Letters to Sartre Read online

  Yesterday after writing to you I went and saw Bienenfeld. She was charming. She gave me this little letter for you, which 1 enclose. She told me, in all innocence, that she was amazed I should be leaving for La Pouèze at this moment. But I explained as best I could how I was alone in Paris, how it made me wretched, and how I couldn’t see her properly or even very often. At this point her mother came back, and as she talked Bienenfeld — under her mother’s very nose — scribbled on a paper and showed me the words: ‘I’m so pleased I could talk to you. I’m all right, don’t worry.’ It made me ever so remorseful, to see her being so nice. Her mother wouldn’t budge again, then an aunt turned up, and in the end they started bustling around me to get me to leave, which I did. At the Flore I met a very nervy Kos., who’d just seen off Wanda. We went for a stroll and ended up in Montparnasse, but as I was scared stiff of running into somebody like Zuorro or Mops, 53 I refused to stay there and dragged Kos. off to the Latin Quarter. We sat down outside the Balzar — which was agreeable — and talked about our relationship, with which she declared she was absolutely delighted. Then we went to the Capoulade, and she talked about Bost. She explained to me that again this year she’d often tormented him without knowing why, to revenge herself for the past; but that this was finished now, and what she finds marvellous is to be confronted with someone absolutely alone, who has no recourse outside her. It wasn’t very nice, but I found it more amusing than disconcerting. All in all, when she’s at her best as she is now — serene and trusting and well-disposed — she’s very interesting and even engaging, but not nice. We parted tenderly on the steps of the Saint-Michel Métro, and doubtless we’ll have the most idyllic relationship next year.

  Now the train’s moving and it’s hard to write. I slept, I got your letter, and I took the 10 o’clock train — which now has third-class carriages. I’ve just read Match and done half the crossword. The weather’s pretty fine, and I’m less downcast than when I set out. I’m thinking about how I’m going to see you again soon, and how in any case I’ll be spending my holidays with you. I love you, dear little being — it makes me so sad that you should be there with nothing to interest you. Do keep writing to me, I’ll do the same. You’ve received a thesis from the Lunar Man54 with a gracious dedication, but no other mail. There’s really nothing more to tell you.

  Goodbye — your self, my love, my life. I love you and long to see you. How I need you! How wretched I’d be if you didn’t exist! And how nice you are to me, sweet little being! I kiss you so passionately. I love you.

  Your charming Beaver

  [Amiens]

  Friday [7 July 1939]

  Tear up these letters —

  yesterday’s as well

  Most dear little being,

  I was quite right not to rejoice yesterday — it was a premonition. I spent the whole day in a dreary cafe waiting for Little Bost, who never showed up. It couldn’t have been more annoying. This morning, in desperation, I went to ask for him at the barracks. I saw him — quite obliterated by a helmet — and he’d had to stand guard all day yesterday.

  He claims he’d written to warn me not to come before today, but I never received that letter. It’s idiotic, especially because of Bienenfeld, whom I could have seen for another two days. But it turned out that that wait of several hours yesterday constituted excellent circumstances for reading Heidegger, whom I’ve almost finished and managed to understand — at least superficially. In other words, I know what he means but can’t check out the difficulties, though I’m aware of heaps of them. What’s more, I’m so ruthless at present that I don’t regret a day like yesterday, extremely disagreeable as it was in every respect, for it provides me with a standard day highly suitable for use in a novel — and in a whole number of ways too, depending on whether it’s tilted in the direction of the passions or left as it was in the contingent. I slept well, despite everything. After seeing Bost — whom I’ll see properly only in a while, at 6 — I worked extremely well first in a cafe and then in my room. Now I’m going to do another hour’s work or so at the Chanteclerc. There was no letter from you at the Poste Restante, but it will probably be there tomorrow. By Monday morning I’ll be back in Paris. On Tuesday I’ll see you — I’m so longing for that. I’ve written you a very short letter, but I’m far more eventless if possible even than you. I’ll write again tomorrow, and on Sunday. Goodbye, your self, my life — I love you. The weather’s filthy — my whole room’s shaken by the wind, you’d think it was going to turn upside down. My tenderest kisses, beloved little being — I dreamt about you.

  Your charming Beaver

  Hôtel de France

  Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée

  [Alpes-Maritimes]

  27 July [1939]

  Dear little being,

  I’m dreadfully sorry to have sent the money so late, but I called at the post office only after getting back from my trip. Actually, it’s lucky I dropped by so quickly — I might easily not have gone there till this morning. They swore to me it would arrive yesterday evening — I hope you received it in time all the same. I’ve just found your little letter and it really fortified my soul. Yes, we’ll stay [with That Lady] till the 20th and still have 35 little days left just for us. I love you, my sweet little one, and I’m so impatient for it to be 2 August — I’ll be waiting for you at the buffet when the Annecy train gets in.

  I met up with the Boubou — but I’ve already told you about that, and about our first day’s excursion together.55 The second was quite different. It was a Tuesday and we’d decided to climb to 2,800 metres: 4 hours’ climb, and then some 4 hours down again to Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée. In the morning we took a bus at 6 to get up to a village at 1,500 m. There we had breakfast and bought provisions — it was charming. And then we began to climb. Alas, the Boubou can’t climb! It took 5½ hours to haul him to the top, and even then he didn’t go right to the summit, which I climbed on my own. We slept while the sun was high, tricked by a ‘deceptive’ wind into thinking that we ran no risk of sunburn — with the result that we got our faces, legs and arms frightfully burnt. Then we began our descent. Our route was suitable for the ‘experienced tourist’, but as it happened we went astray before finding it and lost our bearings for quite a while. Then we had to make the descent and, as it was stony and the Boubou only had espadrilles, it was extremely arduous. We took ages and didn’t arrive at Saint-Étienne till after dark, and even then only by hitching a ride for the last few kilometres. He’s utterly chicken-hearted, it’s hilarious! He’s afraid of stones, the sun, Italian frontier-guards, everything — there’s nothing to be done with him. Yesterday, in fact, he developed such a temperature that he stayed at the hotel all day, while I made a marvellous trip — I told Bienenfeld all about it and’ she must have told you: 3,051 m.56 I climbed to where there was just snow and rock, and saw one of the loveliest landscapes of my whole life, frozen blue lakes set in jagged mountains of volcanic hue — it was splendid! I came back not tired in the least, slept well, and am now fresh as a daisy. I’m writing to you from the garden of the hotel, where a few holiday-makers are taking breakfast in their dressing-gowns — it’s agreeable, sunny with a little breeze, like some leisurely country morning. We’re not leaving till 11, for money reasons, since the Boubou had to wire for some cash which we’re now awaiting. We’re planning an easy stage as far as Barcelon-nette. Then I hope I’ll manage to get rid of him. He made a few passes at me the first two nights (we had first a room with twin beds, then two communicating rooms) — but very discreet ones. I hope to be alone again tomorrow. I’ll probably go back up towards Guillestre, but I can’t give you an address — I’ll wire you one more. I’ll send the money as soon as possible, i.e. as soon as I get it. I’ll send 3,000 F., as I prefer not to carry money on me when I’m hiking.

  I certainly have written to Kos., and can’t understand . . . Speaking of which, I’m writing to tell her I made a little two-day trip before joining you on the 27th at Annecy.57

  Goo
dbye, my love, I love you. I want only to see you — come back to me soon. Well be happy together at Marseilles. Passionate kisses.

  Your charming Beaver

  Envelope:

  Monsieur Sartre

  Poste Restante

  La Clusaz, Haute-Savoie

  [Queyras,

  Hautes Alpes]

  [30 July 1939]

  I don’t have time to write you a proper letter, but you’ve got my news through Bienenfeld. I feel quite cut off from you, not knowing what you’re doing (cut off in terms of knowledge rather than the heart). But it’s impossible to give any addresses, as I don’t know from morning to evening what I’ll be doing. At any rate, I’m arriving in Marseilles on the 1st in the evening, and on the morning of the 2nd I’ll be at the Annecy train. Rendez-vous at the buffet — wire if there’s any mishap, but try to avoid one. I’m in a fever of impatience to see you. Goodbye, see you soon. Longing so much to see you.

  S. de Beauvoir

  Postcard

  Monsieur Sartre

  Poste Restante

  La Clusaz, Haute-Savoie

  (Forwarded to Marseilles)

  Footnotes

  1De Beauvoir rented a room in her grandmother’s flat at 91 Place Denfert-Rochereau from the autumn of 1929, shortly after she completed her studies at the Sorbonne, to the summer of 1931, when she left Paris for a year’s teaching in a lycée at Marseilles.

  2Paul Nizan (1905-40), close friend of Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV and later at the École Normale Supérieure, became a successful novelist; he was also a prominent Communist journalist until he broke with the Party after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Serving as a liaison officer with the British force, Nizan was killed during the retreat to Dunkirk.

  3That Lady: nickname for Mme Morel, a rich Argentinian woman with a flat in Boulevard Raspail, a country house near Angers and a villa at Juan-les-Pins, who in 1926 became a close friend of Sartre and his normalien comrades René Maheu and — in particular — Pierre Guille, and of whom De Beauvoir and Sartre were to see a great deal until the 1950s. She figures in De Beauvoir’s autobiography as ‘Mme Lemaire’.

  4Probably Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where Nizan and his wife Rirette had a house.

  5The Llama: nickname of René Maheu, who was very close to De Beauvoir (figuring in her autobiography as ‘Herbaud’) in the year of her agrégation (1929), first giving her the nickname ‘Beaver’. He was also a friend of Sartre at the École Normale. Later director-general of UNESCO.

  6École: the École Normale Supérieure in Rue d’Ulm, where Sartre (1924-9), Nizan, Maheu and Guille were students while De Beauvoir was at the Sorbonne.

  7Reference to the ‘Eugenic cosmology’ (extracted from Cocteau’s he Potomak) which Maheu and his friends affected during their university years (see S. de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, London 1963, pp.321-4), and which distinguished various castes: the Eugenes, the Marrhanes, the Mortimer, etc. ‘Humous’ or earthy women are those who ‘have a future’ (De Beauvoir was one).

  8Meteorological station at Saint-Symphorien near Tours, where Sartre was doing his military service starting in this month of January 1930, after a training period at Saint-Cyr (November-December 1929).

  9Sartre was on a Norwegian cruise with his mother and stepfather.

  10For this night spent on Mont Mézenc, see The Prime of Life, London 1965, p.217,

  11Michel Collinet was a friend of De Beauvoir’s lifelong friend Colette Audry, who had been a colleague at the Lycée Jeanne d’Arc at Rouen in 1932. For a portrait of him, see The Prime of Life, p. 120.

  12‘She’ Is Olga Kosakiewitch (subsequently Olga Bost; stage name ‘Olga Dominique’; figures in De Beauvoir’s autobiography simply as Olga D., and in her editions of Sartre’s war diaries and correspondence as ‘Zazoulich’), a pupil of De Beauvoir at Rouen in 1933 who subsequently formed an intense, triangular relationship with De Beauvoir and Sartre in 1935-6. Subsequently married to Sartre’s pupil and lifelong friend Jacques-Laurent Bost. In these letters, usually K. or Kos.

  13Erlebnis (plural Erlebnisse): term borrowed from phenomenology and meaning ‘lived experience’, though De Beauvoir and Sartre commonly used it in the sense of ‘emotion’ or ‘rapture’.

  14On their return from a trip to Greece in the summer of 1937, Sartre and De Beauvoir had spent two days together in Marseilles, after which he had returned to Paris while she went off for a little trip round Alsace with Olga.

  15In 1931-2, when she was teaching in Marseilles.

  16Sartre had just been appointed to the Lycée Pasteur, at Neuilly (on the western outskirts of Paris), after completing a year of teaching at Laon.

  17Trip through Alsace described in The Prime of Life, p.313.

  1801ga Kosakiewitch, see n. 12 above.

  19Walking holiday described in The Prime of Life, p.326.

  20Charles Daly King, author of The Psychology of Consciousness (1932), published several novels in the thirties, including Arrogant Alibi, Bermuda Burial, Careless Corpse and The Curious Mr Tarrant.

  21Bianca Bienenfeld. Former pupil of De Beauvoir’s at the Lycée Molière (in the 16th Arrondissement) in 1838, of Polish-Jewish origin, who became her lover, had a brief affair with Sartre in July/August 1939 prior to his mobilization, and figures as ‘Louise Védrine’ or ‘V.’ in De Beauvoir’s editions of Sartre’s correspondence and war diaries. Subsequently (1941) married Bernard Lamblin, Sartre’s former pupil from the Lycée Pasteur in 1939.

  22‘We’ = herself and Jacques-Laurent Bost. Bost had been a pupil of Sartre’s at the Lycée François I in Le Havre (1934-5), and was known as Little Bost to distinguish him from his elder brother Pierre, writer and chief editor of Marianne. Married Olga Kosakiewitch, and remained a lifelong friend and colleague of De Beauvoir and Sartre. For his portrait, see The Prime of Life, p.245-7.

  23The Cours Adeline Désir was an exclusive Catholic private school in the 6th Arrondissement of Paris, attended by De Beauvoir from 1913 until 1924 (when she was 16).

  24Anecdote recounted by Sartre in his letter of 14 July: see Lettres au Castor, vol. 1, p.185.

  25Henry Bordeaux (1870-1963), novelist of provincial life, especially devoted to his native Savoy.

  26By the poet Henri Michaux (1899- ).

  27Gibert: Colette Gibert, a drama student at the Théâtre de l’Atelier (called ‘Cecilia Bertin’ in The Prime of Life — p.349 — and ‘Martine Bourdin’ in De Beauvoir’s edition of the Lettres an Castor, July 1938 passim), with whom Sartre had a brief fling during the summer of 1938. She brought Sartre back into contact with the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who was in love with her. A contemporary of De Beauvoir’s at the Sorbonne in 1929, he was to be a close friend and colleague in the immediate postwar period.

  *Letters 22 July to 20 September 1938 addressed as above

  28They were about to embark for Morocco.

  29The work in question was to become Les Chemins de la Liberté (The Roads to Freedom).

  30War seemed imminent — the Munich Agreement delaying it was not reached until the very end of the month.

  31After a few days spent together Sartre and De Beauvoir had to separate at Gien, since he was obliged to spend some time with his mother and stepfather.

  32Nouvelle Revue Française.

  33Charles Dullin (1885-1949), actor and producer, founder in 1921 of the Théâtre de l’Atelier. One of the foremost producers of avant-garde theatre in the years leading up to and immediately following the war, Dullin was both a friend of De Beauvoir and Sartre (living as he did with ‘Toulouse’ — see note 63 below) and the original producer of Sartre’s first play staged in Paris, The Flies.

  34Delarue: fellow drama student with Olga at the Théâtre de l’ Atelier.

  35For a portrait of the actress Madeleine Robinson, see The Prime of Life, p.348.

  36The Inspector General at the ministry of education.

  37Nickname of De Beauvoir’s younger sister Hélène, married to Sartre’s former pup
il from Le Havre, Lionel de Roulet.

  *Letters 3 to 8 July 1938 addressed as above

  38Wanda Kosakiewitch, Olga’s younger sister and likewise an actress (stage name Marie Olivier), appears in Sartre’s war diaries and correspondence edited by De Beauvoir as ‘Tania Zazoulich’. Her pursuit and seduction by, and relationship with, Sartre loom large in the Lettres au Castor, and she was to remain a lifelong friend (see Adieux. A Farewell to Sartre, London 1984, passim).

  39Mme Morel’s house near Angers.

  40De Beauvoir was getting ready to visit Bost, who was doing his military service at Amiens. It was advisable for this visit to be concealed from both Olga (who was already in a relationship with Bost) and Bianca Bienenfeld. Moreover, De Beauvoir could not claim to be with Sartre at Saint-Fargeau near Saint-Sauveur, since Wanda — in love with Sartre — was proving extremely jealous.

  41Gégé = Géraldine Pardo, lifelong friend of De Beauvoir from 1929, when she first met her through her sister. An artist and designer, she often used to lend money to De Beauvoir and Sartre in the prewar period.