On the sparkli nu T5 TrawsCymru Electric Bws to Aberaeron one day Ed Garland and I were discussing Anaïs Nin’s infamous diaries and private life. I became desperate to read her fiction but she was not in Gwisgo Bookworm when we got there nor in Ystwyth Books back in Aberystwyth so I sent off for a Penguin Twentieth Century Classics version (originally published by Anaïs Nin’s own Gemor Press kl) of Under A Glass Bell (1944) it has that pale aquamarine-coloured framing around a monochrome image of a lady behind a lace curtain which I find calming. ‘The Mouse’, short story No. 2 in the collection, struck me as the most tender, upsetting, and insurgent parable of solidarity. It begins: “The Mouse and I lived on a houseboat anchored near Notre Dame where the Seine curved endlessly like veins around the island heart of Paris”. “The Mouse” is explicitly “a woman” who dresses fluffily and has become chronically frightened, never finishing the Bretagne folk songs she sings while performing household tasks or obtaining soap or cheese groceries, hyper-vigilantly forever thinking “danger or punishment” is just round the corner. Sad. Anaïs Nin’s “I” wants to help, but Mouse is so scared that “Before every act of friendliness she was suspcious, uneasy”. Sadder! Mouse’s anxious figuration of a water-fountain catalyses her (more-or-less inevitable) trapping due to horrendously messed-up hegemonic culture. If Mouse had only been able to trust “I” ~ kind, assertive, eloquent, honest, considered (psychoanalytic healthy ego metaphor?) ~ all could have been so different. A potentially tragic ending is left unfinished, though: rooting for you, Mouse! A Spar JAM DONUTS receipt was my bookmark.
Part of Under A Glass Bell first published by Gemor Press 1944, various editions thereafter and also available online here
A Personal Anthology 