The Winter of Artifice

by Anais Nin

  The collections of Nin’s entirely or mostly previously published works are Portrait in Three Dimensions (N.p.: Concentric Circle Press, 1979); The White Blackbird and Other Writings (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1985); Conversations with Anaïs Nin, edited by Wendy M. DuBow (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994); and The Mystic of Sex and Other Writings, edited by Gunther Stuhlmann (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1995). The novella published separately is Stella (London: Phoenix, 1996).

  The vast majority — almost all — of titles that were in print at the time of Nin’s death remains in print in late 2006: diaries, fiction, and criticism.

  Pollak thought that Nin should republish The Winter of Artifice. In a 1960 letter to her, he writes, “I wonder whether you should not consider republishing now the original version of Winter — if someone like Grove Press would bring it out. It may make the stir it ought to make and bring financial rewards besides. Have you ever thought of it?” (Nin and Pollak 1998, 152). Nin responds only by saying, “Grove Press would never publish me” (154).

  2. Excerpts from “Djuna” appear as “Hans and Johanna” in Nin 1989. They are from The Winter of Artifice, 9-13, 14-16, 16-18, 18-20, 24-26, 26-27, 34-35, 35-36, 39, 40, 49, 66, 67, 69-70, 74-76, 76-79, 82-83, 83-85, 85-89. In titling the excerpts “Hans and Johanna,” Gunther Stuhlmann, the editor of Anais: An International Journal, shifts focus from the narrator, as Nin has it with the title “Djuna,” to the objects of Djuna’s desire. The novella seems more about Djuna than Hans and Johanna.

  The other editions of Winter of Artifice (with no definite article in the title and with contents different from those of The Winter of Artifice) are N.p.: n.p., 1942 (the first publication of Nin’s own press, which became the Gemor Press); in Under a Glass Bell (London: Editions Poetry London, 1947); in Under a Glass Bell and Other Stories (New York: Dutton, 1948); Denver: Alan Swallow, 1961; London: Peter Owen, 1974 (with House of Incest) and 1991 (without House of Incest); and Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1992. Since 1961 in the United States, Winter of Artifice has been continuously in print, first with Alan Swallow in Denver, next with Swallow Press in Chicago, and then with Swallow Press/Ohio University Press in Athens. The novella published as “Lilith” in 1939 appears without title in the edition of 1942, as “Winter of Artifice” in that of 1947, as “Djuna” (entirely different from the “Djuna” in the 1939 edition) in that of 1948, and as “Winter of Artifice” in every later edition.

  3. For a history of Nin’s press, see Jason 1984. Nin writes about the press in Nin 1973.

  4. I cannot determine the number of copies printed of The Winter of Artifice. Almost certainly, there were not more than 1,000. In the 1930s, the Obelisk Press published several books by Henry Miller. Lawrence J. Shifreen and Roger Jackson, Miller’s bibliographers, note that it published 1,000 copies of Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), Max and the White Phagocytes (1938), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939); 200 copies of Scenario (1937); and 150 copies of Aller Retour New York (1935) (Shifreen and Jackson 1993, 5, 55, 78, 81, 72, 51.)

  In a guide to writings about Nin, Rose Marie Cutting lists two reviews of The Winter of Artifice, one by Emily Hahn published in Shanghai and another by Alfred Perlès published in London (Cutting n.d., 2-3).

  Maurice Girodias, son and successor of Jack Kahane, owner of the Obelisk Press, relates the understanding between publisher and authors about the payment of printing costs for the three books that Obelisk published in the Villa Seurat series, a series named after Miller’s Paris residence, 18 Villa Seurat. According to Girodias, his father would pay the costs for the first volume, Miller’s Max and the White Phagocytes ; Nin, for Durrell’s The Black Book ; Durrell, for Nin’s The Winter of Artifice. Girodias also records that, at Durrell’s suggestion, Nin and Durrell would pay for the printing of each other’s book rather than their own in order to avoid the sense of defeat that vanity publication might have created (Girodias 1980, 239). However, Gunther Stuhl-mann and Jay Martin claim that Nancy Durrell, wife of Lawrence, paid the printing costs for all three books. Martin also notes that the Villa Seurat series ceased publication (with The Winter of Artifice) when she could no longer support it (Nin 1996, 379; Martin 1978, 330). Commenting about underwriting Nin’s “Chaotica” (a working title for The Winter of Artifice) in a letter to Lawrence Durrell (5 November 1938), Henry Miller writes, “Let us know, will you, if the money is still available for this book? Hope you are not bankrupt yet” (Durrell and Miller 1988, 107). Lawrence Durrell’s biographer observes that “the £150 it cost to print the three titles came from Nancy’s capital” (MacNiven 1998, 183). In a diary entry dated 1 November 1937, Nin states that “Larry is putting up the money [to Kahane] for three books” (Nin 1996, 162). In an entry dated 13 December 1938, she notes that “Durrell is bringing [ The Winter of Artifice ] out in February [1939],” implying that Durrell published this book (Nin 1996, 280). In an entry dated January 1943, Nin records that “Lawrence Durrell backed the publication of Winter of Artifice ” (Nin 1969, 259). Nin dedicates The Winter of Artifice to the Durrells: “To/NANCY and LARRY/with love.” James Armstrong addresses the date of Kahane’s death in Armstrong and Miers 2003, 31, 41 n91. A statement in The Winter of Artifice indicates that it was published in June 1939; Nin reports receiving her copies in mid July (Nin 1996, 345).

  The context of Nin’s comment about censorship indicates that she means United States censorship. Conceivably, she means French censorship. I cannot confirm that The Winter of Artifice was censored or banned in either country. James Armstrong does not include Nin’s book among the Obelisk Press publications “banned in Britain and the United States” (Armstrong and Miers 2003, 24). Jay Martin details Henry Miller’s successful effort to smuggle into the United States copies of his banned books, “one at a time.” Drawing on a letter from Miller to Emil Schnellock, Martin notes that Nin “held the unofficial book-smuggling record by managing to bring in fifty copies on one trip” (Martin 1978, 330). If she smuggled in so many copies of Miller’s books, she probably would have attempted to smuggle in copies of a banned book of her own ( The Winter of Artifice) if she had access to them.

  On 4 October 2006, abebooks.com listed for sale three copies of The Winter of Artifice. The prices, in United States dollars: $600, $962, and $1,000.

  5. Before Johanna’s arrival, scenes shift between the residences of Hans and Djuna; yet, Djuna says that “I had been living with” him (Nin 1939, 81). Johanna’s hotel is mentioned on 71.

  6. In a diary entry dated 8 February 1939, Nin mentions reading proofs of The Winter of Artifice with Henry Miller (Nin 1996, 309). I cannot determine when Nin became aware that Miller’s influence on her composition of this book was too great, although in a diary entry dated November 1941 she notes that she is “revising Winter of Artifice ” (Nin 1969, 162). What Nin means by “just beginning to write” is unclear. The Winter of Artifice was her third book; in 1937 and 1938 — the two years before the publication of this collection of novellas — ten of her short pieces appeared in little magazines.

  7. Manuscripts and typescripts of Nin’s fiction — including those for much of The Winter of Artifice — are Northwestern University, which bought them at the suggestion of Felix Pollak. See Pollak 1952. For an inventory, see Van der Elst 1978 and Zee 1972.

  8. In the draft, the character speaking with Rab is Mandra, who is Djuna in the published version.

  9. For an example of Miller’s sensitive, positive analysis of Nin’s writing, see Miller 1988. Responding in the 1960s to the question “Did you [and Miller] influence each other as writers?,” Nin states, “No, except in the sense that we encouraged each other… . But above all it was an understanding of what the other was doing” (Vaid 1987, 52-53).

  10. Characters based on the Millers appear in fiction Nin published subsequent to The Winter of Artifice. In most of her novels, she uses the characters Jay and Sabina, who were inspired, respectively, by Henry Miller and June Miller. A character (first named Alra
une, then Sabina) based on June Miller appears in The House of Incest (editions after the first omit the definite article).

  11. Deirdre Bair explains why Nin’s original diaries do not exist. Five years after engaging Virginia Admiral and Robert Duncan to rewrite her diary, in the mid 1940s Nin

  engaged Lila Rosenblum to help, mostly to correct her grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Anaïs wrote new versions of old events on lined pads, which Lila corrected. Then Anaïs recopied the corrected pages into booklets, some of which she had Lila type. This generally led to further rewriting and correcting, and when she was finally satisfied with the typed copies, she destroyed the originals. It was a process that went on and on, sometimes “hundreds of times.” She inserted all these carefully typed pages into loose-leaf folders, and when she gave them to someone to read, always insisted they were reading her original diaries. Anaïs Nin carried on this process of self-expurgation all her life. (Bair 1995, 324-25)

  In The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1934 (apparently superseded by the presumably unexpurgated Henry and June), the paragraph about the sandal shop, dated 30 December 1931, reads as follows:

  We walked to the sandal shop. In the shop the ugly woman who waited on us hated us and our obvious happiness. I held June’s hand firmly. I commanded: “Bring this. Bring that.” I was firm, willful with the woman. When she mentioned the width of June’s feet I scolded her. June could not understand the French-woman, but she sensed that she was disagreeable. (Nin 1966, 32)

  12. As early as 1932 Nin considered her diary a source for fiction: “Everything goes into it that I may use for novels” (Nin 1966, 58).

  13. Nin writes in early 1939 that she intends to have “a special version made of Winter of Artifice omitting the Henry-June novel [“Djuna”], all in part one, for Hugo and Gonzalo” (Nin 1996, 305). This she did in 1942 with Winter of Artifice. She might have omitted “Djuna” because, as Noël Riley Fitch asserts, “it reveals more than she wishes to reveal about the June-Hery-Anaïs triangle” (Fitch 1993, 252). Engravings by Nin’s husband Hugh Guiler (as Ian Hugo) appear in the 1942 edition, a volume that Nin’s lover Gonzalo Moré helped print.

  The Winter of Artifice

  DJUNA

  The café table was stained with wine. His blue eyes were inscrutable, like those of a Chinese sage. He ended all his phrases in a kind of hum, as if he put his foot on the pedal of his voice and created an echo. In this way none of his phrases ended abruptly.

  Sitting at the café he immediately created a climate, a tropical day. In spite of the tension in me, I felt it. Sitting in a café with his voice rolling over, he dissolved and liquified the hard click of silver on plates, the icy dissonances of glasses, the brittle sound of money thrown on the zinc counter.

  He looked like Prokofieff. Like a Chinese sage. Like a German scholar.

  “How did you come to meet Johanna?” I asked, thinking that if she were his wife I could not understand her not being there, why she was not there listening to his voice, looking over the book he brought always in his pocket, forgetting to drink because he had been talking about his book which was getting so enormous that it had to be clipped every day.

  “I met her in a dance hall. She was working as a taxi girl in a dance hall on Broadway.”

  “She must have seemed so different from the other women there.”

  “Not at first, and yet when she began to talk… Her talk and her voice. She sat down and she confessed her whole life to me. And what she confessed was all untrue.”

  “Will she come back?”

  “I don’t know. She’s often made promises like that. She may never come back. For the moment I don’t want her back. I don’t like what happens to me when she’s around. She humiliates me, paralyzes me, it’s torture.”

  He opened his soft animal mouth a little, as if in expectancy of a drink.

  “Whereas now, Djuna, I’m happy, I’m too happy.” Then he began to laugh, to laugh, with his head shaking like a bear, shaking from right to left as if it were too heavy a head. “I can’t help it. I can’t help laughing. I’m too happy. Last night I spent the whole night right here. It was Christmas and there were too many bed bugs in the hotel room.”

  He’s a man whom life makes drunk. He is like me. I was surprised how gently he had walked into my life, how quietly he seemed to be living, when all the time his writing was whipping and lashing around, coursing like lava with burning bitterness and caricature. His softness of speech could not temper the watchful curiosity of his analytical blue eyes. Beneath the furry human warmth I sensed a non-human purpose. Behind this Hans with his southern roguishness wearing his hat tipped to one side and perpetually calling for drinks, I divined a more austere personage bent upon creation.

  “Johanna… Johanna wanted to kill me for all that I wrote about her.”

  “It is a very cruel book.”

  “But she’s a terribly cruel woman.”

  “I admire her courage to hurt… After all, she fed your work. She gave you a tremendous experience.”

  “You’re only thinking of me as a writer,” he said, and then I knew that this was not so because while he talked I had been noticing that he was very thin, that although his voice was warm and ample, his body was thin, and that at forty his hair was almost white, and I knew that if Johanna had been good for his novels, I wanted to be good to him, to Hans the man who was hungry, thirsty, abandoned.

  “When I read your novel about Johanna and Hildred, do you know what struck me as strange, Hans? That you the husband, lover, writer, should have been such an indistinct personage. You made the portrait of the two women full length, with bold, emphatic strokes. But when it came to yourself, you made yourself out an abstraction, just a writer, observing, noting, suffering, yes, but all of it furtive, modest, self-effacing. Why? It is as if Johanna crowded you out, as if you considered yourself unimportant except as a recorder, unimportant as a man, I mean. I couldn’t find you. I could only find a man who was telling a story.”

  “Always thought of myself as unimportant… I’ve lived so blindly. No time to think much. Tons and tons of experience. Johanna always creating trouble, misery, changes, flights, dramas… No time to digest anything. And then she says I die when she leaves me, that pain and war are good for me. All the time I’m with her I’m choking with anger. After scenes with her I get terrible pains in the pit of the stomach.”

  This man who cannot be distinguished in a crowd, who can pass through it like an ordinary man, so quiet, so absorbed, with his hat on one side, his step dragging a little, like a lazy devil enjoying everything softly, why did I trust this man, confide in him… He carries such a fertile world in his head, and yet he can sit like a workman before his beer, and talk like a cart driver to the whores, so that all of them are at ease with him. His presence takes all the straining and willing out of things. He is like the south wind blowing when he comes, melting and softening, bearing joy and abundance.

  “Nobody was ever your friend and hers, too,” I said musingly. “The war is too strong between you. One must always make a choice between you.”

  He said: “I could not bear to lose you. You are so close to me, yet you mystify and frighten me too, when you are sitting in your black armchair, like a queen… I can’t explain what I mean. I wrote you a letter, a crazy letter which I tore up. I wrote you a crazy letter, a love letter, Djuna.”

  I wanted to shout, to run, to dance, to sing. But I was silent. Hans said: “Now you’re veiled again. You’re unreal.”

  “Johanna…”

  “I can very well imagine Johanna saying to me: ‘I can understand your loving Djuna’.”

  We looked at each other. I let the moment dissolve into silence, lose itself in the cold light of the café. All the warmth and the reality were dispersed, dissolved, lost.

  * * *

  But when I saw him walking towards me, the sleeping drug of unreality was dissolved. He would not stop before the café table, I felt. He would never stop walking towa
rds me and into my very being; he would walk right into my being with his soft, lazy walk and purring voice, and his mouth half open.

  A strange long silence as if before the end of the world, the end of my immense loneliness. I was dizzy with the end of this lonely world of mine breaking up and crumbling at his coming. He was coming so gently to fill it, to fill it. He tore down the thick veils of dreams and distance between us with an all-engulfing kiss.

  “And I thought we were in love with each other’s writing!” I laughed.

  We were walking towards his room.

  And while we walked together he said: “Your eyes are full of wonder, as if you expected a miracle every day.”

  * * *

  Lying on his iron bed, he said: “I am the last man on earth. Why did you single me out?”

  But I was not to be deceived by his humility. All things were born anew in the shabby room when my dress fell on the floor.

  I could not hear his words. His voice rumbled over the surface of my skin, like another caress. I had no power against his voice. It came straight from him into me. I could stuff my ears and still it would find its way into my blood and make it rise.

  “I’m afraid of breaking you,” he said. “I feel a little embarrassed with you. You seem so fragile.” He covered me with his coat. “Only come to me again, come close to me, come close. I promise you it will be beautiful. I will never hurt you. I could never hurt you.”

  “But I don’t care if you do,” I said laughing. “I want you to be always yourself, and I know there is cruelty in you too. I want to grant you all the privileges; you can be undivided, artist and saint, hungry animal and clown.”

  “You urge me, you invite me to be myself, so blithely, so boldly, with a laugh even. You invite me to venture anything. I adore you for that.”