Letters to Sartre

by Simone de Beauvoir

  11 o’clock. I’ve just called in at the hotel to see if there were any letters for me — but there weren’t. The good lady told me they’d taken the poor hermaphrodite away in handcuffs some two months earlier: she’s in a camp at St Germain-les-Belles, and the good lady read me a pitiful letter in which she complains of her troubles and asks for a bit of money.

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  After that it was Thursday. I went to school — in a state of dreary dejection, as usual. I called in at the hotel, and that’s when I had your note, my love. I was quite overcome by it. It was strange, because it represented so many things, yet at the same time it was nothing. I turned it vainly between my fingers: nothing changed around me, and I didn’t see you appear at the end of the street. I began writing you a first letter, but then Sorokine came to have lunch with me at the Dome. She demanded that I show her a letter from Bienenfeld, but as they were all too passionate I refused. Then she had the sulks for quite a while, while I picked up a book. She pinched me till the blood came, and I responded with a little slap — which so outraged her that she swept out and I didn’t see her for the rest of the day. That suited me very well, since I wanted to remain alone with you. I wrote to you, went to the Rue du Louvre278 — where I ascertained that I had the right to write to you — then wrote a second letter at the café Delcour. After that, I went for a long walk through Paris — Rue du Faubourg St Denis, Boulevard Sébastopol, the boulevards, the Champs-Élysées — it was all teeming with people and overflowing with provisions. I was happy and felt that life was going to be reborn. That evening I had dinner with my parents, and listened to a good concert — Schumann, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel, Firebird — then returned home at 10.30, sure that I’d find Sorokine there and determined to get shot of any explanation in a quarter of an hour. But like a madwoman, after waiting a long time for me she’d decided to wash her hair — and met me with her hair all soapy and her soul in fury.

  She didn’t want to go home, of course. I wasn’t angry, but I was determined not to let her tyrannize me, so — amid complaints, blows, clinches and threats — I eventually threw her out. But at 11 she began ringing the bell again — she’d been waiting on the stairs. I let her languish there for half an hour — I was reading — then opened the door, threw the mattress and blankets into the corridor for her, and in a few choice words gave her a piece of my mind. Then I closed the door again and went to sleep — though very poorly. Apparently, all night long she never stopped pacing up and down the flat in a towering rage. At 7 in the morning she knocked at my door, in order to wake me up and have a reconciliation. Since I was firmly asleep, this outraged me — and I spoke to her in such terms that she was terrified and made herself scarce. After that, I went back to sleep — and I’ve already told you about my day of reading, letters to yourself, walking, and Hegel. I didn’t see her till evening, subdued and melancholy. But yesterday we made up altogether, at lunch and in the evening, and now all will be idyllic until the next crisis. I think I’ve intimidated her so much that she won’t start that kind of violent scene again. It’s entertaining from afar but pretty odious close up, especially when it becomes regular and mechanical. Apart from that, she can be charming.

  There you are, my little one! I’m now writing to you from the Deux Magots, having come down here in the course of this letter just in order to move around a bit. I find it very hard to stay put. Now that I’m expecting you, the days drag terribly. I phoned Toulouse — she has been in Paris since Tuesday — and am going to see her shortly, which will provide a resource. I’m enormously glad to be seeing her — I have such a need to talk! She returned with what she could carry on her back, and is rather worried she may have lost all her papers and precious notes, which she sent off as registered luggage. I’ll tell you everything properly tomorrow.

  But have you had these letters? How hard it is, not knowing anything more about you! I can’t stop fretting, my love. Every time I get bored, it’s like experiencing the same boredom you must feel yourself — and that wrings my heart. Everything about you comes back to me — your gestures, your expressions, your voice, your words — o delectable little being, who from your head to your feet are made to gladden the heart. Moreover, I’m no longer as rational as before — I count the hours and can’t stay still in one place. I’ve never known anything like this time, which is now pure waiting — and so very long! Honestly, I’m waiting, and measuring the moments, as though you were going to arrive this very evening. I’m waiting as one does when there are only a few hours left to while away, yet I know I’ll have to start again tomorrow — and again after that — and again for day after day. My love, I live absolutely for you alone now. I kiss you, my sweet little one. I’d like to hug your little person tight, so tight, and keep it for ever.

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Tuesday 16 July [1940]

  My love

  I’ve just received from La Pouèze a mysterious little note dated 28 June, in which you inform me you’re well. And I’ve also been forwarded a long letter dated 9 June, which is old but as you can imagine very apposite, since in it you envisage precisely the present situation — and with optimism, I must say. That’s exactly what I think about you: that you and I shall always be able to find a joy in looking, understanding and, if need be, living anew. My love, I felt that — through that old letter — you were speaking to me in the present. You know you won’t find me moaning but, on the contrary, full of experience and reason, and full of enthusiasm to make a new start with you. Only I’m waiting for you to clarify what I think — everything’s still confused. How I wish we could talk! I’m full of rather aggressive optimism this evening, because I’ve seen B. again and she has the gift of reinvigorating me by the very excess of her despair — though it’s true her situation isn’t the same as mine.

  I’ve had some fresh news of Bost — dating from 8 July. It seems certain that your notebooks are safe — which is well done, after all.279 He’s cured and off to Marseilles for 10 days, after which he’ll doubtless be sent to some depot.

  Oh! I don’t know why, but this evening I feel I’m really going to see you again, my little one. I’ll be happy again, since happiness is you. How we’ll talk! How I’ll gaze at you! How I’ll listen to you and kiss you, my love!

  Yesterday evening, by contrast, I was really dismal. After writing to you, I drafted some notes on Hegel, then went to listen to some Debussy at my parents’ place: some piano music, and a curious sonata for flute, harp and viola — which is beautiful and pleasing. They kept me for a meal, then I went to the Dome to finish my notes on Hegel (or continue them, at least), and Sorokine came along at about 10. We talked and then I took her home with me, where we talked tenderly till midnight.

  This morning I went to school by bicycle, like a real lusty wench. Two hours of lessons. Then — by bicycle again — I went over to Rue François-ler, to the Red Cross, to ask whether I could send you parcels. They told me no, but that on the other hand there was every chance you’d receive my letters. I went to the Nationale, ate in a little milk bar, and between 12.30 and 5 finished a book on Debussy and almost finished Hegel’s Phenomenology — tomorrow it’ll be over and done with. After that I returned by bicycle to the Dome where I found Sorokine, who told me B. was there, hunting for me all over the neighbourhood. S. had sent her to my grandmother’s in order to get rid of her, but for my part I wanted to see B. — for the sake of something new. So I spent some time trying to find her, eventually meeting up with her at the Dome. We talked for two hours, but it wasn’t very interesting. I was disappointed — just as I’ve explained to you I used to be every time I found myself with anyone other than you. Then, at 7.30, I went to my parents’ flat to listen to Ravel’s Quartet. I found 12 letters, including the two from you I’ve mentioned, four from Bost, the same number from Kos., one from Sorokine, one from Poupette, and some cables from Bienenfeld. I began reading all this, listened to the wireless, then went down to wri
te to you for a while in a cafè. Now I’m going back up to have dinner with my parents, while listening to a Mozart festival. I’ll go on with the letter this evening.

  I love you passionately, and feel so close to you — altogether with you. We’re as one, my love, truly as one.

  My sweet little one

  It’s 10 p.m. now, and I’m at the Dome. Blin’s sitting outside with his good lady. I listened for an hour to some very fine Mozart pieces, then walked over here sunk in thought about you. I’m happy this evening. For the first time, I can look ahead with a kind of assurance — and think of your little person with all the tenderness in the world, without at once turning to mush inside. My love, it’s your voice reaching me across time which has worked this miracle. Out there you’re a tiny prisoner, all lost among thousands of others, but in my heart you’re gentle light, and truth, and joy. O my little one who, in former times, used to wish to have a necessary face, it’s a pity authenticity has caused you to lose that desire. For you’d be quite moved to see your lovely little face wearing a halo, so romantic and pure — and true, my love, that’s the real miracle. My little one, I wish I could somehow be present to you in the same way that you’re present to me, and wish you could feel a true, solid Beaver beside you — at this war’s end, where you’d arranged to meet — eager to be with you again and follow you wherever you please. I love you, my beloved. This evening I’m thinking emotionally about you as a new adventure, as well as a past. It’s myself I’ll be rediscovering when I rediscover you — yet it’s an unknown, unexpected person, which gives me a strange, dizzying elation. Yes, o little yourself — doubtless all dirty and bored and perhaps quite dismal — for me you’re everything that’s brilliant and alluring and infinitely precious.

  Till tomorrow, my little one, my love, my dear past and my beautiful, eagerly awaited future. I hug you to me with such passion and joy!

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Friday [19 July 1940]

  Most dear little being

  I haven’t written for two days now. This was partly because I was caught first by Bienenfeld, then by Kos., and they don’t leave me alone for a moment. It was also because I don’t quite have the stomach — I still haven’t any fresh sign of life from you, and am really afraid these letters aren’t getting through. What’s more, the essential thing I’d have to tell you is too difficult to write. I so wish we could talk. I thought for a long while the other day about Bienenfeld, whose determinedly desperate reactions irritate me, in connection with the individual’s relation to the historical world: how it’s an absurdity to speak of one epoch being more comfortable and agreeable to live in than another, from the standpoint of the mind. Everything obviously depends upon what you expect of the mind — what you want and hope from it. But, after all, expression as expression isn’t an end in itself. For me, at least, when I express something it’s largely a matter of particularizing the universal; of putting my singular mark on a thought seeking to rejoin the universal. But what if the universal is realized in a moment precluding individual expression? Is there not a contradiction in suffering from this? Can you ask the universal to be such as to allow individual comfort and happiness if, precisely, this happiness is merely a way of entering into contact with the totality? I don’t know if I’m expressing myself well, but this strikes me as brilliant. I was also struck, when thinking about it, by how correct that Hegelian idea was of enveloping the totality in our individual becoming. For when you’re concerned to create a work, you certainly do look upon it as itself a moment of the total becoming — in which the whole past culminates, and which is effectively linked to the whole future. I recall a conversation at the Louis XIV — designed to find out whether we did or did not think within the limits of a human life — in which we were wondering what meaning the viewpoint of universal life had: a viewpoint that excluded the limitation of death and the being-to-die character of life. It seemed to us then that such a viewpoint reduced everything to a kind of absurd indifference. But I no longer believe that. Basically, such a viewpoint is real And the combined influences of Hegel and events have caused me to adopt from within — for the first time in my life — this attitude, not too far away from Spinozism, that always used to be so alien to me. It’s far more accessible and obvious through Hegel, of course, than through Spinoza. Thus I’m living not exactly cocooned in philosophical optimism — for my ideas aren’t clear enough — but at least on a philosophical plane such that optimism is possible. I so wish we could make a comparison between your ideas on nothingness, the in-itself, and the for-itself, and the ideas of Hegel For there are many analogies — although Hegel turns into joy that which for you is instead gloomy and despairing. It seems to me that both are true, and I’d like to find a point of equilibrium.

  There you are, my sweet little one: so that I don’t forget it, a basis of present reflections for me, and for us a point of departure for future conversations. When? I’m- in such a hurry. I’m torn apart and in suspense.

  As for my life, here it is: I wrote to you on Tuesday evening, I think, and posted the letter on Wednesday morning. It was raining. I went to work on Hegel at the Nationale till 5 — having spent the morning at the Dome drafting my notes on him. At 5 I went to meet Bienenfeld at the Trocadero. We walked to St Germain-des-Prés, had dinner in a little restaurant called Le Casque in Rue Bonaparte, then had a drink outside at the Deux Magots. As usual, she was torn between specific individual anxieties and great, vague appearances — and I shook her a bit. I’m as indifferent to her as ever. To be precise, I no longer find the least thing interesting about her in any respect. After that I went and met Sorokine at the Dome, brought her home with me, and we finished the evening affectionately. I tried to explain to her that she ought to resign herself from now on to seeing less of me — but that will be hard. Yesterday evening I went to school by bicycle. I came back in driving rain and called in at the hotel: no word from you yet — but, on the other hand, a note from Kos. who’d slept there. They called her and she came down, pleasing in a fine new raincoat with a red scarf on her head.

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  My dear little one, Kos. is ready. I’m going to keep her only for a few days. I’ll call in at the hotel shortly, to see if there’s anything from you. I didn’t mention, of course, that there was any hope of your returning imminently — there’ll be plenty of time to talk about it once you’re there. O my love, I can’t wait to see you! I live in chaos, so long as you aren’t here with me to order it. I want only an order that’s common to us — and my very thoughts are adorned with question-marks. If only you could write to me, my love! Have you got my letters?