Letters to Sartre

by Simone de Beauvoir

  My sweet little one, I’m going to reread your letters now. I love you so, and feel your love so strongly. In a week, shall I really fall asleep in your little arms? We’re going to be so happy, my little one. I love you — and am waiting for you.

  Your charming Beaver

  [Paris]

  Thursday 25 January [1940] Most dear little being

  Yes, you do indeed seem busy from your letters, my little one. But how pleasing it is, I can now feel really strongly how — in a week, at this hour — I’ll be holding your little arm. [...] At the post office I found two charming letters from Bost, which nonetheless cast me into gloom. For he mentions comrades of his — belonging to commando units — who have taken hard knocks and won medals. What exactly is a commando unit? It could just as easily have been him. I felt a retrospective fear that quite upset me. What’s more, spring’s approaching, the papers are full of alarming rumours, and I view this leave — not yours, thank Heavens, but his — like the last interview with his family granted to a condemned man. When he writes so nicely it revives my feelings for him — and my fears too. Also, I was still only half believing in your leave and then your letter wasn’t there. So I went and sat down at the Dupont in the deepest despair. But I’d brought a lovely notebook just like yours in which to record my history, so I spent almost an hour bringing my little journal up to date, while drinking a cup of chocolate and listening to the music on the wireless — which seemed fit to chill the soul. I was caught up in the war again, and it seemed dreadful. But afterwards that passed and now, on the contrary, I’m feverishly happy — so happy I could cry. I think about how I’m going to see you — really and truly — and it’s almost unbearable, though I know perfectly well how easy it will be to meet again, like last time — my love.

  [...]

  I’m going out with Kos. now. I think my cold and fatigue will all be gone by next Thursday, and you’ll have a beautiful Beaver. At any rate, one who’ll be so happy to see you, my dear, dear love. How I do need you!

  Your charming Beaver

  Here the first gap occurs in the daily correspondence De Beauvoir had kept up with Sartre since his call-up five months earlier. She stopped writing (a bit early, Sartre complained) in the belief that his leave would begin on 1 February. The letter which follows was written on the new assumption that there would be a two-week postponement. In fact he arrived in Paris on 4 February, staying until 15 February (the day before Bost in turn arrived in Paris). Although De Beauvoir started writing daily again as soon as Sartre left Paris — and we know her letters arrived safely — those for the last week in February must subsequently have been mislaid.

  Le Dôme

  [Paris]

  Saturday 3 February [1940]

  My love

  Don’t worry too much about me. Yes, it’s a disappointment. But I hadn’t yet believed in your arrival enough to feel real joy, so I’m in just the same state as yesterday — less tense, if anything, because I know how things stand. What’s more, gradually — through raw nerves and delays - that leave of yours is starting to tend towards reality. It’s beginning to seem almost certain — distant, but almost certain. Just imagine, yesterday — with no letter and no cable — at 5 in the afternoon on the off chance I went to the cafe at the Gare de l’Est. And I had the impression that this whole business, indeed almost your very existence, were the product of mythomania — something I’d simply invented on my own — and there was nothing to it all but imaginary certainties. Only I was agitated at the thought that you might come and miss me, so I called in at the Hôtel Mistral and left a note for you. I was in a state of dark, uncertain passion far more painful than this morning’s cool boredom. Alas! my love, what rends my heart is the fact of having spent a week without writing to you. In a moment I’ll send off the money and books, but first I’m writing you a long letter, my little one. I love you so much, and so tenderly, my dear love. It’s stupid of me to have stopped writing. It was less out of any certainty, than a kind of conjuration — making an act of belief that would actually make it all real. But now I’m biting my nails over it. Poor, dear little man, I can’t wait for you to get this note and feel once more that your Beaver’s there with you in your life.

  Listen: Little Bost says he’s arriving on about Wednesday, and he’ll go for two days to Taverny, so he’ll probably see me on about Friday - but that’s not certain. I’d much rather see him at the beginning of his leave — I’d find it disagreeable for him to see Kos. before me. But, of course, I also want to see you for at least two days before relinquishing you to Wanda. If really necessary, I’d put up with 2 days (on the sly) — 3 days for Wanda — then 2 days (official) and another 4 days on the sly. But between this 2-3-6 arrangement and the other 6-3-2 one, there’d be a 4-day lag so far as Wanda’s concerned, which could be awkward. Can you leave things vague with her? As for me, I’ll wire as soon as I know exactly how everything’s working out with Bost. But try to persuade Wanda that there’s a wide margin of uncertainty.

  My love, the one thing that’s certain — as you explain so sensibly — is that I’m going to see you.

  Luckily I’ve been keeping my little notebook up dutifully this week, in the hope of showing it to you. So I’ll more or less copy it out, as we’re back to writing.

  Well, I wrote to you on Saturday evening, after seeing Sorokine. I went to bed and slept very badly. I had a dreadful nightmare, in which I saw you but without feeling any tenderness for you, given that you were simultaneously Dullin, another actor from the Atelier, and one of the girls I’m teaching this year. I was saying — quite angrily — that if they kept changing him like that, then of course I couldn’t keep my love for him. I thought it was the rule and in time love would return — but I wasn’t best pleased.

  [...]

  I’ll tell you tomorrow how we went to the Jockey, and about my Thursday evening with Bienenfeld, to whom I spoke words of wisdom, I think, justifying to her (quite sincerely) her inauthenticity. I’ll explain it all to you, but I’m stopping for now as my arm’s hurting and I want to do some work.

  I’m quite serene, though tears do prick my eyes at times. I’m a bit scared of these periods of leave: it’s funny to have to live again when one was sleeping so peacefully. I’m satisfied with Bost. He writes tenderly, and will see me first and for quite a while, I think. But I’m fearful of any passion, all the same. And as for you, my love — I’m already fearful of your departure. That’s another reason why I’m rather indifferent to the delay, since it also delays that separation after which we’ll have nothing left but hope.

  I need you, my love

  Your Beaver

  Café-Restaurant de Versailles

  3 Place de Rennes

  Paris VI

  Paris, Friday [16 February 1940]

  Most dear little being

  I thought it was charming, the way the men queued up to take their turns at the carriage-door and kiss their good ladies. So I squeezed your little hand one last time and vaguely made out your face, then the train left and it was like a physical wrench. At that moment I thought I was really going to collapse or something — but no, I was very sensible. I left that icy station at a run, and took a taxi which set me down first at the post office — where there was nothing from Bost — then at school, where I delivered my lessons dutifully. I wasn’t too exhausted. Sorokine was there on the way out: she was wearing a little tartan hood on her head, and lipstick, and was altogether pleasing. We’ve never got on better. We went and ate in that blue brasserie which you now know, and I told her lots of little stories about both you and me which made her laugh till the tears came to her eyes — and quite entranced her. I did another two hours at HIV, or rather I got my pupils talking for two hours, which suited me fine since I had a sore throat and a touch of mental frailty. Sorokine kept me company again as far as the Place de la Sorbonne, when I went to meet Bienenfeld at La Sorbonne: she was in one of the booths, smiling but with a mistrustful look. I began scolding he
r — now nicely, now harshly — but she was already unresisting, quite ashamed to have written as she had. I took her to the Hoggar, where we talked till 7 p.m. — about our relations, of course. I explained to her firmly once again that I’d never see any more of her; that she’d always known my life was encumbered; that anyway I had a need for solitude, with only a very modest need to see people; and that she lived only to love and be loved, but that wasn’t right. I moved skilfully on to the solitude in which you’re currently immersed, and which your letters describe — something that makes me a bit gloomy, but that I well understand. She sighed, saying it was sad for her not to have the same character as us. It must be said she was moving: all restrained, serious, attentive and silent, smiling at me every so often — and every so often restraining her tears. What’s more she was beautiful yesterday. It struck me as rotten, thinking of the blow that was about to fall on her head.255 Yet I’ve the impression it’s still possible she won’t be too, too upset. For my own part I felt tenderness for her once again yesterday, and I’m going to try to be nice. She irritated me only once — with her talk about life in common’: she reproached me with not having a life in common with her, and particularly with not having introduced her to the ‘people I know’. I find that comical, social, and stupid — and didn’t shrink from telling her so.

  [...]

  Kos. is still very low. She no longer goes to the Atelier, and she too is without news of Bost. She also expects him to stay for ages at Taverny — which suits very well. With me she was tenderer than ever, giving me dressing tips and — for a joke — amusing herself by giving them with excessive authority: ‘Full of kind feelings towards you as I am, I must now speak to you quite crossly’ — that kind of thing. It has never been so purely idyllic. She grew sentimental about my youth, and told me she found my walking trips ever so pleasing and ‘adventurous’. I wonder if there isn’t some reaction against Wanda’s ill will, and if she’s not seeking to form a couple with me against Wanda and you — for that kind of adoption of me had never been so insistent as yesterday.

  [...]

  I came here to the Versailles to have breakfast and write to you. Then I’ll go to the hairdresser’s and do the shopping, which I’ll finish off this afternoon. I’ve had a letter from Poupette, who says that Gerassi has some suspicions regarding your leave. I’ll write to him as soon as I know the score about Bost.

  My sweet little one, I’m not at all sad — as you can see. Your leave has closed in on itself again and I’m recovering my wartime existence — with your visit in its proper place in that existence, like something that couldn’t be other than what it was. I feel such total peace of mind that I don’t even need to throw myself into my work. I’m waiting for Bost with immense calm, and can contemplate his days with Kos. without the least concern — especially since Kos. is being so nice at present. As always you’ve given me back the sense of my life and happiness. Instead of being bogged down in the sequence of days, or even in the war, I see everything on a large scale now — in the whole context of the world and my existence — and I’m altogether immersed in the happiness I derive from seeing you. Nothing else counts. I have you — little all-precious one, little beloved one — as much today as the day before yesterday when I could see you, and I’ll have you till the day you die. After that, nothing of all that may happen to me really has any importance. Not only am I not sad, I’m even deeply happy and secure. Even the tenderest memories — of all your dear expressions, or your little arms cradling the pillow in the morning — aren’t painful to me. I feel myself all enfolded and sustained by your love. My beloved, we had a beautiful leave and how intense that last evening was! Goodbye, my sweet little one. This is now the eleventh year of happiness you’ve given me. I’m still with you, just like the day before yesterday in the evening, when you were kissing that old warhorse’s cheek of mine and I was hugging you so tight.

  I love you more than ever.

  Your charming Beaver

  Café de Flore

  172 Bd St-Germain

  Paris

  Sunday [18 February 1940]

  Dear little being

  I’m really angry. Yesterday I wrote you a little letter — little, but pretty significant all the same actually — and I’ve lost it in some cafe. It’s possible someone will have mailed it to you, since it was already in its envelope, but that’s far from certain. So I’m going to tell you everything all over again. You should first know — since I’m itching to tell you — that Bost and I spent a long while yesterday evening reading the chapter at the Sumatra,256 and were quite staggered by it. Bost said he’d never read anything more moving, that one couldn’t restrain one’s tears, and that he’d seen nothing comparable in Stendhal or Dostoievsky. He remained in a daze of admiration and a whirl of emotion almost all evening. As for me, I knew it already but still found it shattering all over again — it’s truly a work of great beauty‘, my little one. I’m spending quite a pleasing time — potent as can be — with Little Bost. He deserves all the esteem and tenderness in the world. He couldn’t be more charming, and though we talk non-stop from morning to night we’ll never get to the end of what we have to say to one another. He’s really taken with the idea that you want to go in for politics later on — and really attracted too — asking me for countless explanations of what you think. In a sense, if all this is going to be over in two years, the idea that he’ll have lived through it interests him. But at moments — albeit very brief — he also becomes depressed at the thought of how hard it’s still going to be to get through. Indeed, if you take it detail by detail, that existence of his does seem pretty abominable, with those huge bouts of drinking — great abysses of self-abasement and degradation — which are often the only possible defence. He has told me that some fellow once remained flat out for 68 hrs in a barn — and he has done so for almost as long — from cold, disgust, dejection, and the impossibility of finding any place to rest your bones. It’s the return from the front to the rear that seems to have been terrible, because of the bitter cold, impossible grub, and lamentable organization.

  But I’ll go back over everything in order since Friday morning. [...] As I was ending my lesson, a good lady in black approached mysteriously and, with a sinister look, told me: There’s a M. Bost waiting for you downstairs in the visitors’ room.’ My hands started to tremble and my heart to thump, and I had the greatest difficulty in continuing on the subject of sociology — that last quarter of an hour passing in the strangest agony of impatience. I rushed down — and there, all solitary amid the green settees and mirrors of a vast visitors’ room, I found Little Bost waiting for me. He was so exactly himself that I was scarcely surprised at seeing him — and he too, I think, rediscovered me at once. He seemed quite genuinely moved, but things were easy and charming from the start. The weather was superb, by chance, so we set off towards the Seine embankment, then on to Bastille, République, the Canal St Martin, Jaurès and the Gare de l’Est. He barely looked about him, just talked and talked endlessly. He had a great deal to get off his chest and it was terribly interesting, even though I knew the essential part from his letters and diaries. We went to the black cafe at the Gare de l’Est — where I met you, my little one — and talked on for a long while. At some point I phoned to tell Kos. that Poupette had just got in, but she didn’t sound best pleased — her voice was extremely cool.

  [...]

  We went and slept at the Hôtel Oriental on Place Denfert-Rochereau, over the green cafe with the same name. It’s pretty sumptuous — lift, and fine, warm rooms with velvet drapes and a pink counterpane. We spent an altogether tender and passionate night, as was fitting, but I slept very badly because of the stifling heat — and also, I think, because my nerves were overwrought.

  [...]

  Bost read long extracts of your Notebook XI in wild exhilaration. He wonders if you realize how comic you are. I explained the Wanda and Bienenfeld situations to him, and to my great surprise he insinuated that if s
he were being dropped anyway, I too should drop her.257 From the standpoint of principle he finds us infamous — but his heart’s with us. I delighted him with the information that Sorokine shakes her fist at me and even beats me — he wants to offer her a strap.

  [...]

  We went to the Nox, sat down at a table and talked — gently, so gently. He was truly moving: seeking in you, and me, hopes for later on; talking about his comrades — and about himself and his moods out there, his regrets and his joys — by fits and starts, without the volubility of the previous day, but drawing things from his innermost depths. I was moved to tears (actually shedding a couple) and was feverish — I’d drunk a lot of toddies and other alcohol — but I didn’t lapse into pathos. There’s one thing of which I’m now sure, which is that Bost forms part of my future in an absolutely certain — even essential — way. I felt such ‘remorse’ because of him, that I want a postwar existence with him — and partly for him. I’d like us to be able to help the fellows returning from the war at the age of 25 not to become like Brice Parain.258 We stayed there for two jam-packed, potent hours. It was the same place as in the old days — same hostesses, same gypsy — but the meaning was entirely altered, because you had an intense feeling of the war outside and the provisional, facticious nature of the intoxication people were coming there in search of. We went to spend the night at that hotel near the Bd St Michel where we often used to go in the old days, and this time I slept well.

  [...]