Not a film to be seen. The papers claim ‘Films are better than ever’ — it’s a slogan in big letters — but the truth is that the cinema seems completely dead after those big political trials, among other things.479
There you are. It’s the opposite from you. My life’s calm outside, hectic and somewhat distressed inside. Do write — and tell me at once if there’s just one reason to come back. I’d go back much more easily than I anticipated when I left, you understand. So don’t hesitate about bringing me back for nothing. I’d so like you to have untroubled holidays, my little one. When are you leaving Dolores? I hope you’re not waiting till she leaves for Spain, that might be never-ending. It’s as well that she has work in October.
Goodbye, my little one, my dear little one who’s everything to me. I’ve never felt all my love for you more strongly.
Your charming Beaver
[Gary, Indiana]
Friday 4 August [1950]
My most dear little one. How happy it makes me to be sending this letter to Juan-les-Pins, and to know you’re at last going to have a peaceful holiday.480 Your letter yesterday (the one you wrote on Tuesday) really cheered me up and I’m starting to feel a bit more balanced. I can tell you at once that I’ve booked my return air seat for 1 October. I’ll be in Paris on the 2nd, between 4 in the afternoon and 10, I don’t know exactly. Just as you were writing to me on Tuesday, I was overwhelmed by dread. First, it was my bad day and I could clearly sense a kind of madness seizing hold of me. We moved that day: we left Chicago at noon, stopped for three hours at a race-course, arrived here, had dinner with some friends, and began to move in. I was dead tired, I drank a lot, and I read in the newspaper that Russia was recalling all its European ambassadors and consuls, which probably meant an imminent attack. I lapsed into despair and wanted to go back to France immediately. It seemed all the more absurd to remain because A.’s feelings — and mine simultaneously — have changed. But he once again pointed out to me how the American papers deliberately scare everyone by announcing every day how the Soviets are going to attack tomorrow. Furthermore, he told me he was personally keen to keep me here for these two months. I had a great deal of trouble getting to sleep, seeing myself separated from you for ever and thinking how if that happened I’d throw myself into the lake. On Wednesday I was a bit better,- but the weather was grey here and your letter didn’t come. It’s yesterday that I came back to life, since you assure me I’ll have time to fly to France if the worst happens. Gerassi has written to me saying he absolutely disbelieves in war this year, and I’m feeling slightly reassured. But these newspapers are dreadful. The attack on Formosa is presented as imminent. The truth is, they have to present it as such in order to justify MacArthur and American policy; even so, it has set me all of a flutter day after day. All last night I dreamt I was combing Paris for a cafè where we were supposed to meet, but which I could no longer find.
If it weren’t for this constant dread, and my regret at losing two months of life with you, I’d feel good here. Removal men have just brought some bits of furniture and Algren is busy fixing up the house. As for me, I’m in the garden in the sun, with a little lake at my feet. The weather’s fine and it’s pleasant and solitary. There are at least a hundred books I’m dying to read (not to speak of all the others), and I’ve started working again. We haven’t been swimming yet, because I was tired and Algren was busy getting settled in, but the beach is just a step away. Now the cupboards and refrigerator are full of food, and we can live for a month without going to the village, which is 2 km. from the house. I’m not yet accustomed to these luxurious cars which come every so often to call on us, and from which a grocer’s boy, a cleaner or the gas man emerges. But it’s terribly convenient having everything brought to the house like that. Yesterday evening we took the boat out on the little lake, and made a big fire in the garden: there’s a kind of oven where you can cook sausages and steaks in the open air. Then we went down to the cellars to look out lots of old papers, albums, books and photographs that Algren has been collecting there for weeks. Among other things, there were a few stupid articles about you — as usual. All in all it was a really pleasant evening, and if the outside world leaves us in peace — and if I know you’re peaceful and contented — I think I’m going to be spending two almost agreeable months here.
I’ve had a long letter from V. Leduc, in the same vein as always: she’s at Montjean close to La Pouèze, but not overjoyed with it; she’s very glad she’s not jealous of all those women currently admiring and flattering me on the American beaches; a worker tried to rape her on the banks of the Loire, but she escaped.
Goodbye, my little one. It would be great if Dolores made that trip to Africa. If people would only leave us in peace, we could still have such a good few years. My only wish is to see you again. Do write. I love you with all my might.
Your charming Beaver
Envelope:
M. Sartre
c/o Mme Morel
Villa Sull’Onda
Juan-les-Pins (Alpes Maritimes)
France*
[Gary, Indiana]
Tuesday [8 August 1950]
My most dear little one. It’s going to be another whole week without a letter. I suppose your departure from Paris wasn’t so easy, and then letters doubtless take longer from Juan-les-Pins. But I’m more patient than last week, because I’ve finally more or less found a balance in my own life. The papers aren’t too worrying (but what am I to do if China attacks Indochina? — that’s something you haven’t told me) and existence here is very agreeable, though a bit austere. I get up late. By about 11 I’ve settled down to work in the garden. Often at about 1 or 2 we take the boat, cross our little lake and then — on foot — some burning sands and arrive at the big lake, where we bathe. It’s really like the sea, and on windy days there are huge waves and the water’s a bit salty. The beach is endless and there are lots of deserted spots, which is where we go. As soon as we get home we take something from the icebox, have a snack, and I work till evening. Then we generally cook a steak or something in the garden. We often go for a little walk, and I read till late at night. What makes this landscape strange is the blast furnaces rising at the far end of the beach, only a few kilometres from here. Without them the area’s already hard to categorize — it’s certainly not the suburbs any more, but it’s barely the countryside — but when you do see them, you’re back in the city. And what’s very beautiful is that in the evening the sky has urban colours: in one direction it’s all mauve and murky, like in Paris or Chicago. It’s 10 at night and we’ve just been out in the boat: the chimneys were spitting huge red fumes in the distance, while our little lake was all darkness and silence amid big clumps of trees. I see almost no one. Algren has friends round here, but has told everyone I hate company and have some urgent work, so I keep out of sight when people come to see him and don’t accompany him when he goes out — which is not very often anyway. There’s a certain Christine, however, whom I really can’t avoid, seeing as she furnished the whole house for us, takes care of all our grocery and laundry deliveries, etc. She’s a tough-looking woman of 40 — Greek, with a mild, colourless husband who has $200 pension each month and is frantically learning French to become a teacher, two children, a housewife’s existence, and all manner of aspirations. She has slept with Algren in the past and there’s still something left over from that. This house fascinates her — and so do I. She comes over and talks frenetically, like someone who never gets any chance to talk. One evening — Saturday — she turned up at midnight, and left at 2 only because I got up deliberately to go and make the beds. The next day she arrived at 7. I worked without taking any notice of her. She cooked hamburgers in the garden with Algren till 9.30. By the end he wasn’t uttering a word, and eventually trod on her hand in the dark while she was picking something up. ‘All right, I’ve got the message’, she said good-humouredly, ‘and thank you for a really boring evening!’ But she’s tough, she’ll be back. There’s
also a certain Joyce in the vicinity — who weeps and talks about herself all day because she so wanted to be a great writer and has only produced a fifteen-page illustrated book about a cat. She spent 15 years writing a novel with a hundred characters, which nobody was ever able to do anything with. She literally refused to sell her house to Algren (there had been negotiations) because she couldn’t bear the idea of his writing his next novel under her roof. And she kicked out a girl friend who’d done some moderately successful scribbling, and who was down for a weekend, because she touched her typewriter. She wanted to give a big ‘party’ in my honour, but I declined.
I’m in difficulties with my novel, as usual.481 But I think it will all work out. I feel like writing. I just need to get the whole thing hanging together properly, then I’ll be able to enjoy myself polishing up each chapter.
I’ve read Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust, which I don’t like at all — boring, prophetic, complicated for the sake of it. ‘If you persist long enough in evil, it becomes good. Everything’s good if you do it for long enough’, and so on and so forth. I’ve read Fitzgerald’s Crack-up — notes and essays, very moving. A whole epoch that was almost our own. A genius at 22, who knows he’s finished at 30 and survives till he’s 40. There are a few short stories and essays I’d really like to bring back for the Temps Modernes, by various people. It seems to me that if we could collect pamphlets and writing by left-wing people fighting against the America of today, that would be interesting. I’m going to have a look around. I’m also reading lots of things on the old America, which fascinates me.
I’m sending you a stupid article from the N.Y. Times on your Baudelaire, published last Sunday.
That’s all. Things would be more or less all right, if it didn’t seem so absurd not to be with you when you’re free and we could be so happy. Because what bothers me is the fact that I don’t exactly understand why I’m here, shut up in this little garden with aeroplanes and helicopters passing over my head. I’m infinitely happier with you — and I don’t know to what extent my presence has any meaning for Algren. From time to time this absurdity becomes an overwhelming sadness. I have the impression of being attached here by old desires, whereas the novelty and romance and happiness of my life are with you, my little companion of 20 years. I’m counting the weeks, if not the hours.
Goodbye till 2 October, my love. Write to me. I kiss you with all my soul.
Your charming Beaver
S. de Beauvoir
6228 Forest Avenue
Gary, Indiana, U.S.A.
Sunday 20 [August 1950]
My dear little one. Yesterday I had your letter of the 13th. I’m so glad you’re having clear blue weather at That Lady’s, and that you’re working well. Don’t let anybody bother you, my little one, and don’t worry about money. You know quite well our finances always come right at the last moment. It gave me a real pang of regret when I pictured you on that terrace, enjoying those mornings I recall so clearly — and that I’d so like to be sharing with you. But we’ll share others, won’t we? Lots of others.
As for me, my life here is working out better and better. In appearance, things are almost like they used to be between Algren and me — one could easily be deceived. Was it my own sadness that made him gloomy that first month? Or did he in a sense hold it against me that he hadn’t rediscovered his love for me? Or was he afraid I’d interpret any affection wrongly? At all events he was stiff and distant — but he isn’t any longer in the least. Now the days — with their tranquil routine of work, bathing and reading — pass swiftly. The most obvious change in our relations is that we no longer sleep together, by a common, tacit agreement. The most surprising thing is that we no longer can: there were one or two stabs, discreet attempts of no consequence, when he was impotent and I was frigid. In a sense that helps to liquidate an affair in which sexuality held a big place. But it remains mysterious to me that an emotion of that kind can die so radically during an absence. For we’d left one another at fever pitch — yet, from the moment of my arrival in Chicago, everything was dead from that point of view. Perhaps you can understand, you who are on the masculine side. I understand how it can wear out. But what I don’t understand is how it can disappear from afar, never to be reborn. For my part I followed suit, which is only natural — indifference creates indifference, luckily. That said, in the background of these days there’s always a troubling uncertainty. I remember too much of the past for the present not to be melancholy. But the present is still far too precious for me to accept burying it, along with all the regrets it enfolds. Obviously, it’ll all be settled by oblivion once I’m in Paris — but I don’t like to think that.
I don’t think much at all, actually. I live from day to day and these days taken singly are pleasant. I haven’t taken much advantage of the lake since my drowning accident.482 Yesterday it was so rough that absolutely no one was bathing in it — I just took a dip, nothing more. On Sunday it’s too crowded, so we never go. On the days before that, even in the safety zone I was feeling uneasy. Never have my fears — in planes, on bicycles, up mountains — survived for as long as this one. At nights, I think about it anew with fresh dread. Perhaps it’s because it’s such an obvious image of death, when you feel yourself losing your footing and the ground gives way. I wonder if I’m going to get used to swimming again this year. This lake makes a loud and beautiful noise all night. It’s funny, on the beach I hadn’t noticed it made that noise and all through one night when Algren was in Chicago I was wondering what that great factory racket was, coming from the woods. I can hear it at this moment as I write to you.
Algren has bought himself a heavy red bicycle which you brake with your feet. I’m in a period of decline, since I haven’t yet dared ride it. It’s a man’s bicycle, I find it off-putting not to have any brakes to grip, and I’m no longer used to the machines. All the same, I’ll have to pluck up courage.
I’ve had another letter from V. Leduc, who’s still enjoying herself a lot at Montjean. Mops has done wonders. Sorokine’s turning up in ten days’ time, which I’m only half looking forward to. That’s all, my dear love. Here I am today, just half-way away from you — it’s starting not to seem so far away any more. You’re always with me, and I’m waiting for you with all my being. Say hello to everybody from me. I kiss you, my dear little absolute.
Your charming Beaver
[Gary, Indiana]
Thursday [24 August 1950]
Dear little yourself
I’m definitely receiving only one letter a week — couldn’t you write a bit more, if only briefly? It’s sad when I go hopefully to open the letter box in the morning and there’s nothing. I suppose you’re more shaken than you thought, but I keep imagining something terrible has happened, in connection with Dolores or whatever.
Well, Sarbakhane turned up, without a by your leave, radiantly beautiful (she has grown thinner, cut her hair and taken on just a touch of American style; she’s tanned and magnificent — Algren was quite impressed) and full of impossible stories.
[...]
I’ll add a note this evening to tell you how we spent the day. I’m ‘ambiguous’ towards her. It seemed warming, familiar and agreeable to see her again, and as always I’m sensitive to her presence. But the stories she tells and her attitude to them give me gooseflesh. Her daughter looks virtually like a battered child, thanks to a total lack of care and affection from every side. Goodbye for now, little one. Yesterday I began swimming well again. I’ve gradually retaught myself, but I no longer trust the water and when it reaches my chin I become filled with dread. At all events, I shan’t leave the safety zone for a long while. This lake is superb by night — we’ve been out on it twice with Algren. There are all the blast furnaces spitting fire on the horizon, the headlights, that kind of ocean with big waves, and hidden in the trees cosy little cottages
— it all adds up to a fairly striking miniature of America.
Here are a few English idiocies published in th
e N.Y.T. The same imbecile did a more general and even more idiotic article in an English paper, which I’ve read but can’t cut out for you. It should be noted that in this particular rubbish, he bears you out virtually all along the line.
Farewell, dear little one — I don’t have time to add anything, except that S. has been delightful all day, with some really pretty amazing stories about Hollywood. I’ll tell you next time. I kiss you with all my might.
Your charming Beaver
[Gary, Indiana]
Sunday [28 August 1950]
My most dear little one. Your letter, at last! It makes such a change in my days when there is one. My heart really rejoiced — how shameful, you dirty rascal! — tell me the sequel truthfully. I’m still longing to be with you just as much, and it wrings my heart whenever I think: ‘Another month!’
[...]
When Sor. had left, Algren told me that his friends had been struck by her Lesbian side. It has to be said, she does caress and kiss me in front of people in a way that must appear odd. But Christine had thought her a Lesbian simply from hearing her voice on the telephone, and Algren says she made the same impression on him as soon as she got out of the taxi. She isn’t one, though — she had one ludicrous, failed experience with a professional Lesbian, that’s all — she’s above all sexually infantile. Algren doesn’t like her much. He finds Olga far more interesting (infinitely more attractive, of course). With S., he feels the same kind of revulsion that you and Bost feel. And as for her, it’s strange how awkward and embarrassed she is in a man’s presence. When she doesn’t frankly adopt a stance of sexual challenge, she’s like an adolescent girl terrorized by the male. I remember Olga and Michelle with Algren, and the contrast with Sorokine is striking. I have the impression that on this point Algren feels the same revulsion you do — he dislikes her as a woman and likes her in moderation as a person.
Letters to Sartre Page 62
