220In July 1939, having a period of leave during his military service, Bost had visited Marseilles and met up with De Beauvoir and Sartre (see The Prime of Life, p.372), but had hesitated before telling Olga.
221By Hector Berlioz.
222Who would agree to rent a room if De Beauvoir was able to make a visit, or for Sartre to work in.
223At Morsbronn.
224Madelon (Quand): popular French soldiers’ song from World War I.
225Mood.
226Sorokine and her girl friend.
227Film by W. S. Van Dyke (1936).
228The telephone switchboard, as described by Sartre in his letter of 6 December. had interrogated him minutely about the effect I have on him. He said that I had an interesting face, but that initially he’d found me angular and brusque in my relations and had classified me as one of those women ‘who eat only what they need’. Poupette’s manner and features used to strike him as more reassuring because she’s more like a ‘housewife‘, so a person doesn’t feel awkward with her. But then at the Rotonde, when he saw how I was drinking wine and swapping anecdotes, he changed his mind. He likes me now, and even prefers my features to Poupette’s — though it’s a question more of being interesting than beautiful. He left, and it was at the Rotonde that Kos. told me all this. She still hasn’t heard anything, but several parts haven’t yet been allocated — including the one Toulouse mentioned. She won’t know anything until Tuesday, because rehearsals have been suspended from now till then. I didn’t tell her Bienenfeld was here, but said I was going out with the Gerassis this evening. We talked about ‘resentment’ — she can’t get shot of that bit of work and will end up not doing it.
229Her mother’s address.
230(André) Alfred Fabre-Luce (1899- ): prolific writer on many topics (over 60 titles listed in the British Museum Library catalogue), including before the war La Ville Ephèmére, La Victoire, L’ Amour et l’Escorial, Un Fils du del and Le Secret de la République.
231Sorbonne philosophy lecturer.
232By Hermann Rauschning (1897- ), a former Nazi who broke with the party before 1939 and became famous when, on the eve of the war, he published Hitler Told Me — an insider’s portrait of Hitler’s ambitions.
233The affair with Bienenfeld, in other words.
234Old brasserie in Rouen which De Beauvoir and Sartre found ‘poetic’.
235In the corresponding passage from De Beauvoir’s Journal de Guerre (p.208), the initial is transcribed as P., but it is not clear to whom it refers in either case.
236Les Galeries Barbès is a Paris department store.
237Sartre kept much of his wardrobe at his mother’s flat, where she looked after it.
238Right-wing political group founded in 1899, and associated with the names of Charles Maurras and Leon Daudet. Monarchist, Catholic and anti-Semitic, it ended in support of the Vichy regime of 1940-44.
239Tale by Jacques Cazotte (1719-92), in which the Devil takes the form of a young woman and wins the love of a Spanish gentleman.
240Novel (1939) by the far-right novelist Pierre-Eugène Drieu La Rochelle, who became editor of the N.R.F. under Nazi occupation and committed suicide in 1945.
241Merguez.
242Title considered for a time by Sartre for the future The Roads to Freedom.
243The passage in question is one of the numerous excisions from De Beavoir’s edition of Sartre’s letters.
244Cosi è se vi pare, 1917 play by Luigi Pirandello usually translated as Right You Are if You Think You Are.
*Letters 12 to 17 January 1940 and 19 January to 23 March 1940 addressed as above.
245État-Major d’Artillerie de Division (Artillery H.Q.)
246For two or three days, Sartre entertained the idea of using the framework of stories told by a fictional uncle to his nephew as a vehicle for a witty examination of literary genres which these stories would illustrate. But he tore up the six pages he actually wrote.
247Another reference to a censored passage in Sartre’s published letters.
248Novel (1939) by Jules Romains.
249For Zina, the gypsy girl adopted by Toulouse’s mother as a companion for her only daughter and who became her accomplice (in forays into prostitution) and willing slave, see The Prime of Life, pp.66-9.
250Sartre’s nickname for the other soldiers in his unit, drawn from Kafka’s The Castle.
251Sartre used to claim tiredness, caused by fictional ‘night observation’ duties, as an excuse for not having written sooner to tiresome correspondents.
252Heidegger’s concept of das Man is usually rendered as ‘the “they”’.
253Shellfish (like butter and cheese) were among a number of foods which De Beauvoir viewed with horror.
254Eugènie was Sartre’s mother’s housekeeper: his stepfather would not insist on being shown a letter addressed to her.
255A reference to Sartre’s intention to write imminently breaking off relations with her.
256Chapter in The Age of Reason, which Sartre was just completing.
257Sartre was planning to break off relations with Bienenfeld.
258Brice Parain (1897-1971), decorated in World War I, completed his studies thereafter and was a communist from the mid twenties until 1933, helping to found La Revue Marxiste to which Nizan was a principal contributor. From 1927 until 1961 he held an influential position in the publishing house Gallimard, in which capacity he dealt with both De Beauvoir and Sartre from the start of their authorial careers.
259In his letter of 28 February, Sartre had apologized to De Beauvoir for the protestations of exclusive passion he felt obliged to make to Wanda in order to keep her calm. He wrote: ‘There’s something ignoble about my relations with Wanda. It’s ignoble that I should be obliged to tell her that I no longer love you, ignoble that I should feel I have to write to her: “I’d trample the whole world under foot (even the Beaver, despite my mysticism)” . .. but. . . whoever wants the end, must want the means.’
260In August 1930, during Sartre’s military service.
261Philosophical work, begun while Sartre was doing his military service and written in the form of a story, on the model of Nietzsche. It was rejected for publication, despite Nizan’s sponsorship (apart from an extract that appeared in the journal Bifur).
262Pretext used by Sartre to justify his break with Bienenfeld.
263Close to where Bost was stationed.
264Sartre was expecting his unit to be transferred imminently to the rear, and held in reserve near St-Cyr where he had begun his military service in November 1929.
265That is to say, the mystery of Paulhan’s attitude: Jean Paulhan (editor of the N.R.F. from 1925 to 1940), though seemingly favourable to the idea of turning Ulmaginaire into a thesis, had ‘forgotten’ to let Sartre know about it in time.
266At Brumath.
267‘Emma’ is here Bost, of course.
268De Beauvoir taught at Marseilles in 1931-2; in July 1934 she went to Caen as an examiner in the baccalaureat (see The Prime of Life, p. 190), where many of the candidates came from the Military Academy at La Flèche.
269A plan, later abandoned by Sartre, for a prologue to The Age of Reason showing Ivitch, Mathieu and Marcelle ten years before the events in the novel.
LETTERS
JULY 1940 - JARCH 1941
Sartre Prisoner
At this point, the surviving correspondence is interrupted on De Beauvoir’s side for almost four months. From 27 March until 9 April, Sartre was on leave in Paris. From 10 April until 10 June, the correspondence did continue (see Lettres au Castor, vol.2), but De Beauvoir’s letters have apparently been lost. On 10 June De Beauvoir left Paris for La Pouèze, returning only on 21 June after the Armistice. In mid June Sartre was taken prisoner, following the collapse of the French armies, and for a further three weeks De Beauvoir remained without news of him. On 11 July she received a pencilled note confirming that he was alive and a prisoner of war, but then heard nothing more till mid Octo
ber — although she herself continued writing throughout July.
[Paris]
11 July [1940], morning
My love
I’m so moved to have word of you. I looked stupidly at that pencil-written note without believing in it. I’d been expecting, at best, one of these days to receive a printed card. You tell me almost nothing, but it’s a living word. And you speak of being back before the end of the month — is that possible? I knew with total inner certainty from the outset that you were a prisoner. That filled me with distress, above all because I pictured you not having any news and could well imagine your pent-up fury. Moreover, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see you again before peace was signed — and so unhappy at not being able to write to you.
You should first know that I’m doing fine. The Kos. sisters are safe and sound at Laigle (that’s actually all I know). Bost was at Carpentras ten days ago well on the way to recovery.270
My only worry was you, and since you’re in good condition we can all be said to have been really lucky, my little one, to end up all right.
I’ve kept a detailed diary, you know, of everything that has happened to me over the past month. It’s like a long letter addressed to you. I’m not going to copy it all out, since in spite of everything I’m too unsure about whether my letter’s going to get through, but I’ll go on keeping it. My love, am I truly going to see you again?
I don’t know which was the last letter’you had from me. On Monday 10 June I wrote to you that I was leaving Paris with the Bienenfelds. I had an excellent journey and arrived on the Tuesday evening at La Pouèze. I stayed there till 28 June, in an extremely sombre state as you can imagine — those were among the worst days of my life. The last letter I’d had from you was dated 8 June. I got another one, dated the 9th, in Paris a week ago — but for the rest, absolute silence. I lived for a fortnight off reading, the wireless and black despair — surrounded, as always at That Lady’s, by all kinds of people and farcical events. On 28 June I resolved to return to Paris, with some people who had a car — but who’d omitted to mention that they didn’t have any petrol. It was a crazy venture. I ditched them on the second day and got back on a German lorry, and then in a Red Cross car. In Paris I met up with my parents and Sorokine. I’ve installed myself at my grandmother’s, but receive my mail at Rue Vavin. I’ve been given 10 hours teaching at Duruy, which isn’t unwelcome. And I’ve learnt to ride a bicycle. I managed on my own straight off and for the past 5 days I’ve begun going for long rides all over Paris. I’m reading Hegel for three hours a day at the Nationale, in the hope of understanding him and presenting you with a huge exposition of his thought.
Your parents have left Paris — I’m not sure where for. In the past week I’ve begun receiving letters and have had news of Kos., of Bost, and of Bienenfeld — who’s in Quimper — so it has been far less painful than before. Regarding you, my life was hanging on one question: how long will the prisoners be kept? Whence alternating moments of hope and despair, with despair predominating. But I’m very patient and, as at the outset of the war, too involved to be unhappy.
I don’t dare write too long a letter, for fear of wearying the censors. I’m going to write a card at the same time, which will perhaps arrive faster. This letter is empty and I’ve so much to tell you. But I’m sending it as it is, and will write another later. I’d never before tested to this degree how I truly love you more than myself.
You’re everything to me.
Your charming Beaver
[Transit P.O.W. Camp No. 1,
9th Company — Baccarat]
[Paris]
11 July [1940], afternoon
My love
I’ve just been to the post office and they assure me it’s permitted to write to prisoners, and specifically to those in Meurthe-et-Moselle. So I’m going to fill out this morning’s letter a bit. Alas!, my love, it’s not permitted to send parcels. As soon as it’s allowed, you’ll have plenty of sausages and sweetmeats of every kind. But perhaps you’ll be here first — am I really going to see your face again, my love? For a month now my life has been reduced to that one wish. There’s truly nothing in the world I wasn’t ready to renounce, if we were only allowed to be together once more. During this whole month, I’ve existed only with you and for you — and it’s through you that I’ve experienced all my agonies. How I’d like to know what you’re thinking and feeling! It has been brought home to me that I’ll always be happy so long as it’s possible for you to be happy. It’s for your happiness and your fate that I’ve suffered and trembled. And today I’ve recovered my serenity, because your little pencilled note however terse it may have been — that specific sign of your existence — has restored to me a clear view of what you are. At all events, your fate will have a meaning and your stubborn little consciousness manage to secure some joy. When I left Paris on 10 June, my love, I knew you’d be taken prisoner — and in a sense it was painful to me. In another sense, however, that was just the fate which suited you, little being, and That Lady and I laughed about it, imagining you using your knowledge of the German language to converse with your gaolers. I can picture you so well, with a shaven head, saying ‘Ja’ with a nice smile just as you used to in Berlin, as blond and Germanic in appearance as the Germans guarding you, and finding satisfaction — I’m sure — in speaking with your purest accent. I can also picture your authentic little soul struggling against the contortions of stoicism, and against any sea-elephantine bouts of nausea.271 My dear little one — how tenderly I do love you! Will you be able to write longer letters? Can you keep a diary? Haven’t you lost the drafts for your novel? How I’d like to know all that! My love, in three weeks’ time perhaps I’ll have your little arm tucked in mine and we’ll be walking on the streets of Paris — won’t we? Is that possible? What a song and dance we’ll make about it! How I’d like to know how you envisage your future — and what it will be. I think you must have had moments of really black despair, my love — the idea has often tormented me. How hard this total separation was! Yet, in a sense, I never felt totally separated from you, for I think I can picture clearly enough how you’ve lived and thought throughout this month — it must have resembled what I experienced myself. There were countless moments when I felt myself to be in perfect, assured and tranquil unity with yourself.
I’m now feverish and impatient, my love, and can’t write an orderly letter. I’m writing to you from that little Café Delcour, where we once discussed blame and responsibilities. It’s open to a bright, sunny street and people are passing by. Paris is still itself. We’re properly fed — to tell the truth I don’t even notice any restrictions. It’s mainly a matter of queuing up for things, and I don’t do that. Lots of people have already come back. There’s very little traffic — neither taxis nor buses — but the Métros are running. There’s a superabundance of bicycles on the streets. You’ll laugh when you see me — but riding round Paris on a bicycle is a real delight. The Flore is closed, but the Dôme’s open and I always stop there for quite a while. There are hardly any cinemas left, but the libraries open in the afternoon: the Sorbonne, the Ste-Geneviève, the Nationale. You know, Hegel’s horribly difficult, but also extremely interesting. You must know him — it’s akin to your own philosophy of nothingness. I’m enjoying reading him and thinking precisely about expounding him to you.
Is it true you’re going to come back? You’re 35 and an auxiliary — which must be good reasons why you should be demobilized — but I don’t dare hope too much. Well, sooner or later I’ll have you back, just as you always were, but enriched by new treasures of experience and assuredly further improved.
You’ll see, when I tell you everything in detail, that I’ve been extremely sensible and well-behaved all this month. It was actually a great help to me to go to La Pouèze — I was extraordinarily lucky. I can’t imagine a better haven in such circumstances. That Lady was an absolute treasure. I’m going to send her news of you right away, since she was quite anxiou
s about you. Nothing’s known about Guille, who must have been taken prisoner too.
I’ve so many things to tell you that I don’t know where to start. When I think that these letters will be your first contact with the rest of the world, I’d like to include everything that may interest you. At the same time, though, nothing strikes me as essential enough. From tomorrow on, I’ll try to write to you day by day as before, and at the same time summarize for you the month that has gone by. By and large, as I’ve already told you, I’ve found everything so interesting that my life has endowed me with an amazing plenitude — there were at most three or four empty days at La Pouèze. For the remainder, there was either plenitude in the object — as on my return journey, for example — or plenitude of anguish and fatigue. And always the impression of an immense collective adventure, which still grips me even now. I imagine things were much the same for you — albeit harsher. I imagine, too, that this very harshness didn’t displease you all that much. Perhaps that’s just optimism — but you’re an invitation to optimism, my love. I’d so like to know the truth of it. There were moments when I imagined your fate in the blackest terms, and then I was utterly downcast. All things considered, however, I’d wager that through anguish, gloom and misfortune, you’ve managed to remain just the same as you’ve always been.
Letters to Sartre Page 42
