Letters to Sartre

by Simone de Beauvoir

  Yesterday, just as I was finishing writing to you, I spotted Gibert — but she had nothing more to tell me. Then at midday Sorokine showed up, looking quite wild. I took her to the little Mirov restaurant where I’d been with Bienenfeld, and where for 11 F. you can eat quite good Russian food. She wouldn’t eat a thing, and wouldn’t speak either. I painfully dragged out of her that she’d gone back to live with her family, but wasn’t speaking to her father. She’s doing chemistry and finding it a bit too much for her. I think she was beside herself with jealousy because of ‘my red-haired girl friend’. She walked with me across the Luxembourg as far as the Montparnasse Métro station — with me talking and her sulking. After she’d left me and I was going down the passage of the Métro, I heard her galloping at my heels and she planted herself in front of me, looking upset. I was late and said brusquely: ‘What’s the matter? I’m in a hurry.’ Then she galloped off in the other direction, without answering. That’s how she is, all little sudden spurts - of pride, or of affection. It’s sometimes irritating at the time, but all in all it’s pleasing. She’s going to come along in a minute, so I’ll tell you the sequel this evening.

  [...]

  Kos. rejoined me for lunch, since this evening she’s going out on her own. She was resentful at the world, but charming with me — confiding in me regarding her resentment. She talked to me about Bost, to whom she hasn’t written for a week. She complains that their correspondence is made up of monologues: Host’s letters irritate her, while he complains discreetly of her being too cold. This was her starting-point for a condemnation of relations via correspondence, and of absence, and even of all her relations with Bost since last year — saying that they existed in two different worlds and it was better to break everything off. I pleaded Bost’s cause with total honesty, and entreated Kos. to search her heart and write. But, of course, I was also pleased — because their relations, and that mysterious correspondence, are at once depoeticized in my eyes.

  I came back here to work for another 2 hours, then went to the post office to send you Shakespeare and pick up your letter. How tender it is, my love! How I love you! I’m waiting impatiently for the letter in which you’ll pass judgement on my conduct with Bienenfeld. I’m ashamed to say I never ask myself: ‘Have I done well?’, merely: ‘Will he think badly of me?’ I’ve had a very downcast letter from Bienenfeld; however, by a strange defensive reflex, she’s less worried about the definite things I said to her than by a vaguely intuited lack of confidence regarding the black notebook. I regret and don’t regret. I think she’ll accept it, and that it would have been wrong to let her continue down the path she’d embarked on.

  I’ve sent tobacco, halva, ink-capsules — they must already have arrived. A. Menard’s stories are legion, my love, and not very amusing.198 Perhaps it has to do with some night she spent in the jug after being in a clandestine club — but I can’t throw much light on it. As for W.’s preparations, they barely exist other than in her little head, seeing that on Saturday she still didn’t have her identity-card and I don’t think she has got it since then. I’m going to take W. out with her sister one of these evenings, especially now that I’m allotting myself 300 F. extra.

  That’s all, my dear little one. It’s 5.30 and Sorokine’s about to arrive. Then I’ll write heaps of letters: Bienenfeld, Bost, That Lady, mother, sister, etc. and at about 9 I’ll go to the Gerassis’. I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I thought I didn’t have anything to tell you, but actually there has been quite a lot. My love, I think you must be pleased with me, since I’m happy and dutiful. I’ve never felt so violently that you loved me. I no longer read your letters without tears of happiness. How

  I love you! — as you know, sweet little being. It’s so strong, so warm, so happy! My love

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Thursday 16 November [1939]

  Most dear little being

  It’s 7 and I’m at the Mahieu. I’m acquiring a certain affection for this place, which is comfortable and quite a laugh. Just now there was a very Latin Quarter group of old men, with white hair and heavy make-up, arguing over Les Morticoles199 and the music of Massenet, and humming tunes in support of their views — it was all a bit much. My head’s throbbing a bit, for I’ve been working almost non-stop — school, journal, novel — since 8.30 this morning. There’s a good programme on at the Ursulines and I’m dying to go to the cinema, but I don’t know if Kos. will want to.

  My love, I got your Monday letter. There’s a tiny hint of sadness about your letters now, which wrings my heart. I think it’s your poor little tired eyes that pain me so, and a touch of resigned dejection in all that you recount. My beloved, I love you so. This morning, while dressing, I could see you again at the Boeuf Noir, talking to me about my jealousies with respect to Bost, and suddenly my eyes filled with tears — tears of love, with no sadness. It seems such a young, fresh love, my sweet little one, like our spring idylls: do you remember how, in springtime, we often take brand new honeymoons? It’s like that, but far stronger and more serious. It’s a fine success, my love, and you’ll just have to resign yourself — you can’t hope for any advance over that. It’s perfect and there’s nothing to be done about it.

  Well, Sorokine showed up yesterday just as I was finishing my letter to you. She was all smiles and quite charming. She told me: ‘Turn your back, don’t look!’ and when I turned round she’d pinned two funny little drawings on the wall, rather like those ones Kos. used to make. There’s a skeleton in a transparent blue dress, with a monstrous Tartar’s head and a bloody knife in its hand, which I find quite delightful. I asked her to explain her capricious behaviour of the previous evening, but she wouldn’t and I didn’t press her. We talked, we embraced, and I was full of tenderness — I really love those wild, tender ways of hers. What Bienenfeld doesn’t understand, as I think I’ve already written to you, is that you have to take the other person into account even during an effusion of passion. You mustn’t hand out passion to them like a slap. It must remain a gift made in order to be received, an expression of feeling, a gift granted to and intended for someone — rather than being a mere organic outburst. The Kos. sisters, on the other hand, reject the gift — which is also a none too agreeable form of egoism. Sorokine’s just exactly as she should be, and that’s one of the things about her that attract me.

  [...]

  I was at the Dôme by 8.30 and spent an hour writing up my diary, to which you’ve got me quite attached by taking an interest in it. I also wrote to my mother and my sister. Then I called in at the post office, and in the Métro read your letter and Host’s. In Host’s letter there was an absolutely charming photo of him, and this sudden appearance gave me the strangest jolt. He looks as if he has put on a bit of weight, he’s smiling, and he’s not really much to look at — but so alive, compared with the withered images that were all I had left! I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I’ve noticed that when I get emotional about you, my emotion’s all tension, fever and active agitation, whereas with Bost it turns at once to a sick feeling. Often passionate sentiments are superimposed on this and create a tension; but the first impulse is a kind of nauseous dread — which is what I felt this morning looking at his photo. I think it’s because ‘you and I are one’, so if I’m afraid, or irritated, or nostalgic about you, it’s like feeling that about part of myself. It’s something that makes me dependent upon myself, and there’s always the possibility of effective action, with a promise of success. Whereas Bost is a little independent island out there, and there’s nothing to be done about him — so my emotion regarding him is impotent.

  [...]

  I’ve had a little note from Bienenfeld, deliriously affectionate because when I sent her your letter I added a very affectionate note of my own. She says everything’s all right because I love her — I’m awfully pleased. If she could only not be too unhappy about what I said to her, while nevertheless holding it in her mind, that would be a success.
I wrote her a long letter yesterday, sensible and passionate — I’ve high hopes.

  I wasn’t thinking precisely of Aristotle’s eudaemonism in connection with her, for that consists in seeking man’s happiness in the human condition, without any idea of rights. Whereas she seems to imagine an intelligible world in which absolute, ideal, total happiness is realized — and to consider she has rights to this. I don’t understand her very well, since I’ve always wished for happiness but without thinking I had any right to it: thought of it as something constructed by me, rather than as manna fallen from on high. It would never have occurred to me to complain about my parents, for example. You had to win your happiness, as I saw it, amid conditions some of which were burdensome, others favourable. Whereas she waxes indignant at the least obstacle, as though it were an outrage. I told you how hard I found her with her mother and sister, for example. It’s a kind of presumption, like her intellectual presumption. There’s a right she claims to the truth — a naive belief in her thought — which goes together with her right to happiness and her sentimental illusions. It’s just the opposite of the kind of humility I find in Bost, which so touches me when he refuses to wax indignant over his fate, and refuses to let one pity him. But that presumption of Bienenfeld’s is actually just a shell, which is the most disagreeable thing. She’s like the madman who thinks he’s Charlemagne, but if you point out to him: ‘You’re a barber’, he agrees tamely: ‘I’m a barber.’ In that sense, she’s utterly lacking in pride or any kind of self-esteem. And that acceptance of humiliation — after an initial puffed-up presumptuousness — strikes me as terribly Jewish. I thought all this a few days ago — and I still think it — but I have touching images of her at present, and great affection for her.

  This time — goodbye, my love — I’ll post my letter tomorrow at 8, I can’t face going down. I love you, my dear little one — you’re right here with me. You’ve once again given me happiness and I am happy — altogether with you.

  Here are lots of nice little French kisses all over your little face.

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Friday 17 November [1939]

  Most dear little being

  How it vexes me that your eyes should be so tired — do rest them. Does it tire you to read as well? Tomorrow I’ll send you the two books, and Bost tells me he’s sending Moll Flanders and Dead Souls — so you’ll have enough to keep you busy. My sweet little one, you don’t say if this leave business is making you sad. You’re going to be shut away for ages in that little out-of-the-way place of yours! For my own part, it doesn’t cast me too much into despair since in any case I’ll be seeing Emma at Christmas. I’ll almost be able to take better advantage of you like that — but it’s not the same for you. Bost will probably come in December. In any case, I prefer your leaves not to coincide — it would actually risk being embarrassing, since no one would be really free in their movements, especially him. And in sentimental terms it would be so much benefit lost, since the pleasure of seeing him would be submerged in that of seeing you. But how nice of you to suggest it, little being! You’re so sweet, my love. You know that, so far as I’m concerned, when I talk about ‘spending 6 or 8 days’ with you, I don’t mean to place you under lock and key. I’d even once thought that we’d see lots of people, together — I’d like to see both Toulouse and That Lady, and whomsoever else you’d enjoy seeing. Thank you for Mme Pierre’s address, but that sensitive fellow200 doesn’t want to see me there, so I won’t be going — unless he changes his mind, which would amaze me.

  I’ve had some letters from Bienenfeld which are truly affecting, because of the effort she’s making not to make any more ‘demands’. She writes to tell me that it’s enough for her that we love her, and that she doesn’t want to make any more comparisons or demands. I’m going to write her a tender letter. But when the issue arises again, I’ll maintain my point of view. I think it has in fact now been hammered into her head, which considerably reduces the threat she represents for us. I too can see ahead, and imagine her demands two or three years from now. It’s just as well for them to be limited in advance, and all you need to do — like me — is affirm your feelings passionately, but restrict your practical promises. You can actually put it all on my shoulders, if you like. There’s no reason to be too concerned, actually. She won’t have all that much opportunity to come to Paris to see you, in seven months’ time, because of her family — and that blessed family will save you for a long while to come.

  I’m dead tired this evening — though it’s only 6.30. But I’ve got a tart and a Negro in the next-door room who were talking and laughing all night long, so I didn’t get to sleep till 2. Then I got up at 7.30 to take Kos. to the Sorbonne, but Kos. stayed in bed — it’s true that she was feeling sick. I went and worked for 3 hours at the Dôme, then went on to the Biarritz where I met Kanapa and Levy — very friendly. I told them about my trip to Brumath, while eating an omelette and some pate. Then 3 hours of teaching. Then I worked for almost 2 hours at the Mahieu. Kos. joined me there, on her way back from a lecture by Bayet. She’s working beside me on Creative Evolution.201 We’re going to the cinema in a little while, and I’ll have an early night.

  Can you do me a little historical account — a concise one — of the year that has just gone by, from the angle of the threats of war, from September to September. Something very short, but quite precise — it’s for my novel. I need” dates, to within a month. Thank you very much — and do it for me at once, please, I’m terribly embarrassed by my ignorance.

  I was so tired I had to stop even this letter. We took the Métro from St Michel to Barbès, then came down here to have dinner in the basement of the Dupont-Barbès, which isn’t too disagreeable at all — it’s almost empty, with benches in acid-yellow, and I dined extremely well. I’m just taking off a moment to finish my letter, before going to the cinema next door to see The Return of the Cisco Kid:202 the posters are splendid and I’m counting on really enjoying myself.

  I’m ashamed to have written such a poor letter, when I love you so much — but it’ll be better tomorrow. Goodbye, my sweet little one, I kiss you most tenderly

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Saturday 18 November [1939]

  My dear, dear love

  How sweet your letters are! — they give me happiness for the whole day. You can’t know what deep joy they bring me, to the point where I find myself as peaceful and contented as I’ve ever been. For my own part, I wrote poorly yesterday and this evening it’s almost midnight and my head’s throbbing. Tomorrow I’ll write a really long letter, since I’ve got my whole Sunday to myself. For now, I want just to tell you about my life, since I absolutely must write to Bienenfeld before going to sleep.

  So yesterday we went to the cinema. We saw — on purpose — the end of the Shirley Temple film called Stowaway — that brat is even more repellent than I’d imagined. Then a gloomy newsreel — in particular, Maurice Chevalier singing to an audience of soldiers — and then a good cowboy film, The Return of the Cisco Kid with Warner Baxter, which was marvellous. We made our way home. My neighbours were making as though to start talking again, but I gave them a good earful — after which they were silent as the grave. I slept well, but for barely 7½ hours, and woke up tired. Two hours of teaching. At the post office I got your letter and one from Bost, who’s very good and sends a little note every day — he seems glum at present. He’s sending you Moll Flanders and Dead Souls, Please send him Barnaby Rudge. I worked for an hour and a half at the Versailles, and finally shifted off Chap. 9 — the big chapter on the illness, with acceptance of the threesome — and began Chap. 10 on Elizabeth, which I’m enjoying. I want to show her during a fit of sincerity, in a black mood of the Renée Ballon type.203

  [...]

  Has Wanda written to you yet? Her silence coincided with her big evening out at the Hoggar, with the Lunar Woman and Menard. They picked up three men who took them to Mme Feldmann�
��s hotel in Rue Cujas, I think. They were Poles, and divinely handsome. Menard took a room with one of them, and the Lunar Woman hesitated: ‘Do you want me to stay with you?’, she asked Wanda, ‘I’m not so keen on the whole business, you know.’ ‘I don’t want to make you suffer’, Wanda said. So the Lunar Woman turned to the 3rd Pole and said: ‘You mustn’t lay a finger on that one, she’s a real case’ — so he spent the whole night caressing Wanda’s hair. Wanda was anyway feeling dreadfully sick. In the morning, Wanda went to wake up first the Lunar Woman, then Menard — who’d shamelessly slept with their fellows — in their beds. Wanda must have told you the story, but if not, mum’s the word! — I don’t want to play the telltale. I haven’t seen her for ages. She has done an ugly portrait of Menard, and started one of Lexia which seems very pleasing — but she works for only one hour every three days. We’ll go out together one of these evenings.

  I’m the proud owner of some splendid coral-and-gold earrings that Poupette has given me — they’ve been made into clips for me and look really lovely with the turban.

  Wouldn’t you rather send me the films to develop, instead of developing them yourself?

  Tomorrow I’ll send off the two books.

  Goodbye, my love, I’m dropping with fatigue. I love you, my dear little one, my life, my happiness, my little absolute. I kiss you more tenderly than ever.