The Woman Destroyed

by Simone de Beauvoir

  Without them. Without their hatred. Bastards! You nearly got me down but you didn’t quite succeed. I’m not your scapegoat: your remorse—I’ve thrown it off. I’ve told you what I think of you each one has had his dose and I’m not afraid of your hatred I walk clean through it. Bastards! They are the ones who killed her. They flung mud at me they put her against me they treated her as a martyr that flattered her all girls adore playing the martyr: she took her part seriously she distrusted me she told me nothing. Poor pet. She needed my support my advice they deprived her of them they condemned her to silence she couldn’t get herself out of her mess all by herself she set up this act and it killed her. Murderers! They killed Sylvie my little Sylvie my darling. I loved you. No mother on earth could have been more devoted: I never thought of anything but your own good. I open the photograph album I look at all the Sylvies. The rather drawn child’s face the closed face of the adolescent. Looking deep into the eyes of my seventeen-year-old girl they murdered I say “I was the best of mothers. You would have thanked me later on.”

  Crying has comforted me and I’m beginning to feel sleepy. I mustn’t go to sleep in this armchair I should wake everything would be mucked up all over again. Take my suppositories go to bed. Set the alarm clock for noon to have time to get myself ready. I must win. A man in the house my little boy I’ll kiss at bedtime all this unused affection. And then it would mean rehabilitation. What? I’m going to sleep I’m relaxing. It’ll be a swipe in the eye for them. Tristan is somebody they respect him. I want him to bear witness for me: they’ll be forced to do me justice. I’ll call him. Convince him this very night.

  “Was it you who phoned me? Oh, I thought it was you. You were asleep forgive me but I’m glad to hear your voice it’s so revolting tonight nobody’s given the slightest sign of life yet they know that when you’ve had a great sorrow you can’t bear celebrations all this noise these lights did you notice Paris has never been so lit up as this year they’ve money to waste it would be better if they were to reduce the rates I shut myself up at home so as not to see it. I can’t get off to sleep I’m too sad too lonely I brood about things I must talk it over with you without any quarreling a good friendly talk listen now what I have to say to you is really very important I shan’t be able to get a wink until it’s settled. You’re listening to me, right? I’ve been thinking it over all night I had nothing else to do and I assure you this is an absurd position it can’t go on like this after all we are still married what a waste these two apartments you could sell yours for at least twenty million and I’d not get in your way never fear no question of taking up married life again we’re no longer in love I’d shut myself up in the room at the back don’t interrupt you could have all the Fanny Hills you like I don’t give a hoot but since we’re still friends there’s no reason why we shouldn’t live under the same roof. And it’s essential for Francis. Just think of him for a moment I’ve been doing nothing else all night and I’m tearing myself to pieces. It’s bad for a child to have parents who are separated they grow sly vicious untruthful they get complexes they don’t develop properly. I want Francis to develop properly. You have no right to deprive him of a real home.… Yes yes we do have to go over all this again you always get out of it but this time I insist on your listening to me. It’s too selfish indeed it’s even unnatural to deprive a son of his mother a mother of her son. For no reason. I’ve no vices I don’t drink I don’t drug and you’ve admitted I was the most devoted of mothers. Well then? Don’t interrupt. If you’re thinking about your fun I tell you again I shan’t prevent you from having girls. Don’t tell me I’m impossible to live with that I ate you up that I wore you out. Yes I was rather difficult it’s natural for me to take the bit between my teeth: but if you’d had a little patience and if you’d tried to understand me and had known how to talk to me instead of growing pig-headed things would have gone along better between us you’re not a saint either so don’t you think it: anyhow that’s all water under the bridge: I’ve changed: as you know very well I’ve suffered I’ve matured I can stand things I used not to be able to stand let me speak you don’t have to be afraid of scenes it’ll be an easygoing coexistence and the child will be happy as he has a right to be I can’t see what possible objection you can have.… Why isn’t this a time for talking it over? It’s a time that suits me beautifully. You can give up five minutes of sleep for me after all for my part I shan’t get a wink until the matter’s settled don’t always be so selfish it’s too dreadful to prevent people sleeping it sends them out of their minds I can’t bear it. Seven years now I’ve been rotting here all alone like an outcast and that filthy gang laughing at me you certainly owe me my revenge let me speak you owe me a great deal you know because you gave me the madly-in-love stuff I ditched Florent and broke with my friends and now you leave me flat all your friends turn their backs on me: why did you pretend to love me? Sometimes I wonder whether it wasn’t a put-up job.… Yes a put-up job—it’s so unbelievable that terrific passion and now this dropping me.… You hadn’t realized? Hadn’t realized what? Don’t you tell me again that I married you out of interest I had Florent I could have had barrowloads and get this straight the idea of being your wife didn’t dazzle me at all you’re not Napoleon whatever you may think don’t tell me that again or I shall scream you didn’t say anything but I can hear you turning the words over in your mouth don’t say them it’s untrue it’s so untrue it makes you scream you gave me the madly-in-love jazz and I fell for it.… No don’t say listen Murielle to me I know your answers by heart you’ve gone over and over them a hundred times no more guff it doesn’t wash with me and don’t you put on that exasperated look yes I said that exasperated look I can see you in the receiver. You’ve been even more of a cad than Albert he was young when we married you were forty-five you ought to understand the nature of your responsibilities. But still all right the past’s past. I promise you I shan’t reproach you. We wipe everything out we set off again on a fresh footing I can be sweet and charming you know if people aren’t too beastly to me. So come on now tell me it’s agreed tomorrow we’ll settle the details.

  “Swine! You’re taking your revenge you’re torturing me because I haven’t drooled in admiration before you but as for me money doesn’t impress me nor fine airs nor fine words. ‘Never not for anything on earth’ we’ll see all right we’ll see. I shall stand up for myself. I’ll talk to Francis I’ll tell him what you are. And if I killed myself in front of him do you think that would be a pretty thing for him to remember?… No it’s not blackmail you silly bastard with the life I lead it wouldn’t mean a thing to me to do myself in. You mustn’t push people too far they reach a point when they’re capable of anything indeed there are mothers who kill themselves with their children.…”

  Swine! Turd! He’s hung up.… He doesn’t answer he won’t answer. Swine. Oh! My heart’s failing I’m going to die. It hurts it hurts too much they’re slowly torturing me to death I can’t bear it any longer I’ll kill myself in his drawing room I’ll slash my veins when they come back there’ll be blood everywhere and I shall be dead.… Oh! I hit it too hard I’ve cracked my skull it’s them I ought to bash. Head against the wall no no I shan’t go mad they shan’t let me down I’ll stand up for myself I’ll find weapons. What weapons swine swine I can’t breathe my heart’s going to give I must calm down.…

  Oh God. Let it be true that you exist. Let there be a heaven and a hell I’ll stroll along the walks of Paradise with my little boy and my beloved daughter and they will all be writhing in the flames of envy I’ll watch them roasting and howling I’ll laugh I’ll laugh and the children will laugh with me. You owe me this revenge, God. I insist that you grant it me.

  The Woman Destroyed

  Monday 13 September. Les Salines.

  It is an astonishing setting, this rough draft of a town lying deserted here, on the edge of a village and outside the flow of the centuries. I went along one half of the hemicycle and climbed the steps of the central b
uilding; for a long while I gazed at the quiet splendor of these structures that were put up for functional purposes and that have never been used for anything at all. They are solid; they are real: yet their abandoned state changes them into a fantastic pretense—of what, one wonders. The warm grass under the autumn sky and the smell of dead leaves told me that I had certainly not left this world; but I had gone back two hundred years into the past. I went to fetch things out of the car: I spread a rug on the ground, cushions, the transistor, and I smoked, listening to Mozart. Behind two or three dusty windows I could make out people moving to and fro—offices, no doubt. A truck stopped in front of one of the massive doors; men opened it; they loaded sacks into the back. Nothing else disturbed the silence of that afternoon: I traveled away, a great way off, to the shores of an unknown river; and then when I looked up there I was among these stones, far, far from my own life

  For the most surprising thing about it is my being here, and the cheerfulness of my being here. I had not looked forward to the loneliness of this drive back to Paris at all. Hitherto, if Maurice were not there, the girls were always with me, in all my journeys. I had thought I was going to miss Colette’s raptures and Lucienne’s demandingness. And here I am with happiness of a forgotten kind given back to me. My freedom makes me twenty years younger. So much so that when I closed the book I began writing just for myself, as I did when I was twenty.

  I never part from Maurice with a light heart. The congress is only going to last a week, yet there was a lump in my throat as we drove from Mougins to the Nice airfield. He, too, he was moved. When the loudspeaker summoned the travelers for Rome he squeezed me tight. “Don’t get killed on the road. Don’t get killed in the plane.” Before he vanished he turned around to look at me again: there was anxiety in his eyes, and I caught it at once. The takeoff seemed to me dramatic. Four-engined planes rise gently into the air—it is a long drawn-out au revoir. This jet left the ground with the violence of a last goodbye.

  But presently I began to bubble with happiness. No, my daughters’ absence did not sadden me at all—quite the reverse. I could drive as fast or as slowly as I liked, go where I liked, stop when the whim took me. I made up my mind to spend the week wandering about. I get up as soon as it is light. The car is waiting for me in the street or in the courtyard like a faithful animal; it is wet with dew; I wipe its eyes, and full of delight I tear away through the growing sunlight. Beside me there is the white bag with the Michelin maps, the Guide Bleu, some books, a cardigan and my cigarettes—a reticent companion. No one grows impatient if I ask the owner of the little hotel for her recipe for chicken with crayfish.

  Dusk is about to fall, but it is still warm. It is one of these heart-touching moments when the world is so well attuned to men that it seems impossible that they should not all be happy.

  Tuesday 14 September.

  One of the things that really pleased Maurice was the intensity of what he called “my awareness of life.” It has revived during this short colloquy with myself. Now that Colette is married and Lucienne is in America I shall have all the time in the world to cultivate it. “You’ll be bored. You ought to look for a job,” Maurice said to me at Mougins. He went on and on about it. But I do not want one; not for the moment, anyhow. I want to live for myself a little, after all this time. And for us, Maurice and I, to make the most of this double solitude that we have been deprived of for so long. I have plans by the dozen in my mind.

  Friday 17 September.

  On Tuesday I telephoned Colette: she had flu. She protested when I said I was coming straight back to Paris—Jean-Pierre was looking after her very well. But I was worried, and I got back that same day. I found her in bed, much thinner: she has a fever every evening. When I went into the mountains with her back in August—even then I was anxious about her health. I can’t wait for Maurice to examine her, and I should like him to call Talbot in for a consultation.

  Here I am with still another protégée on my hands. When I left Colette after dinner on Wednesday it was so mild that I drove down to the Latin quarter: I sat on the terrace of a café, and I smoked a cigarette. At the next table there was a teen-age girl who gazed longingly at my pack of Chesterfields: she asked me for one. I talked to her: she evaded my questions and got up to go. She was about fifteen, neither a student nor a prostitute, and she aroused my curiosity—I suggested giving her a lift home in my car. She refused, hesitated, and then in the end she confessed that she did not know where she was going to sleep. She had escaped that morning from the center where Public Assistance had put her. I kept her here for two days. Her mother, who is more or less mentally deficient, and her stepfather, who loathes her, have given up their rights over her. The judge who is in charge of her case promised to send her to a home where she will be taught a trade. Meanwhile for these six months past she has been living “provisionally” at this center, where she never goes out—except on Sunday, to church, if she wishes—and where she is given nothing to do. There are some forty of them there, adolescent girls, physically well looked after, but pining away from boredom, weariness and despair. At nights each is given a sleeping pill. They manage to save them up. And one fine day they swallow all they have hoarded. “Running away or trying to commit suicide—that’s what you have to do in our place for the judge to remember you,” Marguerite told me. It is easy to run away; it often happens; and if it does not last long the escape is not punished.

  I promised her I should move heaven and earth to get her transferred to a home, and she let herself be persuaded to go back to the center. I boiled with anger when I saw her go through the door, her feet dragging, her head bowed. She is a pretty girl, not stupid at all, very sweet-tempered, and all she asks is to work—her youth is being hacked to pieces: hers and the youth of thousands like her. Tomorrow I shall ring up Judge Barron.

  How hard Paris is! Even on these balmy autumn days this hardness weighs me down. I feel obscurely low-spirited this evening. I have made plans for changing the girls’ room into a cozier place to sit in than Maurice’s consulting room or the waiting room. And I am coming to realize that Lucienne will never live here anymore. The house will be quiet, but very empty. But above all I am racked with anxiety about Colette. What a good thing Maurice is coming home tomorrow.

  Wednesday 22 September.