Tete-a-Tete
Page 42
33. PL, p. 281.
34. Beauvoir wrote to Olga: “I know that often you do not realize your worth,” September 6, 1935.
35. Madame Kosakiewicz to S de B, August 11, 1935, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir archives.
36. PL, p. 292.
37. Olga Kosakiewicz Bost, phone interview with Deirdre Bair, 1982, Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 200.
38. Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 194.
39. Sartre, War Diaries, pp. 61–62. The irony is that Sartre had spent years working on his own character, trying to control emotions he considered weak. At the age of twenty-one, he told Simone Jollivet, “I was born with a personality to match my face: foolishly, stupidly emotional, cowardly, self-indulgent. My sentimentality can make me teary-eyed about the least little thing” (undated letter, 1926, Witness, p. 4).
40. Sartre gives this longing to Mathieu, in The Age of Reason, trans. Eric Sutton (New York: Knopf, 1947), p. 73, but he often expressed this longing himself.
41. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 78.
42. PL, p. 313.
43. Ibid.
44. Sartre to S de B, April 1937, in Witness, p. 79.
45. PL, p. 141.
46. S de B to Olga, October 1, 1935.
47. Sartre to S de B, May 3, 1937, in Witness, p. 100.
48. PL, p. 343.
49. Adieux, p. 159.
50. Sartre’s mad protagonist in his short story “Erostratus” was inspired by uorno.
51. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 4.
52. PL, p. 353.
53. John Gerassi interview with Wanda Kosakiewicz, March 23, 1973. Gerassi collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
54. Mouloudji comments that Wanda was a formidable walker and would trudge for hours, with the steady rhythm of an alpine hunter. Marcel Mouloudji, La Fleur de l’âge (Paris: Grasset, 1991).
55. Sartre portrays this taxi scene in The Age of Reason. It’s one of the instances where Ivich” is based on Wanda as much as on Olga. “He leaned towards her;…he laid his lips lightly against a cold, closed mouth; he was feeling defiant; Ivich was silent. Lifting his head, he saw her eyes, and his passionate joy vanished. He thought: ‘A married man messing about with a young girl in a taxi,’ and his arm dropped, dead and flaccid; Ivich’s body straightened with a mechanical jerk, like a pendulum swinging back to equilibrium. ‘Now I’ve done it,’ said Mathieu to himself, ‘she’ll never forgive me.’ He sat huddled in his seat, wishing he might disintegrate".
56. S to Wanda Kosakiewicz, undated. [February 1937], Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir archives.
57. PL, p. 353.
58. Gerassi interview with Sartre, October 27, 1972.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE PROSPECT OF WAR
1. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 78.
2. Influential friends of Sartre, Charles Dullin and Pierre Bost (Jacques-Laurent Bost’s elder brother, and a reader at Gallimard), had asked Gaston Gallimard himself to look at Sartre’s rejected manuscript. Gallimard declared it “splendid” and “inspired.”
3. PL, p. 377.
4. PL, p. 372.
5. A selection of Sartre’s letters to Wanda from Greece were published in Les Temps modernes, Oct.–Dec. 1990, nos. 531–33, pp. 1292–1429.
6. PL, p. 380.
7. Sartre, War Diaries, pp. 248–49.
8. Ibid., p. 122.
9. S to S de B, September 1937, in Witness, p. 142.
10. Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 197.
11. Quoted in Nouvelle Revue Française, January 1970, p. 78.
12. Bianca Lamblin, A Disgraceful Affair, trans. Julie Plovnick (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), p. 19.
13. S de B to Bost, November 28, 1938, Correspondance Croisée, 1937–1940 (Paris: Gallimard, 2004), p. 136.
14. Lamblin, A Disgraceful Affair, p. 20.
15. Ibid., p. 25.
16. S to S de B, July 14, 1938, in Witness, p. 155. (Trans. modified.)
17. S to S de B, Wednesday, July [20] 1938, in Witness, p. 164. Beauvoir cut several graphic passages from the published version.
18. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 285. The character in Sartre’s short story “The Childhood of a Leader,” a young man who is obsessed with seduction, has the same problem with his facial muscles when he is bent on conquest. “The corners of his mouth hurt because he had smiled so much.”
19. S to S de B, May 1937, Witness, p. 110. (Trans. modified.)
20. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 269.
21. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 269, and Adieux, p. 311. In a Playboy interview in May 1965, Sartre told Madeline Gobeil: “Feminine ugliness is offensive to me. I admit this and I’m ashamed of it.” (The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, vol. 1, A Biographical Life, comp. Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1974], p. 466.)
22. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 267.
23. S to S de B, Sunday, July 1938, in Witness, p. 166.
24. S to Wanda Kosakiewicz, undated [1938], Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir archives.
25. S de B to S, July 15, 1938, in Letters, p. 16.
26. S de B to S, July 27, 1938, in Letters, p. 21. (Trans. modified.)
27. S de B to Bost, August 22, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 57.
28. Bost to S de B, August 3, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 47.
29. Bost to S de B, August 6, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 50.
30. S de B to Bost, September 2, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 69.
31. The novellas When Things of the Spirit Come First (Quand prime le spirituel) would eventually be published in 1979. Despite their immaturity, they are lively and engaging, with ironic wit and pungent observations. Sartre found numerous passages good.
31. S de B quotes his comment in a letter to Bost, December 22, 1938 Correspondance, p. 162.
33. PL, p. 380.
34. She Came to Stay, trans. Yvonne Moyse and Roger Senhouse (New York and Cleveland: World Publishing, 1954), p. 341.
35. Ibid., p. 368.
36. Reviewers also talked about the semipornographic aspect of the book. Its publication was another occasion on which Beauvoir was given a hard time by her parents. “My father has read your book,” she told Sartre. “He’s outraged by the obscenities, and by the fact that you dedicated the book to Kos, whom he suspects of being your mistress.” S de B to S, January 3, 1940, Letters, p. 240.
37. Lamblin, A Disgraceful Affair, p. 39.
38. Ibid., pp. 42–43.
39. My interview with Bianca Bienenfeld Lamblin, June 29, 2002, Paris.
40. S to Bienenfeld, July 1939 (undated), in Witness, p. 190.
41. . S de B to Bost, February 5, 1939, in Correspondance, p. 233.
42. S de B to Bost, November 11, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 106.
43. S de B to Bost, November 27, 1938, in Correspondance, p. 133.
44. Bost to S de B, May 25, 1939, in Correspondance, pp. 375–76.
45. S de B to Bost, June 4, 1939, in Correspondance, p. 386.
46. S de B to Bost, June 8, 1939, in Correspondance, pp. 396–97.
47. S to S de B, late July 1939, in Witness, p. 200.
48. Bost to S de B, August 19, 1939, in Correspondance, p. 414.
49. S to Wanda, September 21, 1939, Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir archives.
CHAPTER FIVE: WAR
1. PL, p. 446.
2. S to S de B, September 9, 1939, in Witness, p. 240.
3. S to S de B, September 4, 1939, in Witness, p. 232.
4. S to S de B, September 7, 1939, in Witness, p. 236.
5. S to S de B, September 12, 1939, in Witness, pp. 241–42.
6. S to S de B, October 2, 1939, in Witness, p. 275.
7. October 10 and 11, 1939, Carnets de la drôle de guerre, Sept 1939–Mars 1940 (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), pp. 116–21. (This new French edition includes the first notebook, Sept.–Oct. 1939, which turned up in June 1991. It is not included in the earlier English edition.)
8. S to S de B, September 26, 1939, in Witness, p. 265.
9. This is my
comment, not his. Wanda had left school before her baccalaureate, and her letters are full of mistakes.
10. November 26, 1939, Sartre, War Diaries, p. 47.
11. Sartre, War Diaries, p. 63.
12. S to S de B, December 1, 1939, in Witness, p. 377.
13. S to S de B, November 24, 1939, in Witness, p. 361. (Trans. modified.)
14. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, tr. Hazel Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), pp. 489–91.
15. S de B to S, October 7, 1939, in Letters, p. 102.
16. S de B to S, November 18, 1939, in Letters, p. 173.
17. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir’s archives contain several letters from Olga to Simone de Beauvoir, full of anxieties.
18. S de B to S, October 25, 1939, in Letters, p. 140. (Trans. modified.)
19. S to S de B, September 13, 1939, in Witness, p. 247.
20. S de B to S, November 6 and 10, 1939, in Letters, pp. 148–54.
21. S to S de B, November 6, 7, 8, 1939, in Witness, pp. 326–31.
22. S de B to S, December 11, 1939, in Letters, p. 206.
23. S to S de B, December 23, 1939, in Witness, p. 424.
24. Bost to S de B, October 25, 1939, in Correspondance, p. 608. Because of frequent power outages, hairdressers had difficulty setting and perming women’s hair, and “turbans” came into fashion as a way of lifting the hair off the face. Beauvoir was told the style suited her. She would continue to wear turbans throughout her life, long after the fashion had changed.
25. S de B to S, December 17, 1939, in Letters, p. 218. (Trans. modified.)
26. S de B to S, December 14, 1939, in Letters, p. 211.
27. S de B to S, December 21, 1939, in Letters, p. 223. (Trans. modified.)
28. S de B to S, January 14, 1940, in Letters, p. 255.
29. S de B, Journal de Guerre, February 2, 1940, pp. 266–67.
30. S to S de B, February 24, 1940, in Quiet Moments in a War: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir, 1926–1939, trans. Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992), p. 75.
31. S to S de B, February 15, 1940, in Quiet Moments, pp. 54–55.
32. Bost to S de B, January 6, 1940, in Correspondance, p. 884.
33. S de B to S, February 18, 1940, in Letters, p. 276. (Trans. modified.)
34. Ibid.
35. Marcel Mouloudji, Le Petit Invité (Paris: Balland, 1989).
36. S quotes Wanda’s letter to S de B, February 23, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 71.
37. S enclosed a copy of his letter to Colette in his letter to S de B, February 23, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 73.
38. S to S de B, February 24, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 75.
39. S to S de B, February 29, 1940, in Quiet Moments, pp. 87–89.
40. S to S de B, March 1, 1940, in Quiet Moments, pp. 89–90.
41. S de B to S, February 27, 1940, in Letters, p. 279.
42. S de B to S, March 4, 1940, in Letters, p. 285.
43. At the end of March 1940, while Sartre was with Wanda, Beauvoir visited Bost at the front, in the Meuse region, getting them both into trouble with the authorities.
44. Beauvoir makes this point in PL, p. 508.
45. Sartre reproached Wanda for not telling him about Olga’s affair. He asked her if Olga had told Bost. Wanda replied that of course Olga had not. Did Sartre really expect Olga to tell Bost, who was far away and who had told her that he had only his relationship with Olga to cling to? This “purely physical affair” was not worth such a bloodbath. Sartre wrote back that her attitude was “charming.” He wondered if Wanda, too, would have a “purely physical affair” while he was on the front line, and not tell him. (Sartre to Wanda, May 26, 1940, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir archives.)
46. S to S de B, May 3, 1940, original letter in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Beauvoir deleted this whole discussion from the published version.
47. S to S de B, May 8, 1940, original letter in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Beauvoir deleted this passage from the published correspondence. Michel Contat sums up these two letters in Literature and Its Cults, pp. 153–54.
48. Niko Papatakis, the filmmaker, born in 1918, is best known for his controversial 1963 film Les Abysses, which made allegorical reference to the Algerian War. Sartre wrote a blurb supporting it, which Papatakis used in his press release. Papatakis’s memoirs, Tous les désespoirs sont permis, were published by Fayard in 2003.
49. My interview with Niko Papatakis, Café de Flore, October 30, 2003.
50. S to S de B, May 12, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 180.
51. S to Wanda, May 11, 1940 (Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir archives) and May 17, 1940. (This one letter to Wanda is among Sartre’s lettersto Beauvoir at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.)
52. S to S de B, May 29, 1940, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. (Some sections were cut from the published version.)
53. Beauvoir describes this journey, giving her own experience to Hélène, in her novel The Blood of Others.
54. S to S de B, July 8, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 233.
55. Adieux, p. 389.
56. Papatakis knew nothing about Olga’s pregnancy until after the event. It was very unpleasant, he writes, to find himself gossiped about at the Flore, subjected to public obloquy for having failed in his responsibilities. Niko Papatakis, Tous les désespoirs sont permis, pp. 260–61.
57. Beauvoir wrote to Sartre about “two sinister weeks due to a sickness of Olga’s, with whom I was alone in Paris.” She could not permit herself to be more explicit. S de B to S, October 17, 1940, Letters to Sartre, p. 342. (Trans. modified.)
58. S to S de B, July 23, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 236.
59. S to S de B, July 28, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 237.
60. S to S de B, July 29, 1940, in Quiet Moments, p. 239.
61. S de B to S, March 14, 1941, in Letters, p. 372.
62. PL, p. 521.
63. Ibid., p. 574.
64. Nathalie Sorokine’s mother would describe the situation, and her daughter’s difficult character, in the official complaint she made to the Board of Education in March 1942. Ingrid Galster, “Juin 43: Beauvoir est exclue de l’université. Retour sur une affaire classée,” Contemporary French Civilization (winter/spring 2001).
65. The hotel, which was at the corner of the Rue Berthe, has been replaced by an apartment building. The artist studios were named the Bâteau Lavoir.
66. S de B to S, March 14, 1941, Letters, p. 372.
67. S de B to S, January 20, 1941 and February 21, 1941, in Letters, p. 367 and pp. 371–72.
68. PL, p. 576.
69. Ibid.
CHAPTER SIX: OCCUPIED PARIS
1. PL, p. 581.
2. My interview with Dominique Desanti, Paris, August 27, 2003.
3. Beauvoir writes that Socialisme et Liberté was disbanded in October 1941. Dominique Desantiand Simone Debout Devouassoux, both members of the group, independently stated to me that the group continued until May or June 1942.
4. Dominique Desanti, “Sartre: Une leçonà une débutante en 1942,” in Ingrid Galster, La Naissance du “Phénomène Sartre,” Raisons d’un succès (1938–1945) (Paris: Seuil, 2001).
5. S to S de B, undated, 1941, Quiet Moments, p. 251. Beauvoir changed the name “Wanda” to “Tania” in the published letters.
6. Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 231.
7. S de B, A Very Easy Death (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 36. (Trans. modified.)
8. Ibid., p. 36.
9. In Beauvoir’s novel The Blood of Others (1945), Blomart, the Sartre character, tells the jealous young Hélène, “Listen, you know I’m not the least bit in love with Madeleine. Personally, I’d end our physical relations without the least regret.”
10. Adieux, p. 312.
11. S de B to Nelson Algren, August 8, 1948, A Transatlantic Love Affair (New York: New Press, 1998), p. 208.
12. Sartre interviewed by Beauvoir, summer 1974, in Adieux, p. 302 and p. 314.
13. PL, p. 606.
14. Ibid., p. 609.
15. Gerassi interview with Olga Kosakiewicz, May 9, 1973. Beinecke Library, Yale University.
16. Gerassi interview with Wanda Kosakiewicz, March 23, 1973. Beinecke Library, Yale University.
17. PL, p. 574.
18. Sorokine’s mother wrote this in her report to the Ministry of Education. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir confirms that Sorokine slept with both Sartre and Bost. Beauvoir and Bost told her this independently.
19. Mouloudji paints an amusing portrait of Sorokine in the second volume of his memoirs, La Fleur de l’âge, p. 26ff. He writes that Sorokine was an aggressive seductress and an inveterate thief. She pursued him vigorously, and they spent the night in a hotel, for which he paid. The next morning she went off with the sheets, blanket, and pillow. He was embarrassed.
20. Galster, “Juin 43,” pp. 139–41, and Gibert Joseph, Une Si Douce Occupation, Simonede Beauvoir et Jean-Paul Sartre 1940–1944, Paris: Albin Michel, 1991.
21. Galster, “Juin 43,” p. 147.
22. What Madame Sorokine did not know was that in 1939, Bianca Bienenfeld’s mother had also threatened Beauvoir with exposure to the Ministry of Education.
23. In April 1942, the same rector had tried to get Sartre suspended, but failed. Gibert Joseph, Une Si Douce Occupation, pp. 218–21.
24. Beauvoir wrote this on June 25, 1944, after Bourla’s death, in unpublished notes: Sylvie Le Bon archives.
25. PL, p. 626.
26. Today this is a very chic hotel, in the heart of the tourist area.
27. Sartre, “Paris sous l’Occupation,” La France Libre (London), no. 49, Nov. 15, 1944, pp. 9–18, reprint. Situations, III (Paris: Gallimard, 1949).
28. S to Barrault, July 9, 1942 in Ingrid Galster, Sartre, Vichy et les intellectuels (Paris: Harmattan, 2001), pp. 41–44.
29. PL, p. 649.
30. Ibid. A hostile press campaign had the play removed from the theater. As well as for Sartre and Olga, it was a blow for Charles Dullin, to whom Sartre, in his gratitude, had dedicated the play.
31. My interview with Dominique Desanti, Paris, August 27, 2003. Sartre asked permission from the resistant writers group, the CNE (the National Committee of Writers), to put on The Flies. They gave permission willingly and praised the message of the play in their newspaper, Les Lettres Françaises.
32. PL, p. 674.
33. Ibid., p. 673.