When I Was Old

by Georges Simenon

  I knew I was leaving, that all these things, including my mother, were already part of my past. It was a sort of goodbye to my childhood. But my mother did not suspect it. She thought I would be there for a long time. Only I myself knew that the cords were cut.

  To some extent that is the theme of all my novels. Reality which trembles on the brink of unreality, making way for new reality. Severed cords.

  Now I would prefer to say severed umbilical cord. A feeling I have again with every new departure. Because there is no more substance to be drawn out. It has all been used up and one must look for new substance elsewhere.

  In psychology, the boy who stays with his mother is treated as a neurotic. In a lifetime, is there only one umbilical cord to cut? To linger in a street, in a city, in a group, isn’t that neurotic too, and a weakness?

  Someone searched for the reasons for my perpetual departures in Pedigree: hatred of my background, neuroses, etc. It’s so much more simple! Need of new nourishment, even if, at certain moments, I’ve appeared to hate, or I’ve believed that I hated, the environment I was leaving.

  I begin to regret having written Pedigree, where everyone is always finding wrong reasons for my behaviour. Behaviour that they believe exceptional, even neurotic, when in my eyes it is quite natural.

  Each time I have settled down, I have thought it would be for life. Fortunately, my instincts have been too strong for me.

  In Marsilly, when I moved into a small country house called La Richardière, my first home after the Maigrets, I was so convinced that it was final that when I bought an enormous stone statue from an antique dealer in La Rochelle (three blocks on top of each other), an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century virgin and child with the head missing; when I’d had it set up in the woods a hundred yards from my window, I decided it would be my tombstone.

  I left La Richardière three years later, without having lived there more than three or four months a year, for that was the period of my trips to Africa and around Europe.

  Nevertheless I had electricity, running water, heating, etc., etc., put in, planted trees, including walnut trees which would take twenty years to produce their first crop.

  There too I cut the cord. The umbilical cord.

  What was it I wanted to say about the Place des Vosges, which was, before Marsilly, my first household? I’ve forgotten. There I had a bar built in. The furniture was ultra-modern, that is, Exposition des Arts Décoratifs 1925. What originality! … And every evening I used to go to Montparnasse as young people went to Saint-Germain-des-Prés later. I wore elephant-leg pants in bois de rose colour, as people later flaunted dirt and wore their hair long. No originality either then or now.

  Like measles – or ‘mange’ for dogs. It was nothing to be proud of. Should one be ashamed of it?

  Mankind changes so little. And there is so little difference between one man and another, between an adolescent and an old man.

  We are scarcely able to tell one Chinese from another. In the United States, they find it hard to distinguish the French from Italians or Germans. They are all Europeans.

  And we are all men.

  If only one could remember that each time one meets with another near-self.

  Still at Versailles. Life together, pleasant and gentle. Hours in which nothing much happens, or nothing happens at all and which one remembers later nevertheless as one’s happiest hours. You will see, D. You are still too young to know.

  Versailles, Wednesday, 7 September 1960

  My dear Sigaux:

  First because of your letters and also because of your considerate friendship, and also because of my trust in you, I have just decided to do something that I always find unpleasant. When it is a matter of a book, a study in a review, or a critical piece about myself, it is a bit like going to see a film taken from one of my novels. I’ve seen only five or six of these films, because it upsets me to see my characters changed by the director, the adapters, and the actors into beings who are strangers to me.

  I react all the more so, nine times out of ten, when it concerns my own person, my intentions, the mechanics of creativity, etc. … Things that seem simple to me suddenly become complicated, and to tell the truth I hardly ever recognize myself. So I am a poor judge, as must be the case for every writer. Moreover, as I said to Dr R. when he came to see me for the first time, it is not my business. He very considerately asked my permission to write the book. I stressed that my authorization was not needed, that anyone had the right to write such a book, with the single condition of not putting words in my mouth that I had not said. I also told him, at that time, that I would not read his manuscript. I have done so. I told you why. And it matters very little that I was somewhat hurt, this does not constitute a judgement on my part.

  However, to you who know me well, who have written what I consider the best pages about me, I would like to give a few impressions. Please understand that I am not asking Dr R. to change anything in his text. I am going to give it back to Nielsen at lunch, without comment, leaving it up to him to decide if he wants to publish it or not. So the notes in the margin are only a commentary that has no other purpose than to give you some very personal impressions.

  First, it appears that Dr R. has taken a conventional point of view, I mean morally conventional, throughout. This is apparent particularly when he speaks of good and evil, of sexuality, specifically of the wish or of the temptation to murder.

  Nowhere do I feel any of the biological understanding I would have expected from a doctor. And he read ‘Roman de l’Homme’, which does not appear to have enlightened him as to my intention, the intention which is the basis of all my writings. In fact, from the beginning, from childhood, I have never been revolted by poverty, by mediocrity, etc. … (or very little), but only by such morality, and if I have, from the beginning, tended to show man totally naked, it has been just because of this feeling. Each stage is marked, it seems to me, by a greater detachment from this morality, a more direct approach to man as he is and not as he would like to be, or as he believes he is.

  Beyond this, R. has confused religious (cosmic) sense with Catholicism, which is something quite different.

  In my opinion, he has committed another basic error. Though he recognizes that I only trust instinct, and accordingly devotes his most important chapter to this, he gives an explanation that misconceives the place of instinct in my development. For example, he speaks of my Balzac period, in some way allowing it to be understood that in the Testament Donadieu I was trying to imitate Balzac. Actually, I was talking only about what I was discovering by living at La Rochelle, and by being the friend of the big shipowners of that city. As to the length of that novel, it was decided (not that I attach any importance to it) by the fact that this book was an assignment from the Petit Parisien, which requires very long novels.

  Also, all the novels of that period are characterized not by my desire to create ‘suspense’ but by the fact that they all were intended to be published as serials.

  My Conrad period? That would seem intentional – entirely opposite to instinct. Not a single Conrad character, not a Conrad theme in my novels which he calls exotic. I was travelling a great deal at that period. And, quite simply, I told about what I was seeing as, in the first Maigrets, written on a boat, I talked about canals, about the North, about the ports, etc.

  Do you understand my position? It is the direction of my development that is falsified by his commentary. There was nothing intentional about it, except to escape from literary and moral convention, and also to escape from the demands of newspapers and publishers.

  I knew where I was going – from the very beginning – but I did not know how I would get there. And I did not know what I would discover when I was free from all that I had overcome without meaning to.

  Where I expected R. to be most original – because of his profession – he went back to Pedigree, like P., and drew almost the same easy conclusions from this book. He also borrows a good deal from his pred
ecessors, P., N., among others, and the best is from you.

  I won’t quarrel with his division into three periods. But he does not give their true meaning to these periods. Still less to my intentions. But perhaps that indicates that my novels do not clearly say what I wanted them to say.

  He did not understand one of the most important in my eyes: Lettre à Mon Juge. Still less did he understand Dimanche, where, like a Catholic petit-bourgeois, he sees the praying mantis in the poor primitive child! Strictly speaking that is his right, but it makes me gnash my teeth. Have I made myself so little clear on this point?

  When, at my home, he asked me:

  ‘Could it be said that perhaps it all leads to God?’

  I answered:

  ‘I wouldn’t say yes or no.’

  This he translated as:

  ‘I wouldn’t say no.’

  And what God? We didn’t discuss that. He places his own, ex officio, as the goal of my preoccupations, as if a hundred others didn’t exist.

  The man who interests me, the man who forever fascinates me, is turned into just the conventional man I’ve always taken such pains to escape.

  Do you understand what I mean, dear Sigaux? I don’t doubt that he examined my work honestly. But he wasn’t looking for me. Without wishing to, without knowing it, he was looking for himself.

  I don’t blame him. Once more, it’s not my business. And perhaps after all, I’m the one who is wrong. I have been given an impression of myself and my work, and it is probably inevitable that I do not recognize myself.

  But a few comments are still to the point. There are too many scientific terms for my taste. I too have studied the works he refers to and this can all be said much more simply.

  This is a first impression. I haven’t been lint-picking. I read it quickly. This kind of thing is always difficult for me, as I told you, which probably explains my severity. You would have written differently, wouldn’t you? And you would have written something different?

  All the same, the work will probably have its uses, its readers. All opinions are worth having. And, I repeat, I am the worst judge. Once Anatole France indignantly sent back the portrait that the painter van Dongen had made of him. I won’t be so ridiculous. And when I’m back on my feet I’ll return to my novels. It isn’t healthy for a novelist to analyse himself, still less so for him to discuss the opinions others have of him.

  Nielsen, however, will decide. I am persuaded that he will publish the work, not at the Presses, no doubt, which would risk making the book look like a puff, but in one of his other houses. That’s up to him. And, for myself, I continue to respect Dr R. without bitterness. Isn’t it also one of my themes that no one knows his neighbour, or even those who are dearest to him?

  All that for your ears, my dear Sigaux, because I am fond of you and because I know you understand me. I’ll be at Versailles with D. until Monday morning. We are ‘incommunicado’, the two of us, doing nothing at all, seeing no one at all, and if I don’t see R., it’s nothing personal. I need to rest, and if I once open my door … But I’ll see you soon. I hope so.

  My affectionate best wishes, and my wife’s.

  Yours

  Georges Simenon

  I won’t reread, otherwise I probably wouldn’t send you this letter, which I wanted to be spontaneous and totally frank.

  Friday, 9 September

  Out of laziness, instead of copying two or three passages I’ve pasted in a photostat of my letter to Gilbert Sigaux on the subject of Dr R.’s book about me. Does this mean that I attach much importance to these details? It would be a mistake to think so.

  For more than thirty years – more than forty – people have written all that they wanted to about me in various publications, true and false, much more false than true. And they go on.

  I have never made use of my right to answer. I haven’t sent any corrections. Moreover, I have not, afterwards, discussed their opinions with journalists, critics, etc. I have said nothing of N., nothing of P. Others are now putting in their oar. All of them pretend to know me, decide ex cathedra on my most intimate feelings, on my instincts, on my opinions (which I have never expressed).

  Is it really surprising that I feel the urge to correct all this? There is something to respect in every opinion. Perhaps there is truth in what these people write. But isn’t there some chance that some of my ideas – about myself – are true too? I’ve only raised a few minor points in my letter to Sigaux. This may help to fix the truth somewhere, insofar as a truth exists in what concerns the individual. Enough on this subject, this time, and I hope for a long time to come.

  Yesterday we went to the Vlamincks’, at La Tourrilière, for the first time since Vlaminck’s death. The house has not been made into a shrine. One isn’t forcibly reminded of the absent one. The mother and daughters continue their quiet life. It is comforting, not sad, and I am grateful to Berthe for her attitude. There exist, then, also undemanding widows.

  Saturday the 10th

  Went to — restaurant just now, alone, since when we’re travelling D. doesn’t eat lunch. Pale sun. The restaurant bright, gay, welcoming, with a pretty terrace facing the fence of the château of Versailles. Made you want to stop there, to eat there. At just 12:30, buses filed past, some of them stopped, from Belgium, Germany, England, even from Canada. Each one disgorged its cargo. The tables were ready, and the meals, arranged several months ago by agencies, planned meals.

  I’m not one of those who groan about the times. Actually, I don’t think they’re much different from any other. As with countries, the differences are mostly on the surface. The Romans knew about spas, the villas, and the traffic jams at the city gates.

  Day before yesterday, in an interview televised in France, Kennedy, candidate for the US presidency, finished by saying:

  ‘We sent you millions of tourists. In return, you must send us some French ones.’

  Not so that they may get to know the country. Not in order to make contacts. Tourism has become a question of commercial balance.

  Once, there was Baden-Baden. Other spas had their day. Then there were jokes about Switzerland, where a guide waited for foreigners at the foot of each glacier.

  Yesterday, in the French papers, it was announced that the government was going to campaign for an increase in the consumption of ice cream, in order to absorb the overproduction of milk.

  The arduous drive to get people to drink apple juice has begun.

  Man is made to travel for financial reasons. He is forced, or almost, to buy a house or an apartment even if he is a nomad. He is forced to consume this or that. Gas must be burned and automobiles must be sold.

  It is even announced, always officially:

  ‘Next weekend there will be ninety deaths on the roads.’

  And the forecast is accurate within two or three.

  The Bible was concerned with the behaviour of each person, with his food, his hygiene. And in earlier times, there were great priests and sorcerers who performed the same role.

  Does the public realize it? Today, people cannot be unaware that their individualism is being scientifically hunted, that if his means are increased, it is in order to make him consume more, and, in the last analysis, to consume only what he is intended to consume.

  This happens no longer in the name of religion, barely in the name of hygiene. It’s an economic question. And it is cynically admitted as such.

  Man doesn’t revolt. Nine times out of ten, he submits.

  One sheep … two sheep … three sheep …

  He jumps.

  And, looking at the faces of the people whom the buses disgorge on Versailles, there is no reason to believe he isn’t happy.

  So?

  Too bad about the tenth. He must jump too, and he can still grumble, which is not yet wholly forbidden.

  Today is a beautiful day and on television I watch the end of the Olympic Games in Rome where tens of thousands of people – as centuries ago – are seated on the tiers.<
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  Sunday the 11th

  This morning, at Versailles, a Sunday morning like those I recall in childhood memories. From a distance of fifty years in spite of all the discoveries, inventions, styles, etc., very little difference in the atmosphere of a small-town Sunday morning.

  Next day

  Back home. Versailles closed on an idiotic note. And we would have it that our passions and our acts depend on personality alone! – when we don’t call it intelligence – when the least change in outward atmosphere influences us. The moon madness that the blacks in Gabon talk about may not be so stupid after all.

  20 September 1960

  Changed the furniture in my study (English now, except for a table, which I’m looking for), books in place. Threw out (or rather sent to a hospital) a good third of my old books. Leaving for Paris tomorrow. I read this passage from a piece in Newsweek of the 19th of September on Sydney Smith, Professor of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University – one of the founders of modern forensic medicine – at the end of his career:

  ‘After a lifetime spent in the study of murder and murderers, does Sir Sydney have a theory about the kind of person who kills? “In my recollection,” he writes, “they have been devoid of the characteristics they are commonly credited with, and [are] quite ordinary individuals such as you and me.” ’

  For thirty years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

  Want to write a novel as soon as possible. If Professor A. will get rid of my dizziness for me.

  25 September

  Arrived at the house yesterday – once more – with the same joy, the same sense of well-being, and a new regime. The four children are under the same roof all at once for several days, the youngest not recognizing the oldest. D. perfect. Indeed, she made a gesture that touched me (her gift, to Marc, of her car, which she loves). But it’s something else, I don’t know what, which gives me pleasure, which makes her closer to me.