fused: snow, the frost of worry, the ice of virginity, purity, innocence, and continually the surprising threat of melting. I wrote myself out. And while i used to be entire, i spotted I had defined Djuna's formative years, and the adolescent contractions of different young people. I had written thirty-eight pages at the snow in men and women, on Djuna and the asylum, her starvation. city and state journal had released a photo of me dressed fashionably through Henry los angeles Pensée. The photographer heard me describe the 4 ladies of my subsequent e-book and desired to scan with a photo within which i might gown another way for every personality, after which as myself, Anai's, the novelist, within the middle. I assembled the garments which looked as if it would healthy Lillian, Djuna, Stella, Hejda. For Lillian I selected the night swimsuit altered to slot me (when all of us desired to imitate the lady captain, Valentina), with a extra serious shirtwaist. I dressed my hair seriously, and what did I see within the reflect? A resemblance to my father, who wore his hair lengthy within the again, as artists of his time did. This amused me, and appealed to my love of disguises. Then I dressed as Hejda, oriental, with a veil around the face. Stella, after all, was once tender and female, pliant; and the novelist within the heart used to be dressed easily, and regarded up obviously among her "characters. " All this used to be performed in a playful, surrealist temper. The photographer made a college. yet city and state used to be now not amused. not anything got here of it. The photographer gave me the photo. Days of feverish proposal, a flood of spontaneous writing. Onrush of institutions, of impromptu anecdotes, utter freedom. What has occurred is that i've got touched off this sort of deep point of subconscious existence that the ladies lose their separate and specific features and circulate each other. as though I have been writing concerning the evening lifetime of girl and it grew to become all one. the bounds, differences, are erased; on that unconscious point, everyone is a similar: feelings, instincts, desires. As I lose my grip on development, on realism, I appear to achieve one other form of truth. I emerged at the present time with thirty-eight pages at the snow girl, early life, the virgin lady, interwoven with the tale instructed to me by way of Frances of her existence within the orphan asylum.