LIFE!

Touch, oh, touch this man of fire

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1947

The evening of Hazel McKinley’s party I met Rupert Pole, an actor who is Welsh and looks like Pinckard, but as soon as I saw his handsome face, I felt: Caution. Danger. He is probably homosexual. He spoke first, having heard I was Spanish. Ordinary remarks. We sat on the couch with a friend of his, discussing Schoenenberg, whom he had met in Hollywood. He intimated his belief of pacifism and mystical studies. Then people intervened.

I remember that as we talked we plunged deep, deep eyes into each other. The homosexual is passive, so I was surprised when I was getting ready to leave, Rupert came up and said, “I would like to see you again.” Hazel told me afterward: “He asked about you. He was interested in you.”

That night I came home with someone else, Bernard, and we made love, but during the entire time I maintained my image of Rupert as a more luminous, more spirited image.

The next day Chinchilito called and came.

Then I had enough. I realized this was a phase: a phase on the way towards reality. Man is there, sensual life is there, all obtainable, when you turn away from the masochistic traps. When Carlton Lake appeared, hoping for an orgiastic weekend, I had to tell him it would not be because Rupert had said he might come. He was hurt, and then it all seemed reverse, the way man leaves woman and woman becomes emotional. I am without feeling, possibly animated by revenge, resentment to have been possessed by them somehow: Bernard, Carlton, Chinchilito…

Rupert arrived in his working clothes, from printing. There was something marvelous in the contrast of his clothes, stained and dirty, and the finely chiseled face.

He is very tall, as tall as Hugo, but with an elongated boy’s body. His face is long, sensitive, narrow, the eyes deep-set and brilliant, a blue, gold and green changefulness. His black hair, his long, heavy eyelashes, and something passionate about the face. He is all vitality, there is a fire in him. Voluptuousness again.

We talked. He is idealistic and romantic, wants to give up stage acting and the city, is proud, independent, wants to live out west, free, simply. He is full of poetry, has a young man’s seriousness, intermittent depths, imagination.

We ate by candlelight. He talked and talked, confided in me. His face is so beautiful, so pure, and feminine, yet with a masculine assurance. As he sat on the couch, he made me feel feminine and passive. I let him be active. He continued talking. As I stood with him, looking over the table, he put his arm around me. He then kissed me as I love to be kissed—hungrily, for a long time, passionately. He carried me to the couch. He was strong, passionate. We undressed, lay in the dim light of the driftwood lamp, the same light which illumined my last night with Pinckard.

And, as with John Paanacker, I recaptured the sensation of making love with Pinckard. Is it the body? No, it’s more than that. It’s a kind of passion which matches mine. It is not bestial, it is voluptuous and welding, something I do not feel with the young.

Rupert was not only more penetrating than the older men, but he moved me as well. He is impetuous, and I feel both eroticism and tenderness. His long kiss prepared me, dissolved me. He said, “You have the body of a young girl.” He was tireless. He took me twice, and once more before he fell asleep. No retractions. Emotionalism. We fell asleep clasped together as if we had always known each other. I didn’t want to sleep all night with anyone but Paanacker and Pinckard, for Paanacker was a continuation of my interrupted love for Pinckard, and this is true of Rupert too.

His face was on my pillow, asleep, and the resemblance was startling. (Pinckard was Welsh too!) The full, well-balanced mouth, beautiful teeth, the passion. Rupert closes his eyes when we kiss. Such a beautiful night, like my nights with Pinckard and Paanacker. Such fantasy they have, capacity for dreaming.

Rupert awakened with sea-blue eyes and said, “Oh, this blue light—I thought I was at the bottom of the sea.” (Pinckard’s very words.) But Rupert has no fears. Until the last moment, he held me, kissed me, was both tender and passionate. Upon awakening, he clasped me again. I felt bathed in caresses. I was terribly, terribly happy. He said: “I would like to be on a beach with you. I would like to take you sailing.” He was full of charm. It’s not only the actual beauty of their features, but the quality, the finesse of the three faces. It’s their voices. Rupert sings and plays the guitar.

But I must not love him as I love Pinckard, for he has to go to New Mexico for a job. He is not here for long (oh my destiny!). Or is it that they unconsciously prepare all their lives for these flights from permanency? Not Rupert. He was married, is now divorced. His father is a writer and an actor, was a friend of Rupert Brooke, and that is where his name comes from. He won a scholarship for Harvard.

I could not work. I was exhausted, but so happy.

If Pinckard had no fears, he would be like this. But he has cold parents, whereas Rupert was loved.

Rupert said: “I surprised myself. I have been so asocial lately. I am surprised to be here, to have talked so much, to have made love to you. I had forgotten this wonderful thing woman gives.”

Chinchilito, Bernard, Albert, Vincent, Carlton left no echoes, but Rupert did. I felt the need to recapture my purity for him, to be faithful to him. I deserted all of them. I refused to have Vincent over last night. I went back to my book.

Mysteries. Always the mystery of relationships.

SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 1947

Finished Children of the Albatross—a slender volume, but so rich!

I lie alone and content.

Rupert took away the sedimentary taste left over from my other sensual encounters. I see him with his printer’s stained hands, driving a small, dilapidated car, but with such a dashing spirit. I see his deep, deep, large, blue eyes looking at me intently when we parted. I thought: this will inspire my whole weekend.

No fears.

The last kiss was as passionate as the first, active, possessive, strong. He is too proud for stage life, too proud to beg for jobs and sell one’s self. He dreams of open spaces. He is full of quotations and aphorisms, Lao Tze’s sayings. “There was a woman out west who introduced me to mysticism. I met Khrishnamurti. But it was unbalanced. I am earthy. I want a better balance between body and spirit.”

In his arms the pleasure was deeper. This young colt’s body I love, skinny, the bones tender, the neck long and thin, like a bird without feathers. There is something breakable and vulnerable in him, as if the dream were still consuming the flesh and the flesh never consuming the dream.

In the morning, in the bathroom taking a shower, he sang in a rich voice, an Irish voice. I first saw him as the only one who could play the role of Pinckard on the stage.

I asked him, “How were you at seventeen?”

“Horribly shy and terrified of women.”

Finished copying and polishing my book, which is to be delivered tomorrow.

I want to write an essay on the similarity between oriental philosophy and psychoanalysis. There is orientalism in my work.

MARCH 1947

Vincent came last night.

Suave, soft, smooth, darling of women, a dancing partner. The type of “gigolo” who lives by his dancing and lovemaking in Florida, protected by older women, his black hair curled, he handsomely dressed. Thin like a colt too, but made for the boudoir, with a trace of a common accent from a poor childhood. Crude in speech, unromantic, yet sensitive.

“Anaïs, you are not like other women. We will dance together again, smoke marijuana, make love while dancing.”

Not tonight, Vincent. I have Rupert, proud and romantic, full of finesse and quality.

This is beautiful, this is health.

I am learning passivity, which I once feared. I identified with my triumphant father and played the role of the active lover. I could not yield, I could not be taken. I gave either body or spirit, never both—there was always a part of me unpossessed.

MARCH 5, 1947

As soon as someone touches my feelings, as Rupert did, the great enemy, anxiety, sets in:

expectation of a telephone call

fear of his retraction

fear of failure

fear that it would be lost

I talked with Staff. He thinks I have made enormous progress. I was happy and well as long as I did not feel. As soon as feeling enters me (Rupert), then comes fear. Staff explained I became ill because Rupert did not call Monday.

I called Rupert up Tuesday after seeing Staff, in a casual way. He said that his finger was infected from a printing accident, that he couldn’t sleep, and that there was a conflict between jobs. The lightness of his voice, even of the word “darling,” sounded insincere to me (through the ear of my doubt, or justly?). He would come Thursday, he said.

But the fear is there.

Strange days.

Bill Howell comes, weak, not well, neurotic, takes refuge in me. It is now a chaste, affectionate relationship. His sleeps in Hugo’s bed. We live like husband and wife, but without sensuality. He comes to say goodnight, lies beside me, naked, without desire, sleeps. Humble, sweet, perverse, lost, full of vacillations, fears too, and poor. He wishes to seek strength by logging in the mountains. I let him come…and go… We lie on the couch reading. He rummages through my photos, takes the ones he likes.

Bernard is sad that I would not let him take me again, longing, hungry, calling at midnight.

Everyone pursuing the one he cannot have.

A maze, a blind maze.

But I am coming out

Out of hell

Out of hell…

All this pity I can no longer give to Gonzalo because of his weakness now flows to Howell, who is tired, sick, with rings under his eyes, perverse, drunk. We visited Richard Wright together, but I took him away before he spoiled his relationship with Wright by obstinate argumentativeness. A child.

I half carried him to Hugo’s bed (he is so light). In bed he awakened, smoked, and said: “You know so many interesting people. Why do you bother with me? Why?”

I left my bed and lay beside him, reassuring him, kissing him. He murmured in the dark: “You are wonderful. I love you. I adore you. If we could be together I would stay in New York. But your life is too complicated, too many men.”

I said, “You’re going through a difficult moment.”

The tragic impasse is that a woman who feels like this, lost, childish, inadequate, is not ashamed to accept a man’s protection. But these jeunes filles with phalluses are ashamed to be wives. Howell could not be content being my lover, be proud of my achievements, of who I am, be strengthened by me, or even supported.

This terrible bond with the adolescent—what happens is that at the moment of gentleness, a unbreakable fusion takes place. John Paanacker at East Hampton—if he had only taken me as a man, if he had only taken me and that was all…but at the beach, after possession, we returned to the bath house and we washed the sand off our feet. Then he took my feet and dried them so delicately, so tenderly. And after possession in the room, he would say, “I will tuck you in,” and cover and arrange me in my bed as if I were a child. Such gestures take possession of the heart (to cause later the most cruel pains), and I cannot forget them.

It’s funny, for a maturing woman trying to learn detachment:

Burford’s stories can hurt me.

Howell can make me weep.

Rupert can kill my joyousness by calling up but not coming for ten days after our magnificent night.

Bill Howell leaves for the Cooneys’ farm because he wants to earn money, to work until he gets a theatre job. He leaves without my help, but I am glad.

Howell was on the train at ten after six, exactly when Rupert rang the bell. He entered with vigor, with vitality, in an active role. We talked about going out to dinner. We sat down and talked, drank. He sat near. His leg touched mine. I had almost forgotten his face, his black straight hair, his eyes changing from blue to gold, his clear but warm-toned skin, blood tones. No paleness. He is electric.

As I got up to go out with him, he embraced me. Once we began to kiss we could not separate. Desire, desire, desire, desire. His gestures are strong and romantic. Where did he learn to carry the woman to the couch? His long, long slender body. Lean. Lean and strong. His nervous, wiry, electric quality suits mine.

For ten days I thought my night with him would not be repeated.

He challenges my strength, my softness.

We never went out to dinner. We cooked here, together. He is active, capable, free. He travels on little money. He plays the guitar. He sings. He speaks Spanish. He prints to earn a living. He is healthy and beautiful and alive.

He loves another girl, who is mystical but confused, and, I gather, puritanical. She thwarts his lustiness. He cannot seriously think of her as a part of his life. She loves him, but not enough to lead his erratic, adventurous life with him.

The children entered my womb seeking refuge and peace, and while I felt desire immediately, another part of me, the strong part, lay dormant, aroused only occasionally. But Rupert challenges this part of me. He does not seek softness. He seeks strength. He says Debussy is too feminine. He likes rhythm. His impulsiveness is a delight, his vehemence, his beauty. I suppose when I did not believe in my own beauty, I did not dare love beauty. With Pinckard, beauty entered into my life. Rupert’s leanness is vital. His spiritual face, intense, glowing.

Life heals you if you allow it to flow, if you do not allow it to trap you.

Have I achieved freedom? Freedom? Freedom?

That no one should be able to destroy you, enslave you, paralyze you.

Mon Journal,

How the illness makes the choices. How it caused the suffering—not Gore, not Burford, not Howell… The flow of desire went to Rupert Pole.

Thursday I went to help him with his printing job. Again a press, Rupert serious, wearing glasses, his guitar lying in the corner. Strange irony. We work together. He drives me in his little two-seater, old and dingy, but he drives electrically, impulsively. His vitality drives the car. We had dinner afterwards at the Spanish restaurant and went back to his place, a poor apartment, but his viola was there. We lie listening to music. He seems asleep, but suddenly—it is always sudden with him—he kisses me. His kiss is strong, appropriating, willful, full of assurance. The caresses—all of our caresses are strong, nervous—are the caresses of musicians, not tender and light, but strong and of the nerves. Our rhythm together is quick, tense, determined, but artful too, not only phallic, for he waits until we get into such a frenzy that we have to tear each other’s clothes off. His hands on my backside have a nervous tapping, drumming, kneading frenzy, which awakens the nerves. Everything is electric, swift, strong. Once inside, his penis is slender, not large, and he moves so actively, so tantalizingly, as if my womb had to reach out for him, the little air between us a tease, as if he was not going to fill me, but he draws such excitement from me, such a long, long orgasm, reaching to the end of my nerves.

I feel fear. His body reaches too deeply into me. He is dangerous. He leaves drunkenness afterwards, ecstasy. I feel both his strength and his sensitivity.

At dinner, he had said: “Drive with me to California. I have to visit my parents. I have to get a job there.”

I said, “Yes.”

There is now passivity in me. I do not court. I have no anxiety. I do not seek certitudes.

He is full of delicacies, romanticisms, but vital, lusty, wiry, courageous…

I hold back

And I am happy

He plays the active role

I want this

Strange

I dream of the trip.

I have fears: will I have the physical endurance? He is twenty-eight. He is a lusty lover. That night, we lay together, his sex inside of me, waiting, and after a moment he took me again. He said, “I want to take you in the water, in the sea.”

He can eat anything.

I can’t.

He can go without sleep.

I can’t.

Oh, Anaïs!

Look at his great beauty—he is too beautiful for me.

He is poor.

A fiery evening. He read from The Prophet (his Bible!).

While I lie down with Rupert, Gonzalo is working alone and discovering the enormity of the work I did for him, all the “chores,” the realities of printing.

While I lie down with Rupert, Gore is at the Blue Angel with an Irish boy who “bores him.” He looks worn, pale, has an infection of the throat, his eyes are bad, he can live months without sensuality, yet he still wants to marry me and lock me up in his house in Guatemala.

While I lie down with Rupert, making love violently, Josephine is singing at the Ruban Bleu, Bill Pinckard is lonely in Korea, Burford is with Merrill at Amherst, Pablo is in Panama with the girl he may marry.

The Anaïs who writes here tonight is the same child Anaïs who could not believe in happiness. I write tonight to reassure myself that it is true and palpable. With words, I must touch this.

With words, I touch the face of Rupert, caress his straight, dark, rich hair which smells of the aromatic tobacco of his pipe. With words, I touch the silky skin of his face, the ascetic temples, the leanness of the lines, long, pure, oval, the heavily lashed, deep-set blue eyes, the eyes of the dreamer and of the earth.

Touch, oh, touch this man of fire, who enters smiling, who throws off his coat, who is free and timeless, who comes with his guitar. We forget to make dinner, because he begins to kiss me, to kiss me, to kiss me, until we are in a frenzy. His mouth. It is he who kisses, takes, and every move is strong. I feel for the first time the reality of a phrase June used to say to Henry, “Up to the hilt, my love.” I feel his sex against mine, the sexual act is so violent, each spurt of semen causing a tremor through his body, a somersault, and he puts me in such a frenzy that I feel as if I were not experiencing one orgasm or two, but hundreds of them. Frenzy! Frenzy! He comes twice without leaving me.

Rupert enjoys his food, enjoys his pipe, enjoys resting after dinner with his head on my breast, enjoys playing his guitar, enjoys singing. Oh, god, he is a man, a sensual man, a romantic.

Wildly beautiful. Intense. Healthy.

I cannot believe it…

As he sits there singing warmly with color and power, playing the guitar he taught himself to play, with his beautiful face, his long, slender neck, his ruddy hands which are not delicate, but strong, the rich, warm tones of his skin, his beautiful teeth, I cannot believe it.

Has my charm brought me this?

For the first time, I allowed my joy to explode. I had been subdued, passive. I received him with effervescence, but not love, no words of love, for this is passion. How good it is to be so thoroughly caressed, to be caressed and kissed while I cook, to be caressed and kissed every moment.

He looks at Under a Glass Bell, which I finally decided to give to him, and like me, he reads one phrase and divines the rest. One phrase of my preface, and taking me in his arms, he rocks me and says: “But we need the dreamer! We need dreamers!”

After making love to exhaustion, he says, “You destroy me, you destroy me only to give birth to me again, each time a new man!”

LIFE AGAIN! LIFE!