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Illustrated portrait of Alfred Perlès

A character in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934

Alfred Perlès

The Austrian journalist who shared the Clichy flat with Henry Miller. Nin calls him Fred, and he is the gentlest person in the book.

What they want in in Nin's account

To be told he is the better writer.

Alfred Perlès in the atlas — books, places, and life

The book

Cover of The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934 by Anaïs Nin
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934Anaïs Nin, 1966

The century's most famous journal opens on Louveciennes, 1931 — Miller at the table, June in the doorway, and a woman writing it all down as it happens.

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At a glance

In the book
'Fred' — Miller's flatmate, a proofreader on the Chicago Tribune's Paris edition
Where he appears
From 1932, in almost every Clichy scene
What he is to her
The person in Miller's circle she says stands for her own past — romantic, sensitive, easy to wound
The real person
Alfred Perlès · 1897–1990 · Vienna

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Alfred Perlès was a Viennese writer earning a living as a proofreader on the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. He shared a small workman's flat in Clichy with Henry Miller, and it was his wages that paid for it. Nin calls him Fred throughout, as everyone does. Her first note on him is that he is timid and sad-eyed, a sad clown, and that he echoes and mimics Miller.

He writes about her before he really talks to her: three pages that Miller says he is jealous of, and a passage about her hands that sends Miller looking at them properly for the first time. He is the one who thinks about curtains for the flat, tosses the salad, and makes the stew while the other two work on a manuscript at the kitchen table.

The friendship between the two men is what the diary keeps circling. Miller argues with him about which of them is the better writer and admits it bothers him. Miller also mocks him and once keeps him from a meeting purely to enjoy his disappointment. Nin, who witnessed that, writes that it stopped her friendship with Miller cold.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The first sight of himTimid, sad-eyed, a sad clown who echoes Henry Miller and mimics him, and who looks pale and sickly beside him (pages 68–69).
  • The flat he pays forA plain house in a workman's quarter next to Montmartre and the Place Blanche: uncarpeted stairs, walls thin enough to let every noise through, two rooms and a kitchen, taken on a Tribune proofreader's wages (pages 68–69).
  • What he wrote about herThree pages Miller says he wishes he had written himself, and a passage about her hands. Miller asks to look at them and concedes they are as beautiful as that (page 74).
  • The domestic halfHe tosses the salad, makes the stew, and attends to the curtains and the settling-in while Miller writes. Nin notes it as the shape of the household (pages 69, 75, 97).
  • The argument that bothers MillerMiller reports that the two of them have terrific arguments in which Fred insists so much — am I the better writer, or is he — and that it bothers him sometimes (page 74).
  • Hurt on purposeMiller stops him from coming to a rendezvous, takes his place, and says he enjoyed imagining Fred at work and miserable. Nin turns cold on Miller for a day (pages 76–79).
  • The warning about JuneHe tells Nin plainly what nobody else says to her that early: "June is evil. June is bad for you" (page 70).
  • Left behindWhen Miller finally gets the Villa Seurat studio and Tropic of Cancer goes to the printer, Fred is hurt not to be asked to move in with him. Miller wants to be alone (page 360).
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