The Woman Destroyed

by Simone de Beauvoir

  15 January.

  I ought to open some canned food. Or run myself a bath. But in that case I should go on pursuing my thoughts around and around. If I write it fills up my time; it lets me escape. How many hours without eating? How many days without washing? I sent the daily woman away; I shut myself up; people have rung at the door twice, telephoned several times, but I never answer except at eight o’clock in the evening, when it is Maurice. He rings me up punctually every day, speaking anxiously.

  “What have you done today?”

  I reply that I have seen Isabelle, Diana or Colette; that I have been to a concert—to the cinema.

  “And this evening, what are you doing?”

  I say I am going to see Diana or Isabelle, that I shall go to the theater. He presses me. “You’re all right? You sleep well?”

  I reassure him, and I ask what the snow is like. Not terribly good; and the weather is nothing much either. There is gloom in his voice, as though he were carrying out some tolerably dreary task there at Courchevel. And I know that as soon as he has hung up he goes laughing into the bar where Noëllie is waiting for him and they drink martinis, talking twenty to the dozen about what has happened during the day.

  That’s what I chose, isn’t it?

  I chose going to pieces: I no longer know when it is day and when it is night: when things are too bad, when it becomes unbearable, I gulp down spirits, tranquilizers or sleeping pills. When things are a little better I take stimulants and plunge into a detective story—I have laid in a stock. When the silence stifles me I turn on the radio and from a remote planet there come voices that I can hardly understand: that world has a time, set hours, laws, speech, anxieties and amusements that are essentially foreign to me. How far one can let oneself go, when one is entirely alone and shut in! The bedroom stinks of stale tobacco and spirits; there is ash everywhere; I am filthy; the sheets are filthy; the sky is filthy behind the filthy windows: this filth is a shell that protects me; I shall never leave it again. It would be easy to slide just a little further into the void, as far as the point of no return. I have all that is needed in my drawer. But I won’t, I won’t! I’m forty-four; it’s too early to die—it’s unfair! I can’t live any longer. I don’t want to die.

  For a fortnight I have written nothing in this notebook because I read over what I had written before. And I saw that words say nothing. Rages, nightmares, horror—words cannot encompass them. I set things down on paper when I recover strength, either in despair or in hope. But the feeling of total bewilderment, of stunned stupidity, of falling apart—these pages do not contain them. And then these pages lie so—they get things so wrong. How I have been manipulated! Gently, gently Maurice brought me to the point of saying, “Make your choice!” so that he could reply, “I shall not give up Noëllie.…” Oh, I am not going over the whole business again, with comments. There is not a single line in this diary that does not call for a correction or a denial. For example, the reason why I began to keep it, at Les Salines, was not that I had suddenly recovered my youth, nor that I wanted to fill my loneliness with people, but because I had to exorcise a certain anxiety that would not admit its own existence. It was hidden deep under the silence and the warmth of that disturbing afternoon, bound up with Maurice’s gloom and with his departure. Yes: throughout these pages I meant what I was writing and I meant the opposite; reading them again I feel completely lost. There are some remarks that make me blush for shame.… I have always wanted the truth; and the reason why I have had it is that I desired it. Is it possible to be so mistaken about one’s life as all that? Is everybody as blind as this or am I an outstanding prize half-wit? And not only a half-wit. I was lying to myself. How I lied to myself! I said that Noëllie did not amount to anything and that Maurice preferred me; and I knew perfectly well that was untrue. I have taken to my pen again not to go back over the same ground but because the emptiness within me, around me, is so vast that this movement of my hand is necessary to tell myself that I am still alive.

  Sometimes I stand at that window from which I saw him leave, one Saturday morning an eternity ago. I said to myself then, He will not come back. But I was not certain of it. It was the lightning flash of intuition—the intuition of what would happen later, of what has happened. He has not come back. Not him: and one day there will no longer be even this semblance of him at my side. The car is there, parked against the pavement: he left it. It used to mean his presence, and the sight of it warmed me. Now it only emphasizes his absence. He is gone. Forever he will be gone. I shall not live without him. But I do not wish to kill myself. What then?

  Why? I batter my head against the walls of this blind alley. I have not loved a scoundrel all through these twenty years! I am not, unknown to myself, a fool or a shrew! This love between us was real: it was solid—as indestructible as truth. Only there was time going by and I—I did not know it. The river of time, the erosion caused by the river’s current: there you have it—there has been an erosion of his love by the flow of time. But why not of mine, too, in that case?

  I brought out the boxes from the cupboard where we keep our old letters. All those sayings of Maurice’s that I know by heart date back at least ten years. It is the same as the memories. So it must be supposed that the passionate love between us—or at least his for me—lasted only ten years, and its memory echoed on through the next ten, giving things a tone that they did not really possess. Yet he smiled in the same way, looked at me in the same way, during those last years. (Oh, if only I were to recover those looks and those smiles!) The more recent letters are amusing and affectionate, but meant for his daughters as much as for me. From time to time a really warmhearted phrase stands out against the usual tone: but there is something forced about them. My letters—tears blinded me when I tried to reread them.

  I did reread them, and the feeling of uneasiness is still with me. The early letters are in tune with Maurice’s, eager, loving and happy. Later they give an odd sort of a ring, vaguely whining, almost querulous. I assert with altogether too much rapture that we love one another as we did the first day; I insist upon his assuring me of this; I ask questions that call for given replies—how can I have been satisfied by them, knowing I had wrenched them out of him? But I did not realize: I forgot. I have forgotten a great deal. What was that letter he sent me and I tell him I burned after our talk on the telephone? I only remember it vaguely: I was at Mougins with the children; he was finishing his preparation for an examination; I reproached him for not writing often enough; he answered roughly. Very roughly. Distraught, I sprang to the telephone; he said he was sorry; he begged me to burn his letter. Are there other occurrences that I have buried? I always imagined myself to be honest. It is dreadful to think that behind me my own past is no longer anything but shifting darkness.

  Two days later.

  Poor Colette! I had taken care to telephone her twice, speaking cheerfully, so that she should not worry. But still it astonished her that I no longer went to see her nor asked her to come to me. She rang and beat on the door with such force that I let her in. She looked so shocked and amazed that I saw myself through her eyes. I saw the apartment, and I too was stupefied. She made me wash and do my hair and pack a bag and go and stay with her. The daily woman will put everything straight. As soon as Jean-Pierre had left I seized upon Colette and overwhelmed her with questions. Did we quarrel a great deal, her father and I? At one time, yes: it had frightened her because up until then we had got on so well together. But after that period there had never been any more scenes, at least not when she was there.

  “Still, it wasn’t the same as before?”

  She said she was too young to realize fully. She does not help me. She could give me the key to this if she would make an effort. I think I can tell from her voice that she is holding something back—it is as though she too had notions of her own that she meant to conceal. What notions? Had I become too revolting? Really too revolting? At present I am, of course—haggard, my hair dead, my
complexion muddy. But eight years ago? That I daren’t ask her. Or am I stupid? Or at least not bright enough for Maurice? Terrible questions when one is not used to asking about oneself.

  19 January.

  Can it be true? Am I going to be rewarded for my effort at leaving Maurice free, not clinging to him? For the first time in weeks I slept with no terrible dreams last night, and something loosened in my throat. Hope. Still frail, but it is there. I had been to the hairdresser, to the beauty parlor: I was very trim, the house was shining with cleanliness, and I had even bought some flowers when Maurice came back. Yet his first words were, “How ill you look!”

  It is true that I had lost nine pounds. I had made Colette swear not to tell him about the state she found me in, but I am almost sure she did. Well, perhaps it was not so wrong of her! He took me in his arms. “My poor dear!”

  “But I’m fine,” I said. (I had taken some Librium: I wanted to be relaxed.) And to my utter astonishment it was in his eyes that I saw tears.

  “I have been behaving like a swine!”

  I said, “It’s not being a swine to love another woman. You can’t help it.”

  Shrugging his shoulders he said, “Do I really love her?”

  I have been feeding on that remark for the last two days. They spent a fortnight together, in the freedom and the beauty of the mountains, and he comes back saying, “Do I really love her?” It is a line I should never have dared play deliberately; but my desperation has worked on my side. This long tête-à-tête has begun to wear out his passion. Again he said, “I didn’t want this! I didn’t want to make you unhappy.” As for that, it is a stock phrase which hardly moves me at all. If he had felt only an upsurge of pity I should not have taken hope again. But there in front of me, speaking aloud, he said, “Do I really love her?” And I tell myself that perhaps this is the beginning of the decrystallization that will detach him from Noëllie and give him back to me.

  23 January.

  He has spent all the evenings at home. He bought some new records and we listened to them. He promised that we should go on a little tour in the south at the end of February.

  People are more willing to sympathize with misery than happiness. I told Marie Lambert that Noëllie had shown herself in her true colors at Courchevel and that Maurice was without any doubt returning to me for good. She said unwillingly, “If it is for good, so much the better.”

  In the end she gave me no sound advice. I am sure they are talking about me behind my back. They have their own little notions about my trouble. They don’t confide them to me. I said to Isabelle, “You were right to prevent me from doing the irreparable. Fundamentally Maurice never did stop loving me.”

  “I dare say,” she answered in a somewhat dubious tone.

  I reacted violently. “You dare say? You think he doesn’t love me anymore? You always used to assure me that he did.…”

  “I don’t think anything exact. I have a feeling that he doesn’t know what he wants himself.”

  “What? Have you heard something new?”

  “Absolutely nothing!”

  I can’t see what she could have heard. She merely has the spirit of contradiction: she comforted me when I was in doubt—she produces doubts now I begin to have some confidence again.

  24 January.

  I ought to have hung up: I ought to have said, “He’s not in,” or even not have answered at all. What a nerve! And Maurice’s thunderstruck look! Must speak firmly to him presently when he comes home. He was reading the papers by my side when the telephone rang: Noëllie. It was the first time: and once too often. Very polite. “I should like to speak to Maurice.”

  Stupidly I passed him the receiver. He scarcely spoke at all; he looked terribly embarrassed. Several times he repeated, “No, it’s impossible.” And in the end he said, “All right. I’ll come.”

  As soon as he put the receiver down, I cried, “You shan’t go! Daring to pester you here!”

  “Listen. We had a violent quarrel. She’s desperate because I haven’t given any sign of life.”

  “I’ve been desperate too, often enough, and I’ve never phoned you at Noëllie’s.”

  “I beg you—please don’t make things too hard for me. Noëllie is capable of killing herself.”

  “Oh, come.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  He walked up and down; he kicked one of the armchairs, and I understood that whatever happened he was going to go. We had got along so well together for days that once again I was cowardly. “Go on, then,” I said. But as soon as he is back I shall speak. No scenes. But I won’t be treated like a doormat.

  25 January.

  I am shattered. He telephoned to tell me that he was spending the night at Noëllie’s—that he could not leave her in her present state. I protested; he hung up; I telephoned in my turn; I let the bell ring on and on, and then they unhooked it. I very nearly jumped into a cab to go and peal away at Noëllie’s door. But I dared not face Maurice’s look. I went out, I walked in the cold of the night, seeing nothing, not stopping, until I was exhausted. A cab brought me back, and I dropped, fully dressed, onto the divan in the sitting room. Maurice woke me up. “Why didn’t you go to bed?” There was reproach in his voice. A dreadful scene. I said he had spent his time with me because he had quarreled with Noëllie; that at the first snap of her fingers he came running; that as far as I was concerned I might perfectly well die of grief.

  “You are unjust,” he said indignantly. “If you want to know, it was because of you that we quarreled.”

  “Me?”

  “She wanted us to stay on in the mountains.”

  “You might just as well say that she wanted you to finish with me!” I wept, wept.… “I know very well that in the end you will leave me.”

  “No.”

  30 January.

  What’s happening? What do they know? They are not the same with me anymore. Isabelle, the day before yesterday.… I was aggressive with her. I blamed her for having given me bad advice. I granted everything, accepted everything, from the very first day: result—Maurice and Noëllie treat me like a doormat. She stood up for herself a little: at first she had not known that it was a question of a long-standing relationship.

  “But you didn’t want to admit that Maurice was a swine, either,” I said.

  She protested. “No. Maurice is not a swine! He’s a man caught between two women: no one is a very shining light in cases of that kind.”

  “He never ought to have got himself into that position.”

  “It happens to very decent creatures.”

  She is indulgent with Maurice because she has put up with a great deal from Charles. But their relationship was a completely different story.

  “I don’t believe Maurice is a decent creature anymore,” I said. “I am discovering small-minded aspects in him. I wounded his vanity by not going into ecstasies over his successes.”

  “There you are unjust,” she said, with a kind of sternness. “If a man likes to talk about his work, that is not vanity. It has always surprised me that you care so little for what Maurice does.”

  “I’ve nothing of any interest to say to him about it.”

  “No. But he would certainly have liked to tell you about his difficulties, and the things he had discovered.”

  A suspicion crossed my mind. “Have you been seeing him? Has he been talking to you? Has he got next to you?”

  “You’re out of your mind!”

  “I am astonished that you should take his side. If he is a decent fellow, then I am the one who is altogether in the wrong.”

  “Not at all. It’s possible for people not to get along together without either of them being in the wrong.”

  She sang a different tune before. What are the words they have on the tip of their tongue, and that they do not bring out?

  I went home, very low. What a relapse! He spends virtually all his time with Noëllie. During the few moments he grants me, he avoids our being alone
together—he takes me to a restaurant or a theater. He is right: it is less painful than being together in what was our home.

  Colette and Jean-Pierre are really very kind. They take great care of me. They took me to have dinner in a pleasant little eating place in Saint-Germain-des-Prés where excellent records were put on: one was a blues that I had often heard with Maurice, and I realized that it was my past and my whole life that were going to be taken away from me—that I had already lost. Suddenly I fainted, having uttered a little cry, it seems. I came to almost directly. But it had shocked Colette. She grew very angry. “I can’t bear seeing you tearing yourself to pieces in this way. With Papa treating you like this, you ought to send him packing. Let him go and live with that woman: you will be much quieter in your mind.”

  She would not have given me that advice only a month ago.

  The fact is that if I were a good loser I should tell Maurice to go. But my last chance is that Noëllie, for her part, should grow exasperated, make scenes and show herself in an unpleasant light. And also that the way I stick it out should touch Maurice. And then even if he is not often here, this is, after all, still his home. I am not living in a desert. Weakness; cowardice: but there is no reason why I should torture myself—I am trying to survive.

  I look at my little Egyptian statue: it has taken the glue very well. We bought it together. It was filled through and through with loving kindness, and with the blue of the sky. It stands there, naked, desolate. I take it in my hands and I weep. I can no longer put on the necklace that Maurice gave me for my fortieth birthday. All the things, all the pieces of furniture around me, have had their surfaces taken off by some acid. There is nothing left of them but a kind of heartbreaking skeleton.