The Diary of Others: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1955-1966 by Anaïs Nin

Author:Anaïs Nin
Format: epub

I awakened and saw the hospital bed. “What am I doing here?” I asked Gil.

He said: “We will go wherever you want.”

The Comic Spirit of Anaïs stood in her black cape like an imperious child and said: “I want a pagoda,” and I immediately became aware of the unreasonableness of my request, and wept again. Keeping my hands folded, I seem to feel that I could return to my Arabian city and hear the music again, but the music was lost. I felt my cape heavy, and I felt very cold. I was not comfortable there. I looked for darkness. I lay down in a small room again.

In between the loss of the Arabian Nights city, two things happened. First of all, the physical sensation of suffocating became stronger than that of pleasure. I had difficulty in breathing, such as I had under ether. I not only felt a swelling of the nasal passages, a pain in the middle of the forehead (pineal gland?), but the pain of asphyxiation. I could see I was in a hospital room. I could see some mechanical contraption I took for an oxygen tank. I asked for the doctor. I could not see bodies, just faces. I saw the face of the nurse. I heard her ask for the doctor as one hears under ether. I saw Gil’s face. Then the doctor came. I could only see his face and shoulders. His face was evenly divided into two sections. The left side of his face was normal, smiling. The right side was slightly lower, and was all one large eye—the whole side of his face was just one eye. I was lying down in a cloud and seeing only faces. I heard myself say: “I am having trouble with my breathing.” I saw them both standing there. I must have stood up and tried to walk, for the doctor put his arm around my shoulder and said: “There is nothing wrong, nothing wrong, it will pass. Just lie down quietly and it will pass.” I said: “If you say there is nothing wrong, I believe you.”

I lay down and relaxed. Gil was sitting in an armchair and smoking. I could only see the smoke. I looked at the small curtain on the window and it was made of gold. I looked at the lamp in the middle of the room and it was made of gold. There was a gold light in the room. The smoke was gold. And as I lay there, I felt the undulations of this intense gold were those of myself becoming gold. I was gold. I was gold. The sensation was like the dissolution of the orgasm without the pulsation. It was more iridescent than sunlight, more penetrating, outside and all around me, within me, and the feeling of being gold was the most marvelous sensation I had ever known. It seemed to be the secret of life.

This state was broken into by the doctor opening the door and turning on the light.

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