Goodbye, my little one — my little so-modest one. I shan’t exhort you to climb back on your pinnacle, since you’ve returned there all on your own. I love you so much, my love. I’m all outstretched towards your arrival. I kiss you most tenderly.
Your charming Beaver
Do send the hooks to Bost, wretched egoist — little not-nice-at-all! And send me back his long letter.
Envelope
F.M.
Private Sartre
Observation Post
E.M.A.D.245
Zone 108 *
[Paris]
Saturday 13 January [1940]
Most dear little being
I’ve just found your day before yesterday’s letter, with the description of those Uncle Jules stories.2461 can scarcely have any opinion, my sweet little one. It somewhat disconcerts me, that whole idea of a ‘genre’ — and especially the idea of illustrating your arguments by a story. On the other hand, I really like the idea of little, free-wheeling essays in which you say whatever you’ve got to say on all sorts of topics. But, as you say, work away for twenty (?) days without bothering about me — then I’ll see it all when you come. Are you coming so late then? That really annoys me — first because I can’t wait to see you, and secondly because it’s going to fall at the same time as Bost, which will work out badly (so far as Bost’s concerned, since so far as you’re concerned, it won’t change anything). Well, we shall see. Do come, that’s what matters. If you’re going to Annecy before Easter, I thought we shouldn’t tell anyone — and especially not Bienenfeld — that you can be visited, otherwise she’ll demand half the Easter holidays. Do take care. You know, she was quite downcast at not getting a letter for two days. She ascribed it to the mails, but it left a real gap for her.
Assuming yourself as a Jew doesn’t, of course, mean wanting rights as a Jew. It’s absurd to think that, otherwise assuming your situation as a French person would be tantamount to chauvinism. It’s the second interpretation that’s right. We never discussed this with Bienenfeld.247
[...]
Goodbye, joy of my life, little pure-gold one, little beloved. My life’s full but terribly barren, with abrupt fissurations of pain (more for Bost than for you, actually — you seem so close, not really lost at all). It’s you, and the way I miss you, that creates this barrenness of my whole being. Come back soon, little dew — it’s only in the instant when I read your letters that I grow soft.
Come quickly and clasp me in your little arms, and kiss me, and give me back a true Beaver’s heart. My love.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Sunday 14 January [1940]
My sweet little one
How dutiful my life continues to be! That’s almost another 6 hrs work today. I was at the Dôme and didn’t leave till 4.30, my only distraction having been a handshake from Gerassi, who wants to invite me to a tête-á-tête dinner — doubtless so he can have a discussion with me about the Baba. Oh yes, there was the additional distraction of a rumpsteak and fried potatoes, washed down with wine and with pudding to follow. While eating this I finished Vorge contre Quinette,248 which is very poor. The character of Quinette is ever so slightly entertaining, in a facile way, but the rest’s odious — especially Vorge. So you’re going to get a bunch of bad books, but it’s your own fault.
There was a bit of movement, however, before and after this studious day. First, yesterday evening after writing to you I went to buy some envelopes so I could post my letter, and on leaving the stationery shop on Boulevard Montparnasse I found Sorokine standing outside the door, waiting for me reproachfully: she’d been coming down from the Métro and seen me go in. She had a little scarf round her face and looked quite charming. We went up to my room and there realized — or rather I realized, with horror — that I’d forgotten my black notebook at the Coupole. I was scared stiff it might fall into someone’s hands, so rushed over there — luckily I found it again. We came back, sat down side by side, and after 10 min. of conversation got down to kisses. After ¼ hr of kisses we were in bed — first having modestly switched off the lights. I find it all a bit like an ‘initiation’, which would bother me if I weren’t momentarily smitten by that little person with all her charm. But it’s really momentary. With her, I’m not capable even of that semblance of passion I managed to feel for Bienenfeld, on one or two occasions when she kicked up a fuss about wanting physical relations. Yet it’s a violent affection I feel in her case, because I find her so perfect and charming. She was relaxed this time, all calm and happy and tender, without any tiresome effusion of passion. There were embraces — one-sided. Then she said we had to turn on the lights, so she could read me her diaries — and she read me some charming little passages on the education of her will. But we didn’t get far — having remained in bed and unclad — and the embraces started up again, this time with reciprocity. It’s certainly not what it was with Kos. But I’ve a very keen taste for her body, and find these moments extremely pleasing — especially her expressions, which are ever so moving — and her tenderness, all trustful but without surrender. She asked me what was the worst thing that could be done between women, and I told her the story of Toulouse and Zina.249 She also asked me if we were criminals, and if we’d be put in prison if we were discovered like that. I said no — and she was sorry: she’d found the idea delightful. She went at a quarter to midnight, leaving me in bed — and forgetting her watch, her comb and her spectacles. Kos. told me she ran into her downstairs, calling with some acerbity for the street-door to be released. Kos. helped her open the door - and S. looked at her like a cat ready to spring. Kos. has taken her to her heart — in part sincerely, in part against Bienenfeld.
[...]
I’m not as dried out as all that. This afternoon, while working, I Was assailed by the tenderest, most heartrending feelings of regret at the thought of days spent travelling with you — directed first at you, but then also at the charm of those days and places. I saw again our ascent of Vesuvius — do you remember, my love? Our journeys were always full of adventure — how pleasant it was! And now a little open-air dance-floor has just come back to me — Les Oranges, or something of that sort - above the Bay of Naples facing Vesuvius, one night. My sweet little one, shall we have that again?
How happy I’ve been with you! I love you, my little one — come back to me!
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Monday 15 January [1940]
Most dear little being
I’ve just had two letters from you, so sweet that they filled me with poetry, joy and warmth. O my little one, you’re not a little dead person for me — you’re so much alive, you’re all my life. So when your letters don’t come and I can no longer feel you, I cease to be anything but a poor, stubborn lichen. How cheerful and lively you seem, little being! Oh! how I’d love to eat omelettes with you (but why at the Relais de la Belle Aurore, my love? — it’s no good). I’m glad you’ve abandoned those Uncle Jules stories — the truth is I was a bit suspicious of them, as I told you. I’m also a bit wary of symbols: couldn’t you create a dictator of freedom who’s not Prometheus, and at a time slightly in the future rather than in the past? But I like the idea of you writing a stage play.
What am I to tell you? There isn’t much. Yesterday evening I wrote to Bost, then read a bit of Romains — La Douceur de Vie — which looks like being very boring, while eating some dates I’d bought which kept sticking to my fingers. I dreamt I was fighting in the war and weeping hot tears for my lost youth. This was because of something at the cinema about cannon and trenches which had made an impression on me. Those cannon, which seem so technical and civilized and so noble in the realm of machines — it’s strange to think how they’re just for destroying poor fragile little bodies. Oh! concrete too, of course — but only because of the body hidden within. I found it truly shattering.
This morning, Lycée C. Sée. Then I went to Café La Sorbonne, where Bienenfeld was. She’d indu
lged in a bit of pathos the evening before — just to keep her hand in — and explained to me how I loved her less than you (I make no protest, I’m perfectly happy for it to be admitted), and how the worst was that I didn’t want to love her as much. I got off with mere bruises (verbal ones, of course), but it makes me laugh that she should think I need to hold myself in check. I was cold, cold, cold — more and more so — to the point of feeling a specific irritation with every word and every gesture, almost like with Poupette, which is rather dreadful. Thank heavens, it’s quite impossible for us to see each other more than two evenings a week, I worked for almost 2½ hrs; ate some sauerkraut while looking at a copy of the N.R.F. I’d stolen from school, in which there was nothing at all; then went to school, where I made my pupils laugh as usual — I quite like that class at H. IV.
[...]
Goodbye, sweet little one. How do you manage to write me such tender, immediate letters? I feel my own are dry as dust. Yet this evening there’s nothing arid about the way I miss you; your sentences and your very writing is so tangible, so much you, that I feel as though I’d just seen you. I love you, little one — so alive and so lively.
How did you explain to Wanda that your leave only lasts 5 days? On Wednesday I’m seeing your mother, and she’ll leave your clothes at my place — she has sent me a note.
How sweet you are, my dear little one, to have restarted the letter for me that had wine spilt on it!
Little Bost has received your books safely. He’s beside himself with fury because — thanks to the thaw — he hasn’t been relieved, so he has stayed at the front for 25 days instead of 10. He has been very downcast and glum, because it was so cold, but he says that in a certain sense it’s better than being in the rear, because they leave you alone — it’s just sentry duty that’s killing.
Goodbye for now, little beloved one. I kiss you so hard, hard, hard! I’m nothing but love for you.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Tuesday 16 January [1940]
My sweet little one
How well I can picture you, gnawing your little fists and frantically racking your little brains in search of a subject! The Assistants must be terrified.250 Wouldn’t I just like to talk to you about all that! But it seems we’ll have to wait such a long time still My sweet little one, how bored I am! For the first time for ages, yesterday in bed I started weeping like an idiot while rereading your little letters. I looked at your photographs, saw myself back with you in the pine-wood at Juan-les-Pins — and when you were teaching me to swim, little being — and I was overwhelmed by a desolation of boredom. It wasn’t sadness. I feel you so close — and am sure you must feel my tenderness for you, as I feel yours — so nothing’s really lost. But how empty things are without you! I swear I’ll die of it eventually. Can’t you find some way of sending me your notebooks? Or the novel? In spite of your sweet letters, I so need your presence to grow a bit more substantial.
[...]
Goodbye, my little one, little loved one, little tear-jerker. Oh! you’re no little fossil, my love, I can feel you all alive — which makes me laugh when I read your letters. I love you.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Wednesday 17 January [1940]
Most dear little being
I’m full of excitement, because this new chapter I’m inserting into my novel (in the first part, which you know) is going marvellously, and I’ve made lots of happy innovations. I really think you’ll heap me with praises when you read my 250 pages (for there’ll be at least 250, o little so-tardy one). At this rate, if I work during the summer holidays the whole thing will be finished in October. That would make me incredibly happy.
[...]
I made my escape and arrived at the Brasserie Lutétia, where your mother had been churlish enough to fix for us to meet. I worked there for a good hour and started this letter, but then your mother arrived — with a somewhat ravaged expression, poor woman. Not seeing you has cast her into a depression and she’s eating her heart out. She’s very decent: she’s asking only for the lunches I promised her, and an afternoon when she’ll take us to the cinema. She claims you’re keen to change clothes at their place. So if you arrive in the evening, does that mean you’ll be gallivanting around as a soldier? Well, after all, you see so many of them that no one even notices — and you can go anywhere in the hero’s uniform.
There — she has just left, after her very punctual little hour. As for me, I’ve finished this letter and I’m leaving too, to pick up your letter from the post office. I’ll add a note to tell you if it was there all right.
There was nothing! How’s this? I hope you’re not going to play the night observation trick on me?251 But I think I’ll get two tomorrow, so I’m not pathetic’ — as Bienenfeld would say heroically. Now I’m off to see Sorokine. I’ll have a little half-hour to write to Bost — then I’ll see Bienenfeld.
Goodbye, o little so-awaited and so-desired one. Do hurry up and become a little welcome one! — so that in our correspondence there’ll be one of those gaps which deceive the benevolent reader, who can’t help thinking there’s some quarrel or cooling of relations. My whole being’s directed towards your arrival. I love you with all my might, my love. What omelettes we’ll eat! I kiss you, my sweet little one
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Thursday 18 January [1940]
My sweet little one
Your letter was there this morning, as good as gold — they’d even put it on one side for me. I find it very wise of you to be doing so much philosophy, little wise one — and I approve wholeheartedly all your activities and your whole little person. Except that, like a fool, you always look at the last page of detective stories. Tomorrow morning I’ll send the books.
[...]
Bienenfeld danced — to show me how well she dances, and to outdo the Kos. sisters. She dances correctly but lifelessly, like a well brought up and very nervous little girl. We chatted affectionately, but simultaneously with this letter you’re bound to receive a long philosophical epistle, since I maliciously threw her mind into turmoil. She was talking to me about Kos., and how angry it had made her that I should be giving her only 2 evenings (though her parents weren’t coming back), in comparison with 5 for Kos. I trotted out the habitual refrain: duty, pity, desire for good relations. One thing leading to another, she said that this was ‘unfair’, that the Kos. sisters didn’t ‘deserve’ it, and that these were taboos untouched by any ethical considerations. I then expounded to her our old (old but still true) idea of ethics without deserts — of grace, and the gift — and she was thunderstruck. Then, just as Elizabeth says in your novel, it’s not any use being ethical!’ And she admitted, quite unabashed, that she was ethical only in order to win my esteem. I told her that her ethical concerns delighted me, but didn’t actually alter anything in my feelings for her — so she’s now rather up against it. But that ethical scholasticism of hers is irritating. She didn’t understand at all, when I told her morality was above all an existential stance. Indeed, in the whole world she’s the being most devoid of any existential feeling. That’s what makes her into nothing but a little intelligent monkey — and what’s separating us more and more. She doesn’t in the least live her situation in the world. Almost as much as Pieter, she’s the das Man and nothing else.252 But I couldn’t explain properly, and got into a muddle — because a clear explanation would involve a terrible condemnation of her character. Actually, I’d really like to go more deeply into these ethical questions with you. But I’m sure you’re in agreement about rejecting that idea of a morality granted to acts from outside, through imitation of a norm. She’s quite incapable of seeing that being ethical is a matter of being. That you can’t just ‘do something rotten’ with a pretty pout, telling oneself: ‘After all, why not?’ Nor can you be the least bit moral, when you’re working for your own profit.
We spoke of almost nothing else, and at about 11 we lef
t. She came up to kiss me for a while, then left in a taxi, [...] I met up with Bienenfeld again at the Mahieu and we worked side by side. See how little Heidegger’s definition of metaphysics applies to her! She hadn’t taken the time to think again about our conversation the evening before, even though she considered it of prime importance. That seems odd to me. I’d have racked my brains over it — as any well-born person would. But for her there’s no issue. That’s the worst thing. She’s ensconced among people and ideas, with clear orders to purchase good securities and speculate adroitly — and that’s absolutely all.
We were chucked out because the place was too crowded, so I went home to do an hour’s work, and sleep, and write to Bost and you. I’m now seeing Kos. this evening.
Goodbye, dear little beloved one, little close-at-hand one, little oh-so-close one! I squeeze you so hard in my arms, my little one — how I am waiting for you!
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Friday 19 January [1940]
My dear little one
You’ve written to me so dutifully, my love, such a long letter! How seductive it sounds, that theory of Nothingness which solves every problem! So you’re a truly great philosopher, are you then, little brainbox? Listen, I find your decision to recast the novel extremely sensible. Would you like the following: for me to tell That Lady to send the manuscript by registered post to Poupette, who’ll type it? I really don’t think there’s anything to fear if it’s registered. She’d make five copies — she’s got a typewriter and time on her hands. But if you’ve got to rework it from beginning to end perhaps that would really be just wasted labour, and you might as well take it with you when you move to the rear, which seems to be pretty certain. It’s as you like. I can’t see any advantage in having it typed here, since it would cost between 500 and 1000 F., while the cost of a registered parcel is much the same La Pouèze-Paris or La Pouèze-La Grillère. I’ll write as soon as I get your answer.
Letters to Sartre Page 34
