Free Collages by Anaïs Nin

came
this morning in a boat loaded with sacks of sugar and sacks of fruit (and you
know how much I love them) to exchange for you and I said, ‘No, I love my
daughter and you can take back your sugar and your fruit.’”
    The next evening at bedtime Varda said: “Today
the kidnapper came with a hundred bottles of red wine (and you know how much I
love wine) and I told her that I loved my daughter and didn’t want any wine.”

And the next evening he told her: “She was here
with a hundred elephants (and you know how much I love elephants) and I sent
her away.”
    Each day she awaited new proofs of her father’s
love. One day he turned down a hundred camels left over from a film, and then a
hundred sacks of paint (and she knew how much Varda loved paint) and then a
hundred sacks of bits of cloth for his collages, beautiful fragments from all
over the world (and she knew how much he loved textiles).
    And then Varda said one evening: “The kidnapper
thought of the most diabolical offer of all. What do you think it was? She had
a hundred little girls, just like you, with blue eyes and blond hair and
willowy figures, and all fit for a harem and once again (though I was sorely
tempted) I said, ‘No, I love my own girl best of all.”’
    But in spite of the stories, it was as if she
had determined to grow contrary to all the women he loved. She let her hair
fall as it willed, never brushing it to bring out the gloss. She wore faded
jeans and greasy tennis sneakers. She shredded the edge of her jeans so they
would look like those of beggars on the stage. She wore Varda’s torn shirts and
discarded sweaters and went out with boys more sullen and mute than herself.
    On her fifteenth birthday when he expected a
metamorphosis as spectacular as that of a butterfly, she wrote him a long
reproachful letter from school asking him to give up “those women.” She said
that she would not stay with him anymore while those flashy, glittering women
were about.
    She doubted his prestidigitations with words,
as if he were a stage magician, as if to say: “See, they have no effect on me.
I do not believe in fairy tales. I am going to study science.”
    When she came on holiday Varda told her another
story: “There was a woman from Albania who was famous for her beauty. A young
man from America came, very handsome, slim and blond and he paid court to her
and said: ‘I love you because you remind me of a cousin of mine I loved when I
was in school. You also remind me of a movie actress I always adored on the
screen. I love you. Will you marry me?’ The Albanian girl took a small pistol
out of her boot and shot him. When she was brought to trial the old Albanian
judge listened with sympathy as she made her own defense. ‘Your honor, I have
been humiliated several times in my life.’ ‘How could that be,’ said the judge,
‘you are such a beautiful woman.’ ‘Yes, your honor, it has happened. I was
humiliated the first time by a man who left me waiting in church when we were
to be married. He was in a car accident, it is true, but still in my family
there is a tradition of unfailing courtesy about marriage ceremonies. The
second time I was told by a Frenchman that I was too fat. The third time I was
“clocked” by a policeman on a motorcycle. He said I had been speeding and I
contradicted him and he said he had “clocked” me. Imagine that. But, your
honor, I never killed before. You know Albanian pride. Until this American came
and told me I reminded him of two other women, and that, your honor, was too
much. He offended my uniqueness.”’
    She shrugged her shoulders. “Women in Albania
do not carry pistols in their boots. And who wants to be unique anyway? It’s a
dated concept.”
    When she criticized modern painting he tried to
explain the state of painting today.
    “There was a painter who was asked to send his
best painting to an exhibition and he accepted on condition that it would be
curtained off until the day of