Letters to Sartre

by Simone de Beauvoir

  Well, I wrote to you yesterday until Kos. arrived. She was sweet and charming, and in the loveliest weather we walked as far as the boulevards. We sat down for a while in a cafe, then went to the concert at the Conservatoire. We found the same conductor — Charles Munch — whom we’d seen once before with Zuorro, and whom we liked a lot. He has a strange, drug-addict’s face and conducts like a god — and he didn’t let us down. They first had a tedious Requiem, by a living composer — a first performance and deadly boring. But after that there was an absolutely marvellous Franck symphony, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so beautiful — I was in seventh heaven. We left there, Kos. and I, still on the most idyllic terms, but when I told her I was going to meet Bienenfeld at St Germain-des-Prés, suddenly her mien changed dramatically and she said I’d given her no warning. It’s possible that I’d been a bit vague. Actually, I’d offered her my whole afternoon in exchange for the evening, and I’d told her basically that I didn’t have a free evening till Monday. She made the most frightful face and said coldly that this wasn’t the first time, that it had already happened on the occasion of Bienenfeld’s last visit — which is absolutely untrue. Actually, she’s merely fuming about Bienenfeld, and any formal incorrectness on my part simply served as a pretext, I made lengthy apologies, pleading my good faith, but she flounced off like an offended queen. At the Flore I met up with Bienenfeld, who was scared stiff of being tipsy — since she had got tipsy, as she must have told you. Actually she wasn’t tipsy at all, but quite charming. Sonia was there, with a big satin bow in her hair, and lots of other people. We’d made an appointment initially Chez Lipp, but Lipp was crammed with people eating sauerkraut, so we just had a snack of chocolate and preserves and went on to the College Inn. The lady pianist’s still there, but the male pianist has left and there’s a new barman, and waiters in a kind of blue uniform with gold braid — it was quite pleasing. Bienenfeld and I talked at length, about seriousness in life and the way she looks at existence as an investment. She was absolutely charming, and I rediscovered my maximum feelings for her — she was gay and grave as in her best days, movingly interspersing smiles and deep looks. She’s funny, because what depresses her is to think that in 10 years we’ll be too old for her to love us in the same way. That depresses her, and yet as she has admitted she wants it, since the detachment she foresees will be free, and it’s freely that she foresees it and accepts it today. She also wonders if it wouldn’t be more ‘advantageous’ to her if she didn’t know us. She also says you’re dead for her: that, despite the letters, it all seems wholly frozen, distant and abstract, and the idea of having to reconstruct everything terrifies her. She’s a strange person, who isn’t equal to her own passions; but she’s far more interesting for her positivism and deep concern for herself than for the exaggerated outbursts she goes in for. We arrived home and some passionate embraces ensued — the truth is, I’ve developed a certain taste for such relations. And then we slept. I left her this morning to go to school. I got my letters, then came to the Dôme to write to you. I’m all the same going to write to Bost, then I’ll write up my journal at length and have lunch. I’m not calm enough for the novel.

  Haven’t you had the parcels of books and photographic materials yet?

  Goodbye, my dear little one. Implore Emma to make an effort — there’s still just time. And even late it might still help me. I’m afraid I’ve been very wrought up this past fortnight. My love, in six weeks at the latest — and perhaps in four, or perhaps in two — I’ll be seeing you. I have such a need to see you. I kiss you passionately.

  Your charming Beaver

  What if you were to tell Bienenfeld they’re going to send you away from the front, and explain the absence of leave in that way? It would make it less hard for her. You wouldn’t have to say anything till February. I think it would be better to tell her you’re not getting any leave after it has taken place, so as not to start her thinking.

  [Paris]

  Tuesday 12 December [1939]

  My love

  I was really moved yesterday to find at the hotel a little package addressed in your hand. It made me sad, because it was Seltzer it seems who’d dropped it there, so he has exchanged his leave with someone else and it won’t be with you. Moreover, the little note you enclosed with the diaries must date from Sunday, and it leaves almost no hope. I’ll make an application on Thursday, for form’s sake, but I’m not counting on anything. As for your notebooks, I’m glad to have them. I just dipped into them for ¾ hour yesterday in bed, looking for nice anecdotes, and then this morning while eating breakfast returned to your autobiography — and found it incrdibly enjoyable. I’ll go on with it this afternoon. I didn’t know that story about the political meeting your stepfather took you to, and I enjoyed the part about your relations with Nizan. One entertaining thing: I read a passage about yourself, dated Friday 10 November, which surprised me by a certain slightly pompous tone of repressed pathos and strained simplicity: ‘I must learn to tear up my past images like old, cancelled photos . . .’, etc. There’s a page of this, whose content I perfectly understand but the sound of which did surprise me. And then, three pages further on, I read: ‘I must record what lies behind the 3 preceding pages, where I detect a few traces of grandiloquence’ — and you explain your state of mind very amusingly. I was relieved and contented — but it’s extraordinary the extent to which — through that text and your subsequent explanations — I could empathize with you writing those three pages. My love, as I read that far away from you, it seems much more detached than at Brumath — almost like the work of a stranger — and I’m charmed to read it in that way. How nice you are, my sweet little one, and how intelligent! I’ve just received a letter from you, in which you copy out your ethics for me. It’s dated Saturday and I’ve put it aside, since I prefer first to read the two notebooks — which I’ll do as soon as I’ve finished this letter — then read the rest of it later. My love, I read in the Métro - or while waiting to give my lessons — and it delights me to have my life all intermingled with yours like this. I’ve had two letters from Bost, which seem a bit less spectral. He’s still too amazed to be bored.

  [...]

  This morning, lesson at H. IV. I wrote up my own diary — which was really behindhand — then had lunch at the Capoulade with Sorokine, went to C. See, called in at the post office, and I’m now at the Versailles. I’m going home in a minute, to read your notebooks and do a good stretch of work.

  Goodbye, my love. I’m sad — I’d like to see you. I’ve been wholly with you since yesterday evening, which delights me. I love these little notebooks, and your good little, right-thinking, fine-sounding self. I kiss you, my love — and I’d so like to see you!

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Wednesday 13 December [1939]

  Most dear little being

  I’m rather downcast this afternoon. I’ve just been to the police station, and there’s nothing to be done about Emma; supporting documents are needed that she no longer has time to send me, and in any case it takes a month. So I’ve written to the Ideal-Sport to book a room — but my heart isn’t in it. Bienenfeld certainly won’t be coming, Kanapa isn’t certain — it’ll be pretty austere. But I’ll take books and work with me, and mingle skiing with meditation. Send me The Castle and Cassou’s 48, please, and above all the Shakespeare, since I don’t want to have to buy a new copy. I really want to do some reading, or it’ll be too gloomy. In addition, I’ve had a rotten day: two hours of extra lessons; a skimpy hour’s work; and then the Lady Boxer arrived — she’d announced her visit yesterday — and had lunch with me, then stuck to me like a burr. She was terribly sweet, but very tiresome. I promised to go down to Provins on Sunday, which only half delights me. I took her with me to the police station, then went to see your mother for an hour at the Lutétia — and that wasn’t much fun either. Now I have to spend two hours with my Russians,226 and the evening with Kos. It’s really insipid, this se
ries of people who don’t interest me — what I’d like is solitude and work.

  Yesterday I worked well: two and a half hours without lifting my head — it was a real pleasure. In January I’d like to show you at least 100-150 pages in final draft. Then I read your notebooks (I lent one of them to the Lady Boxer, but with countless admonitions — and I’ll recover it on Sunday), and I had more than an hour for this, since Kos. didn’t arrive till 8.15. My love, tomorrow I’ll write you the long letter you request — about the ideas — but I’m only just starting on the ethics. Up to now, there have been autobiography and anecdotes — and a passage on will that I read too fast, so I’ll go back to it. I’ve reached over halfway through the second notebook. I find it absolutely marvellous. You found a method and style for that study of yourself which just couldn’t be improved on — highly effective as literature, at the same time as throwing the object into relief with maximum accuracy. I was so moved yesterday while reading one passage, which brought back to me the whole atmosphere of the Guille-That Lady period — it seemed very poetic. It was still a youthful period, because we were still making ourselves in an unsettled world. And the world settled for darkness, while you settled things for yourself. You’re made now — better than could ever have been hoped for — to the point where you can now take stock of yourself. And Guille’s made too, and so am I, and all that tender uncertainty has been lost for ever. I didn’t formulate it like that yesterday, but I had a strong affective memory — of an intellectual and moral climate in which we then lived. And also a certain nostalgia — although in a sense we’re better now, you and I — for, notwithstanding, at this very moment I feel a kind of faintly desolate harshness in us, with these hard bones we’ve developed. On the other hand, you really made me laugh with that big quarrel between you and Pieter, in which you were so monstrously in the wrong and demonstrated such skilful bad faith. And there were other bits too that really made me laugh — those notebooks are so alive and rich, they’ll be one of your best books, you know. And what strikes me is the novel character of the genre and technique you’ve invented in them — it couldn’t be more individual and successful.

  [...]

  Nothing from Bost — nor yesterday either. He’s too depressed to write, and that makes me dreadfully sad. I’ve bought him a huge parcel of sausage and smoked bacon.

  Goodbye, my dear little one. What restores me to a degree of happiness is the piece of news you allude to. I’m not expecting anything much from your leave — your mother, the need to hide, and all the rest, is going to make me very nervy, I’m afraid. What’s more it’ll be short and hurried. But to spend a long holiday with you at my leisure is something I’m beginning to hope for quite passionately. At any rate, it’ll be a month or more before I see you, my little one — my little one. I miss you so. I kiss you, my love, with all my Beaver’s heart

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  [14 December 1939]

  My love

  How charming and tender your letter was. It’s so nice of you to take care of my summer holiday. I realize that your suggestion pleases me. I’ll walk in the mountains, I’ll work on my novel, and I’ll have interesting company — isn’t that magical? It has cast a golden glow over my whole future. The idea of your leave too gladdened my heart today, because I believed in it with all my heart: I saw you arriving with your trim frill of beard, and I saw us in Paris, deep in conversation, deeply happy. All this brings succour to my soul, which really needs it, resembling as it does this snowy weather that has engulfed Paris. It’s not that the cold is unbearable, but there’s ice everywhere, it’s neither wet nor dry, it’s foggy and pretty dismal; and there’s the fact that ‘Emma’ has to be abandoned; and there’s the fact that Bost is off to the front in a week, which does frighten me actually, in spite of what he says and what you say too — there must be risks involved, at least. I’m wondering whether I should go to Megève. I’m frightened of being so far away, though I do need some querencia and am finding Paris terribly oppressive. And then I don’t think I sleep enough, I’m always tired out by 7 in the evening. Once again, don’t imagine I’m gloomy — it’s more that all my thoughts and my whole way of feeling are flagging. You know, you tell me I’ve changed with respect to happiness, but that’s not true. At most I’ve qualified the idea of happiness, but basically I’m still happy. Life, love, work — they’re still fine, hard objects around me, very real, and if they present themselves more austerely, through less pleasant moments, that doesn’t change what’s essential. If those objects were to disappear, that would be quite different; I can’t at all imagine how that would be.

  I’ve finished your notebooks. I’d have liked to write you the big letter you ask for — about your ideas — but it all makes the same impression on me as Bergson (forgive me) when I was young: so absolutely true and definitive that I can find nothing to say. It’s extraordinarily interesting, and so true that one thinks: ‘Well, yes, of course!’, though it’s devilishly ingenious. All that part about human will and ethics is convincing — I can’t find any fault with it. So I’m quite dazzled by the proof of what a good head you have, my sweet little one. Only I’m greedy for the continuation — I can’t at all see how the transition to practical ethics occurs. So far it remains formal — just like Kant’s good will, which is defined by the will to be a good will. I’ve just read it through again, but really I can’t comment without having read the continuation. I find everything right line by line, I only wonder how you’ll resolve it; what I must assume; and, when I assume my freedom, what I do with that assumed freedom. Send me the continuation as soon as you can — it’s really, really interesting.

  I’ll tell you about my life. Well, after I wrote to you yesterday, I went home to find a light on in my room. It was Sorokine, fixing bright yellow-and-red blotters on my work table with drawing-pins. They were charming and I duly showed my gratitude. We were supposed to work, but we began by tender embraces and when the hour to work came she still held me in her arms. Then, after five minutes, she said nervously: I’d like us to either work or talk.’ I tried to stand up, but she clung to me and kissed me. It was more passionate than ever: she removed a pin from my blouse and a shoe from my foot, in a symbolic disrobing, and attempted clumsy caresses through my clothes. Then — more and more on edge — she seized her notebook on Kant and said: ‘Let’s work, but let’s stay here.’ Then, five minutes later, she burst into tears: ‘We’re not working — I’ll never make any progress.’ I told her I wasn’t fooled. That it was these physical relations which made her edgy, and that in fact the whole thing was a mess and perhaps we’d better put an end to them. She sobbed all the harder, kissed me on the lips again, and murmured: ‘I’d like not to be ashamed of anything with you.’ I defended myself by saying that if we had more complete relations, she’d become more attached to me physically than was sensible, in view of the little that I’d ever be able to give her. But she replied passionately: I’’m already attached to you.’ There’s nothing to be done, she wants to sleep with me. We decided that from now on we’d separate work and embraces, and would just do everything as we thought best. Then she became absolutely charming, cuddling against me and asking naive little questions: ‘whether I’d ever had physical relations’ — I said with Kos. in the past and with you — and why ‘a person’s less ashamed of doing things than of saying them, though it shouldn’t be like that’. And she told me: ‘You’re the first person I’ve ever loved’ — she’d never before placed that value on the word love. She left — radiant — while I remained behind, most embarrassingly embroiled.

  This morning I had lunch with her, after C. See, and her face was expressionless; she didn’t utter a word throughout the meal, and she was half in tears. Eventually I got out of her that it was because of yesterday. That she thought I didn’t care about our tender relations, since I’d suggested renouncing them. And that we’d never be able to ‘advance’ if we saw so little of each other; or else we co
uld advance in intensity — but then we’d need ‘absolutely complete’ relations. When I acquiesced, she relaxed and became charming again, saying: ‘I’ll tell you all my lies — I’ll never again be hypocritical with you’, etc. She also [said] she’d already kissed someone on the mouth, but without going any further — she didn’t say who. I’ll have to sleep with her, there’s no help for it. I’m quite put out — and pretty well smitten — by this little personage. Well, so what?

  Kos. didn’t arrive until 9 yesterday, so I had time to bring my diary up to date and write to Bost. She arrived a bit dejected, because Dullin hasn’t mentioned anything yet — but apparently he hasn’t yet allocated all the parts. We went to eat at Dominique’s, then came back to my place. She made conversation with me charmingly — all allurement and assiduity and little attentions. And she really was agreeable, and even at times funny. But she stayed on too late — I was dropping asleep.

  I slept well, then went to the post office and on to the Versailles, which I always find charming in the morning — it looks so desolate. I read your notebook, went to school, had lunch with Sorokine, went to Henri IV, worked at the Mahieu — and then wrote this letter.