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.There was a central building, and private cottages spread all over the mountain between passion vines, hibiscus flowers, bougainvillaea bushes, palms.I walked through a labyrinth of steps and tiled passageways to my own cottage.It had a terrace, with a hammock swinging gently, as if awaiting me.It was a simple room.Through the windows I heard a concert of frogs and cicadas.A loud harmonious buzzing.And a whistle, a slightly mocking whistle, which at first I mistook for a mart's.It was a bird.Everything stirred and delighted me, the softness in which everything was bathed, the humid glistening leaves, the pungent earth smell as night fell, the sea changing colors like an opal.The sandalwood smell of the furniture.Far off, I could hear the guitars.I changed clothes and walked to the dining room.The patron came to greet me with old-fashioned courtesy.He was patriarchal, domineering, and protective.I was in the mood to love family life, children, dogs, parrots, nurses, Mexican cooking, Mexican singing, Mexican guitars.Tenderness dissolved me.An emotion which was never allowed to flower in New York.An abandon to tenderness, to warmth of climate and of people, to trust and smiling.It was a mood the singing of the Mexicans created.In a corner of the dining room, a Mexican woman in native dress made tortillas on a grill.The gestures of her hands as she moulded the paste were rhythmic and ritualistic.The next morning, the sun seemed not only to cover everything with gold but to penetrate into my very body.The air I inhaledwas like a drug of forgetfulness.Every movement I made was pleasurable.The colors of the sea, the sailboats, the flowers, and the papaya on the table, the smooth skin of the Mexicans, everything was a delight to the senses.The communion of eyes and smiles was elating.The festivities of nature anesthetized all thought or sorrow.Acapulco had once been a fishing village, and before that, Japanese pearl divers had found treasures there.When they were driven away, they destroyed the oyster beds.It remained a simple fishing village until the artists arrived.The train did not come all the way and donkeys provided the only transportation.The artists were followed by the real-estate men and the hotelkeepers, but Acapulco remained a village where the wind was like velvet, and the sea as warm as a mother's womb.The first person I met was Doctor Hernandez.He had the broad face of Mayan sculptures, the aquiline nose, the full mouth slanting downward while the eyes slanted upward.His skin was light olive, from a mixture of Indian and Spanish blood.His smile was like that of the natives, open and total, but it came less often and faded quickly, leaving a shadow over his face.I was seeking a new territory, the territory of pleasure, and I felt Doctor Hernandez was not the proper guide to it.I felt like saying to him: "Give me a little carefree time before making me aware of the dark side of Acapulco's life."Everything was novel to me.The green of the foliage was not like any other greens; it was deeper, lacquered and moist.The leaves were heavier, fuller, the flowers bigger.They seemed surcharged with sap, and more alive.Just as the people seemed more alive.The bungalows, some of them with roofs of palm leaves, recalled African native huts.Doctor Hernandez and I sat drinking coffee on the terrace, where everyone gathered to watch the sea and the stars, and the boys diving from the high rocks.He said: "In the tropics, white men fall apart.""I've heard that," I said, "but I never believed it.I have seen too many people fall apart in New York.People always blame external circumstances for their disintegration.The white man who falls apart in the tropics I am sure is the same one who will fall apart anywhere."The sun was setting with all the pomp and splendor of an oriental ceremony.The palms had a naked elegance.The eyes of the Mexicans were full of burning life.Even twilight came without a change of temperature or alteration in the softness of the air.There are so many kinds of drugs.Some for remembering and some for forgetting.Acapulco is for forgetting.Will Doctor Hernandez let me forget? There is no permanent forgetting.We may seem to forget a person, a place, a state of being, a past life, but meanwhile what we are doing is selecting a new cast for the reproduction of the same drama.And one day will I open my eyes in this beautiful, overwhelming place and see that I am caught in the same pattern, repeating the same story?Already I had met the Doctor, lucid and aware, saying: "Awareness, awareness.Come with me and see the illness and the poverty."How could it be otherwise? The design comes from within.It is internal.And yet, the next morning, swimming in the tropical sea, listening to the guitar playing and the singers on the beach, eating the freshly caught fish, drinking coconut milk from a shell, looking at the conch shells brought in by the beach boys, lying in the sun.I remembered that the definition of tropic was "turning," changing," and I felt a new woman would be born here.* * *Index* * *Books by Anaïs Nin available inpaperbound editions fromHarcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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