Anaïs Nin - The Four-Chambered Heart

The good self was formed by these threats: an artificial bloom. In this incubator of fear, her goodness bloomed merely as the only known way to hold and attract love.

There were other selves which interested her more but which she learned to conceal or to stifle: her inventive, fantasy-weaving self who loved tales, her high-tempered self who flared like heat lightning, her stormy self, the lies which were not lies but an improvement on reality.

She had loved strong language like ginger upon the lips. But her parents had said: “From you we don’t expect this, not from you.” And appointed her as a guard upon her brothers, asking her to enforce their laws, just as Rango had appointed her now a guard against his disintegrations.

So that she had learned the only reconciliation she could find: she learned to preserve the balance between crime and punishment. She took her place against the wall, face to the wall, and then muttered, “Damn damn damn damn,” as many times as she pleased, since she was simultaneously punishing herself and felt absolved, with no time wasted on contrition.

And now this good self could no longer be discarded. It had a compulsive life, its legend, its devotees! Every time she yielded to its sway she increased her responsibilities, for new devotees appeared, demanding perpetual attendance.

If Rango asked her today to take care of Zora, it was because he had heard, and he knew, of many past instances when she had taken care of others.

This indestructible good self, this false and wearying good self who answered prayers: Djuna, I need you; Djuna, console me; Djuna, you carry palliatives (why had she studied the art of healing, all the philters against pain?); Djuna, bring your wand; Djuna, we’ll take you to Rango, not the Rango of the joyous guitar and the warm songs, but Rango, the husband of a woman who is always ilt will break your heart, Djuna of the fracturable heart, your heart will fracture with a sound of wind chimes and the pieces will be iridescent. Where they fall new plants will grow instantly, and it is to the advantage of a new crop of breakable hearts that yours should fracture often, for the artist is like the religious man, he believes that denial of worldly possessions and acceptance of pain and trouble will give birth to the marvelous—sainthood or art.

(This goodness is a role, too tight around me; it is a costume I can no longer wear. There are other selves trying to be born, demanding at least a hearing!)

Your past history influenced your choice, Djuna; you have shown capabilities to lessen pain and so you are not invited to the fiestas.

Irrevocable extension of past roles, and no reversal possible. Too many witnesses to past compassions, past abdications, and they will look scandalized by any alteration of your character and will reawaken your old guilts. Face to the wall! This time so that Rango may not see your rebellion in your face. Rango’s wife is mortally ill and you are to bring your philters.

But she had made an important discovery.

This bond with Rango, this patience with his violent temper, this tacit fraternity of her gentleness and his roughness, this collaboration of light and shadow, this responsibility for Rango which she felt, her compulsion to rescue him from the consequences of his blind rages, were because Rango lived out for her this self she had buried in her childhood. All that she had denied and repressed: chaos, disorder, caprice, destruction.

The reason for her indulgence; everyone marveled (how could you bear his jealousy, his angers?) at the way he destroyed what she created so that each day she must begin anew: to understand, to order, to reconstruct, to mend; the reason for her acceptance of the troubles caused by his blindness was that Rango was nature, uncontrolled, and that the day she had buried her own laziness, her own jealousy, her own chaos, these atrophied selves awaited liberation and began to breathe through Rango’s acts. For this complicity in the dark she must share the consequences with him.

The realm she had tried to skip: darkness, confusion, violence, destruction, erupted secretly through relationship with Rango. The burden was placed on his shoulders. She must therefore share the torments, too. She had not annihilated her natural self; it reasserted itself in Rango. And she was his accomplice.

The dark-faced Rango who opened the door of his studio below street level was not the joyous carefree guitarist Djuna had first seen at the party, nor was it the fervent Rango of the nights at the barge, nor was it the oscillating Rango of the cafe, the ironic raconteur, the reckless adventurer. It was another Rango she did not know.

In the dark hallway his body appeared silhouetted, his high forehead, the fall of his hair, his bow, full of nobility, grandeur. He bowed gravely in the narrow hallway as if this cavernous dwelling were his castle, he the seigneur and she a visitor of distinction. He emerged prouder, taller, more silent, too, out of poverty and barrenness, since they were of his own choice. If he had not been a rebel, he would be greeting her at the vast entrance of his ranch.

Down the stairs into darkness. Her hand touched the walls hesitantly to guide herself, but the walls had such a rough surface and seemed to be sticky to the touch so that she withdrew it and Rango explained: “We had a fire here once. I set fire to the apartment when I fell asleep while smoking. The landlord never repaired the damage as we haven’t paid rent for six months.”

A faint odor of dampness rose from the studio below, which was the familiar odor of poor studios in Paris. It was compounded of fog, of the ancient city breathing its fetid breath through cellar floors; it was the odor of stagnation, of clothes not often washed, of curtains gathering mildew.

She hesitated again until she saw the skylight windows above her head; but they were covered with soot and let in a dim northern light.

Rango then stood aside, and Djuna saw Zora lying in bed.

Her black hair was uncombed and straggled around her parchment-colored skin. She had no Indian blood, and her face was almost a direct contrast to Rango’s. She had heavy, pronounced features, a wide full mouth, all cast in length, in sadness, a defeated pull downward which only changed when she raised her eyelids; then the eyes had in them an unexpected shrewdness which Rango did not have.

She was wearing one of Rango’s shirts, and over that a kimono which had been dyed black. The red and black squares of the shirt’s colors showed at the neck and wrists. The stripes once yellow still showed through the black dye of the kimono.

On her feet she wore a pair of Rango’s big socks filled with cotton wool at the toes, which seemed like disproportionate clown’s feet on her small body.

Her shoulders were slightly hunched, and she smiled the smile of the hunchback, of a cripple. The arching of her shoulders gave her an air of having shrunk herself together to occupy a small space. It was the arch of fear.

Even before her illness, Djuna felt, she could never have been handsome but had a strength of character which must have been arresting. Yet her hands were childish and clasped things without firmness. And in the mouth there was the same lack of control. Her voice, too, was childish.

The studio was now half in darkness, and the oil lamp which Rango brought cast long shadows.

The mist of dampness in the room seemed like the breath of the buried, making the walls weep, detaching the wallpaper in long wilted strips. The sweat of centuries of melancholic living, the dampness of roots and cemeteries, the moisture of agony and death seeping through the walls seemed appropriate to Zora’s skin from which all glow and life had withdrawn.

Djuna was moved by Zora’s smile and plaintive voice. Zora was saying: “The other day I went to church and prayed desperately that someone should save us, and now you are here. Rango is always bewildered, and does nothing.” Then she turned tango: “Bring me my sewing box.”