Any unexpected emergence of freedom contradicted all the family’s beliefs: the group endlessly besieged her, making her the victim of “social obligations.” Surrounded by a houseful of brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, and a vast extended family, tormented by chores, social events, visits, and collective outings, Zaza has not a moment to herself; she is never alone with her friend and has no control over herself; she’s allowed no personal time to practice her violin or to study: the privilege of solitude is refused her. That is why summers at Gagnepan (Béthary in the novel) are hell for her. She is suffocating, she so yearns to escape the constant presence of other people—which conjures up similar types of self-mortification in certain religious orders—that she goes as far as cutting her foot with an ax to escape a particularly odious social obligation. In this milieu, it is necessary to not stand out, not exist for oneself but to exist for others: “Mama never does something for herself, she spends her life devoted to other people,” she said one day of her mother. Under the continual imposition of these constricting traditions, any spirited individualism is crushed from the start. There is no worse outrage to Simone, which is what the novel wishes to bring to light: here is a scandal that could be called philosophical, as it deals with the human condition. The affirmation of the absolute value of subjectivity lies at the heart of her beliefs and her work, not the subjectivity of the individual, one person out of a cross-section of many but of unique individuality, which makes each of us “the most irreplaceable of beings,” to quote Gide, the existence of our consciousness, hic et nunc. “Love the thing you will never see twice.” An unshakable, primal conviction, and one that philosophical reflection will support: the Absolute is played out in this world, on this earth, during our sole, unique existence. It is thus understandable that Zaza was risking everything.
What were the sources of her tragedy? Several facts intermingle and converge, one of which stands out: her adoration of her mother, whose repudiation tears her apart. Zaza loved her mother passionately, but it was a jealous, unhappy kind of love. Her surge of affection clashed with a certain coldness within her mother, and her second daughter felt drowned by a mass of siblings, being one amongst so many. Madame Lacoin skillfully did not use her authority to rein in the boisterousness of her young children but held back to better ensure control over them when anything important was involved. For a daughter, the predetermined path led straight to marriage or a convent; she could not decide her fate according to her own desires or feelings. It was up to the family to arrange marriages: organizing “interviews,” selecting candidates depending on ideological, religious, social, and financial interests. Marriages took place within the same social circle. At fifteen, Zaza came into conflict with these deadly rules for the first time; they put an end to her love for her cousin through an abrupt separation, and when she was twenty, for the second time they threatened to break her. Her choice of the outsider, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Pascal Blondel in the novel), and her hope to marry him were considered transgressions that were suspicious and unacceptable in the eyes of her clan. Zaza’s tragedy was that, deep within her, an ally was slyly helping the enemy: she did not have the strength to fight a holy authority she loved so much and whose sanctions were killing her. At the very moment when maternal censure was eating away at her self-confidence and love of life, she internalized that censure and almost went as far as thinking that the judge who was condemning her was right. The repression exerted by Madame Lacoin was even more paradoxical when we perceive a crack in the foundation of her conformity: when young, it seems that she herself was forced by her mother into a marriage she found repulsive. She had to “adapt”—and this is where that atrocious word appears—so she abandoned her convictions and, after becoming an authoritarian matron, decided to reproduce the crushing cycle of events. How much frustration and resentment were hidden beneath her self-assurance?
The burden of piety, or rather “spiritualism,” weighed heavily on Zaza’s life. She was steeped in an atmosphere saturated in religion, born into a dynasty of militant Catholics: a father who was president of the League of Fathers of Large Families, a mother who held a prominent place in the parish of Saint Thomas d’Aquin, one brother who was a priest, and a sister who was a nun. Every year, the family went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. What Simone denounces in what she calls spiritualism is the “whiteness,” the mystification that consists of shrouding class values that are strictly earthly in the aura of the supernatural. Naturally, the charlatans are the first to be taken in. The automatic deference to what is religious justifies everything. “We were only the instruments of God,” says Monsieur Gallard after the death of his daughter. Zaza was submissive because she internalized a type of Catholicism that, for most people, is nothing more than a formal, convenient practice. Her exceptional qualities once again served her poorly. Even though she could see right through the hypocrisy, lies, and egotism of the “moralism” of her social circle, whose actions and self-interested, petty thoughts constantly betrayed the spirit of the Gospels, her faith persisted, despite being shaken for a moment. But she suffered from an internal exile, an incomprehension of those close to her, from her isolation—she who was never left alone—and from existential solitude. The authenticity of her spiritual demands served only to mortify her, in the true sense of the word, and to torture her by forcing her to suffer internal contradictions. Because, to her, faith was not, as it was for so many others, a complaisant dependence on God, a means of being right, of self-justification or fleeing responsibilities but the painful questioning of a silent, obscure, hidden God. She became her own torturer, tearing herself apart: Was it necessary to obey, stultify herself, become submissive, self-effacing, as her mother so often told her? Or should she disobey, revolt, take credit for the gifts and talents given to her, as her friend encouraged her to do? What was God’s will? What did He expect of her?
The specter of sin sapped her strength. Unlike her friend Sylvie, Andrée had been educated about sex. Madame Gallard, with a brutality verging on the sadistic, had warned her fifteen-year-old daughter about the harshness of marriage. The wedding night, she openly told her, “is a bad experience to get through.” Zaza’s experience contradicted that cynicism: she had known the magic of sexuality, of infatuation—the kisses exchanged with her boyfriend, Bernard, were not platonic. She mocks the foolishness of the young virgins who surround her, the hypocrisy of the self-righteous people who “whitewash,” deny, or hide the surge of natural needs of a living body. Yet, on the other hand, she knows she is vulnerable to temptation, and her intense sensuality, passionate temperament, and physical love of life are poisoned by an excess of scruples: at the least feeling of desire, she suspects a sin, the sin of the flesh. Remorse, fear, and guilt overwhelm her, and this self-condemnation reinforces within her the temptation to denounce, a taste for oblivion, and troubling, self-destructive tendencies. She ends up capitulating to her mother and Pascal, who persuade her of the danger of a long engagement, and agrees to go into exile in England while all her being revolts against it. This final, ferocious constraint forced on her causes the catastrophe. Zaza died of all the contradictions that tore her apart.
I CANNOT prevent myself from recalling that each of the four parts of Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée ends with these words: “Zaza,” “would tell the story,” “of death,” “her death.” Simone feels guilty because surviving, in a way, is a failing. Zaza was the ransom; she even goes as far in her unpublished notes as to describe Zaza as “the sacrificial victim” of her own escape. But for us, does her novel not fulfill the quasi-sacred mission that she entrusted to words: to fight against time, to fight against forgetfulness, to fight against death, “to justify the absolute importance of the moment, the eternity of the moment that would last forever”?
Selected Letters Between Simone de Beauvoir and Élisabeth “Zaza” Lacoin, 1920–1929
Please note: Mistakes in punctuation and grammar in this first letter have been retained for authentici
ty.
PAGES 1 AND 4 of a letter from Simone to Zaza, written as a child, aged twelve, in purple ink and signed “Your inseparable friend”:
WEDNESDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 1920
My dear Zaza,
I definitely think that my laziness is only equaled by yours; it’s been two weeks since all I received was your long letter, and I still haven’t brought myself to reply to you. I’m having such a good time here that I haven’t found time. I’ve just come back from hunting; it’s the third time I’ve been. But I haven’t had any luck my uncle didn’t kill anything on the days I was with him. Today he hit a partridge but it fell into a bush and not having [ . . . missing words] nothing’s left.
Are there blackberries in Gagnepan? In Meyrignac we have a lot, the hedges are covered in them so we’re loving them. Goodbye my dear Zaza don’t make me wait for your letter as long as I made you wait for mine. I kiss you with all my heart as well as your brothers and sisters and especially your goddaughter. Send my regards to Madame Lacoin and best wishes from Mama. Your inseparable friend. Simone. Hope you can read my scrawl without too much difficulty.
GAGNEPAN, 3 SEPTEMBER 1927
My dear Simone,
Your letter arrived at a moment when a few hours of talking to myself and sincere reflection had just given me much more lucidity and understanding of myself than I’ve had since the beginning of the vacation. I was so happy reading your letter and feeling that we were still so close to each other, while your last letter gave me the impression that you were distancing yourself a lot from me and suddenly changing direction. Forgive me, in short, for having misunderstood you. My error arose from the letter before this last one in which you stressed a great deal your search for the truth, your most recent aspiration; it’s just that this conclusion is only a goal, a meaning given to your existence, I believed I saw a renunciation of everything else, an abandonment of everything that is so beautiful in our humanity. I can see that you are far from thinking of a desecration of that sort and that you are renouncing nothing of yourself; it is in that, I am convinced of it now, that true strength lies, and I think that it is necessary to attain a certain level of internal perfection where all our contradictions evaporate and our true self blossoms in all its glory. And that’s why I liked what you expressed when you said “saving oneself entirely” which is the most beautiful human conception of existence and not very far off from “seeking your own salvation” in the Christian religion when understood in the wider sense.
[ . . . ] Even though you might not have said so, I could sense that you are now feeling a very great feeling of peace within you, thanks to the calmness your letter brought to me. There is nothing sweeter in the world than feeling there is someone who can completely understand you and on whose friendship you can count on absolutely.
Come as soon as you can; the 10th, if possible, would work for us, or any other date. You’ll meet the de Neuvilles again, who will be here from the 8th to the 15th; so the first few days you’ll find very busy, but I’m really hoping you’ll stay long after they leave and that you will enjoy the peacefulness of Gagnepan as much as its hustle and bustle. I sense that my saying “have fun to forget everything” caused you to feel something like a reproach and I want to explain myself, for I have exaggerated my thought a great deal; I know from experience that there are times when nothing can distract me from myself and that having fun is then torture. Recently, in Haubardin, we organized a long excursion with friends in the Basque Country; I needed solitude then to such an extent, felt it so impossible to enjoy myself that I gashed my own foot with an axe to avoid going on that expedition. I had to lie on a chaise longue for a week and listen to words full of pity as well as outcries about my carelessness and clumsiness, but at least I had a bit of solitude and the right to not speak and not have fun.
I truly hope I won’t have to cut my foot while you’re visiting; on the 11th, we decided to travel twenty-five kilometers from here to the Landes to their version of the “Riding of the Bulls”* and go down to an old château where some of our cousins live. Try to be here, please. As for your train, I don’t know what to say. Will you come via Bordeaux or Montauban? If it’s via Montauban, we can come and get you at Riscle, which isn’t far from here, so you don’t have to change trains. Take whichever one you want, I’ll come in the car any time of day or night to pick you up.
I really want to know how you’re spending your vacation; if you could write to me as soon as you get this letter, I’ll be able to have your news; send it to Marseille, to the P.O. Box. I am so often with you despite the distance. You know that, but I’m saying it to have the pleasure of seeing my pen write a truth that is so indisputable.
I send you much love, friendly wishes to Poupette and my regards to your parents.
Zaza
ONLY PAGES 1 AND 3 of the following letter have been conserved. The letter is written on paper with black edging, used when in mourning, as Simone’s grandfather had recently died (12 May 1929 in Meyrignac). Page 3 also contains an entry from Simone de Beauvoir’s journal dated 1 May.
Page 1:
(PARIS) SUNDAY, 23 JUNE 1929
Dear, dear Zaza,
How can I think of you so very much without having the desire to tell you? This evening, I feel the thirst for your presence that, as a young girl, so often made me cry out of affection. But then, I didn’t dare write to tell you; now, should I stop myself from doing so, at a time when two days without you seems, ridiculously, a long absence?
It seems to me that you felt, as I did, that during these past two weeks we reached a marvelous point in our friendship; on Friday, for example, I would have given anything in the world to have time go on indefinitely between us and Rumplemeyer.
In Gagnepan as well, we had some very beautiful days: a walk in the woods when we talked about Jacques; one night especially whose memory within me is as beautiful as it is impossible. But there still remained some sort of effort for us to reach that point, a distrust of the future, the fear of only fleeting success.
And there was your return from Berlin: the evening we went to pick up Poupette together; the next evening at Prince Igor—those times remain within me as magnificent as promises of things to come. Those final days contain a beauty more rare than accomplishments. From you to me, with a much clearer awareness of what you must deny yourself, and because of that very awareness, a sense of trust, a far more comfortable feeling of affection; from me to you, the certainty of being understood, the feeling that I understand you better than ever, perhaps, and surely the incomparable joy of admiring without restraint what is more totally understood than ever. If we had played at inventing a game . . .
Page 3:
. . . the signs of affection to be sure of preferring him; and that in giving to each one the place in my heart they could hold, this heart remains entirely his.
I often feel that way, almost in spite of myself, for I have willingly forbidden myself to see him again, to question myself about him; his presence, whatever it brings me, whether it disappoints me or fulfills me, is too heavy for me to bear alone—even though I know it will fulfill me.
Good night, dear Zaza
Your Simone
PS: I wanted in this letter to tell you of my affection for you and also to give you proof of the infinite faith I have in you. Re-reading it, I can see that it contains only reticence. This reticence will be more easily broken down by speaking than by writing.
But as for what concerns me, why lie again to myself, to us. Here I have recopied for you, still intact in what I deem ridiculous this evening, a few passages of my notes to which I still believe today with all my heart.
ENTRY FROM Simone de Beauvoir’s journal dated 1 May:
SATURDAY, 26 JANUARY 1 MAY
But knowing nothing about the other person, will that count as nothing to me? So splendidly found once more, unique! . . . Oh! This trick of my heart that wants to diminish you in order to suffer less. Is it suffering? Despite everything, I know t
hat you are so close to me, and that it is towards me, not towards someone else, that you are coming; but how far away is that radiant domain . . .
You are such an extraordinary being, Jacques! Extraordinary . . .
Why always not dare to admit what I know, and be mistrustful of the judgment of my heart? You are an extraordinary being, the only one in whom I have felt incomparable in terms of talent, success, intelligence, genius, the only one who takes me beyond peace, beyond joy . . .
LETTER FROM Zaza to Simone. She talks about her feelings for Merleau-Ponty.
THURSDAY EVENING, 10 OCTOBER 1929
My dear Simone,
I am not writing as Gandillac* likes doing to excuse myself for having been so gloomy yesterday, despite the vermouth and the comforting welcome at the “Bar Sélection.”* I’m sure you understood that I was still reeling from the telegram I got the day before. It came at a very bad time. If P. [Merleau-Ponty] could have imagined the emotions I felt about our meeting on Thursday, I think he would not have postponed it. But it’s very good that he didn’t know; I like what he has done a lot and it wasn’t bad for me to see the extent to which my discouragement could grow when I remain absolutely alone in resisting my bitter thoughts and the morose warnings that Mama feels necessary to give me. The saddest thing is to not be able to communicate with him. I didn’t dare send him a note at Rue de la Tour. If you had been alone yesterday, I would have written him a few lines with your illegible handwriting on the envelope. It would be very kind of you if you could send him a telegram right away telling him what he already knows, I hope: that I am very close to him in suffering as in joy, but especially that he can write to me at home as much as he likes. He should not hesitate to do so, because if it isn’t possible that I see him, and very soon, I will desperately need at least a word from him. Moreover, he shouldn’t fear my cheerfulness now. Even if I talked to him about us, it would be rather seriously. Assuming that his presence liberates me and gives me the happy reassurance that I had on Tuesday while chatting with you in the courtyard of the Lycée Fénelon, there remains in life far too many sad things we can talk about when you feel you are in mourning. The people I love should not worry, I’m not running away from them. I feel myself tied to this world at the moment, and even to my own life, as I never have before. And I care a lot about you, Simone, distinguished and amoral woman, I care with all my heart.
Inseparable Page 11
