She Came to Stay

by Simone de Beauvoir

  Her forehead pressed against a window-pane, Eloy was quietly weeping. Françoise put her arm round her shoulder.

  She felt some slight revulsion for this plump little body, so often pawed yet ever immaculate, but it was a convenient excuse.

  ‘You mustn’t cry,’ said Françoise, her mind a blank; these tears and this warm flesh had something soothing about them. Xavière was dancing with Paule, Gerbert with Canzetti. Their faces were expressionless, their movements feverish. For every one of them, this night was already starting a legend which was turning into weariness, deception, regret, and which was bringing disillusion to their hearts. She felt that, they dreaded the moment of departure, but that they found no pleasure in staying on there. All of them would have liked to have curled up on the floor and slept, as Xavière had slept. Françoise herself had no other desire. Outside, under a dawning sky, could be seen the black outlines of the trees.

  Françoise shivered. Pierre was at her side.

  ‘We ought to take a stroll before leaving,’ he said. ‘Will you come with me?’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Françoise.

  ‘We’ll see Xavière home and then we’ll go to the Dôme, just the two of us,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s so pleasant in the early morning.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Françoise.

  There was no need for him to be so kind to her; what she would have liked him to do was to turn to her that open face that he had bent over the sleeping Xavière.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Pierre.

  The room was plunged in darkness and he could not see that Françoise’s lips were trembling. She pulled herself together.

  ‘Nothing, what should be the matter? I’m not ill, the evening went off well. Everything’s all right.’

  Pierre seized her wrist. Abruptly she freed herself.

  ‘Perhaps I’ve drunk a little too much,’ she said with an attempt at a laugh.

  ‘Sit down here,’ said Pierre; and he sat beside her in the first row of the stalls. ‘And tell me what’s come over you. It seems as if you’re angry with me. What have I done?’

  ‘You have done nothing,’ she said softly. She took Pierre’s hand. It was unfair to be angry with him, he behaved so perfectly with her. ‘Of course you’ve done nothing,’ she repeated in a choked voice. She dropped his hand.

  ‘It isn’t because of Xavière? She can’t change anything between us, you know that. But you also know that if this affair is in the very least distasteful to you, you need only say the word.’

  ‘That’s not the question,’ she said quickly.

  It was not by sacrifices that he could bring joy back to her, certainly, when they were acting jointly, he always put Françoise above everything; but today she was not looking to this man cloaked in scrupulous moral conduct and considerate tenderness; she would have liked to reach him, in his nakedness, over and beyond esteem and hierarchies and self-approbation. She forced back her tears.

  ‘The trouble is that I feel that our love is growing old,’ she said. As soon as she had uttered these words, her tears began to flow.

  ‘Old?’ said Pierre, shocked. ‘But my love for you has never been stronger. What makes you think that?’

  It was only natural for him to try at once to reassure her – and to reassure himself.

  ‘You don’t even begin to know what’s happening,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing surprising in that. You build so firmly on this love, that you’ve put it in safe keeping, beyond time, beyond life, beyond reach. From time to time, you think about it with satisfaction, but what has really and truly become of it, you never look to see.’ She burst into sobs. ‘But I – I want to look.’ she said, swallowing her tears.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Pierre pressing her close against him. ‘I think you’re talking nonsense.’

  She pushed him away; he was wrong, she was not talking to be calmed, it would be too simple if he could dismiss her thoughts in this way.

  ‘I’m not talking nonsense. Perhaps it’s because I’m drunk that I’m talking tonight, but I’ve thought it all over for days.’

  ‘You might have said so sooner,’ said Pierre, in an irritated tone. ‘I don’t understand: what are you reproaching me with?’

  He was on the defensive; he had a horror of being in the wrong.

  ‘I’m not reproaching you with anything,’ said Françoise. ‘You can have a perfectly clear conscience. But is that the only thing that counts?’ she cried fiercely.

  ‘I can’t make head or tail of this scene,’ said Pierre. ‘I love you. You ought to know that, but if it pleases you not to believe it, I have no way to prove it to you.’

  ‘Faith, always faith,’ said Françoise. ‘That’s how Elisabeth succeeds in believing that Battier loves her and perhaps in believing that she still loves him. It’s clear, that gives you a sense of security. Your feelings always have to keep the same outer significance, you have to have them ready for use, neatly lined up, immutable, and even if they’re hollow inside it’s all the same to you. They’re like the whited sepulchres of the Bible: they dazzle outwardly. They’re firm, they’re faithful, they can even be whitewashed periodically with beautiful words.’ She was again overcome by a flood of tears. ‘Only, they must never be opened. You’ll find only dust and ashes inside.’ She repeated: ‘Dust and ashes.’ It was blinding evidence. ‘Oh,’ she said, hiding her face in the crook of her arm.

  Pierre lowered his arm. ‘Stop crying,’ he said. ‘I’d like to talk reasonably.’

  Presently he would find lovely arguments and it would be so easy to give in to them. Françoise did not want to lie to herself, like Elisabeth; she saw that clearly. She kept on sobbing.

  ‘But it’s not so serious,’ said Pierre gently. He brushed a light caress over her hair. She gave a start.

  ‘It is serious. I’m sure of what I’m saying. Your feelings are unchangeable. They can endure for centuries because they are mummified. It’s like this crowd of women,’ she said suddenly, thinking with horror of Blanche Bouguet’s face, ‘it doesn’t move; it’s completely embalmed.’

  ‘You are extremely unpleasant,’ said Pierre. ‘Either cry or talk, but not both at once.’ He pulled himself together. ‘Let’s take it for granted that I don’t swoon, or suffer from palpitations. I don’t. But does true love consist of that? Why does that suddenly shock you today? You’ve always known that I was like that.’

  ‘Look,’ said Françoise, ‘your friendship for Gerbert is the same. You never see much of him nowadays, but you shout to high heaven if I say that you’ve grown less fond of him.’

  ‘I’ve no ardent desire to see much of people, that’s quite true,’ said Pierre.

  ‘You have no desires at all,’ said Françoise, ‘it’s all the same to you.’

  She was crying desperately. She loathed the thought of that moment when she would cease crying and return to the world of merciful deception. She would have to find a spell that would fix the present minute for ever.

  ‘Are you there?’ said a voice.

  Françoise sat up; it was astonishing how quickly those relentless sobs could stop. Ramblin’s outline emerged from the shadow of the doorway and he came forward laughing.

  ‘I’m being trailed. That Eloy girl dragged me into a dark corner, telling me how wicked the world was, and there she attempted to deliver a frontal attack upon my person.’ He assumed the modest attitude of the Venus de Medicis. ‘I had the greatest difficulty in defending my virtue.’

  ‘She’s out of luck tonight,’ said Pierre. ‘She tried in vain to seduce Tedesco.’

  ‘If Canzetti hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened,’ said Françoise.

  ‘Please note that I have no prejudices,’ said Ramblin, ‘but I find such behaviour unhealthy.’

  He listened attentively.

  ‘Do you hear?’

  ‘No,’ said Françoise. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can hear someone breathing.’

  A faint noise was coming
from the stage. It did, indeed, sound like breathing.

  ‘I wonder who it is?’ said Ramblin.

  They climbed on to the stage floor. It was pitch black.

  ‘To the right,’ said Pierre.

  A body was lying behind the velvet curtain; they bent over it.

  ‘Guimiot! It would have surprised me if he’d gone home before the last bottle had been emptied.’

  Guimiot had a beatific smile, with his head resting on his crooked arm. He was really very pretty.

  ‘I’ll shake him,’ said Ramblin, ‘and I’ll bring him upstairs for you.’

  ‘We’ll finish our stroll,’ said Pierre.

  The green-room was empty. Pierre shut the door.

  ‘I’d like to talk things over,’ he said. ‘I find it very distressing that you should doubt our love.’

  His face showed an honest concern, and Françoise, tempted, gazed at him.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve stopped loving me,’ she murmured.

  ‘But you said that we’re dragging an old corpse at our heels. That’s so unfair! First of all, it’s not true that I don’t need to see you. The minute you’re not with me I’m bored, and when you’re there I’m never bored; whenever anything happens to me, I at once think of telling you, for it happens to you as well as to me. You’re my life, you know that. I don’t often get upset about you, it’s true; but that’s because we’re happy. If you were ill, or if you were to double-cross me, I’d be at my wit’s end.’

  He spoke these words in a calm, earnest manner that forced a tender smile from Françoise. She took his arm and together they went up towards the dressing-rooms.

  ‘I’m your life,’ said Françoise, ‘but you don’t see what I feel so strongly tonight – that our lives are lying all about us, almost in spite of us, without our being able to choose them. And you don’t choose me, you no longer choose me, either. You’re no longer free not to love me.’

  ‘The fact remains that I love you,’ said Pierre. ‘Do you really think that freedom consists in questioning things at every turn? We’ve often said, apropos of Xavière, that this was the way to become the slaves of our slightest moods.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Françoise.

  She was too tired to find her way in her own thoughts, but she once again saw Pierre’s face when he had dropped her arm: the evidence of that was irrefutable.

  ‘And yet life is made up of moments,’ she said vehemently. ‘If every one of them were empty, you’d never convince me that it would make a full whole.’

  ‘But I have hundreds of full moments with you,’ said Pierre. ‘Isn’t that obvious? You speak as if I were a great callous brute.’

  Françoise touched his arm.

  ‘You are so sweet,’ she said. ‘Only, you see, full moments cannot be distinguished from empty ones, because you’re always equally perfect.’

  ‘From which you conclude that they’re all empty!’ said Pierre. ‘How perfectly logical! Right! I presume that from now on, I’m allowed to be as temperamental as I like?’ He looked reproachfully at Françoise. ‘Why are you so morose when I’m so much in love with you?’

  Françoise looked away.

  ‘I don’t know; I feel slightly bewildered.’ She hesitated. ‘For instance, you always listen to me very politely when I talk to you about myself, whether it interests you or not. Then, I ask myself, if you weren’t being quite so polite would you listen to me?’

  ‘It always interests me,’ said Pierre with astonishment.

  ‘But you never ask me questions spontaneously.’

  ‘I feel that as soon as you have something to say, you say it to me,’ said Pierre.

  He stared at her a little uneasily.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘What?’ said Françoise.

  ‘That I didn’t ask questions?’

  ‘Several times recently,’ said Françoise with a little laugh. ‘You looked as if you were thinking of something else.’

  She hesitated, doubtful. Confronted with Pierre’s trust, she was ashamed. Every time she had kept silence with regard to him she had prepared an ambush into which he had quietly fallen. He did not suspect that she had been laying traps for him. Wasn’t she the one who had changed? Wasn’t it she who was lying when she spoke of blissful love, of happiness, of jealousy overcome? Her words, her behaviour no longer corresponded fully to her deeper feelings. And he continued to believe her. Was that faith or indifference?

  The dressing-rooms and corridors were empty and everything seemed in order. In silence, they went back to the green-room and on to the stage. Pierre sat down on the edge of the proscenium.

  ‘I think I’ve neglected you lately,’ he said. ‘I think that had I really been perfect with you, you wouldn’t have been worried about this perfection.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Françoise. ‘It’s not easy just to talk about that subject.’ She took a little time to steady her voice. ‘It seemed to me that during those moments when you let yourself go unrestrainedly, I didn’t mean so very much to you.’

  ‘In other words, I’m sincere only when I’m in the wrong?’ said Pierre, ‘and if I behave properly to you it’s only through conscious effort? Does that make sense to you?’

  ‘It’s valid,’ said Françoise.

  ‘Certainly, because my attentions to you condemn me as much as my blunders. If you start from that basis you will always be right, whatever I do.’

  Pierre seized Françoise by the shoulder.

  ‘It’s wrong, ridiculously wrong. I’ve no hidden spring of indifference to you that intermittently wells to the surface. You mean everything to me, and when by chance, because of some worry or other, I am less aware of it for five minutes or so, you yourself say that anyone can notice it.’ He looked at her. ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Françoise.

  She believed him; but that was not precisely the point. She did not really know any longer just what was the point at issue.

  ‘That’s sensible,’ said Pierre, ‘but don’t start all over again.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I think I understand all right the effect it has on you. We’ve tried to build our love beyond each individual moment, yet we can only be certain of the moments. For the rest, you do require faith. And is faith courage or laziness?’

  ‘That’s what I was wondering a little while ago,’ said Françoise.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder about that with regard to my work,’ said Pierre. ‘I get annoyed when Xavière tells me that I cling to it out of a desire for moral security – and yet?’

  Françoise felt her heart contract. The one thing she could least bear was for Pierre to question the value of his work.

  ‘In my case there’s a certain blind obstinacy,’ said Pierre. He smiled. ‘You know, when you make a big hole in the back of a honeycomb, the bees continue spitting honey into it with the same cheerfulness. That’s somewhat the impression I have of myself.’

  ‘You don’t really think that?’ said Françoise.

  ‘At other times I see myself as a little hero who keeps resolutely on his way through the oncoming night,’ said Pierre, frowning and looking resolute yet stupid.

  ‘Yes, you’re a little hero,’ said Françoise, laughing.

  ‘I’d like to believe it,’ said Pierre.

  He had risen but he remained motionless, with his back against a piece of scenery. Above them the gramophone was playing a tango and people were still dancing; they would have to go up and join them.

  ‘It’s too awful.’ said Pierre, ‘she really makes me uncomfortable, that creature, with her philosophy which makes us less than the dust. It seems to me that if she loved me I’d be as sure of myself as I was before. I would feel that I’d compelled her approval.’

  ‘You are odd,’ said Françoise. ‘She is allowed to love you and censure you at the same time.’

  ‘Then it would be only an abstract censure,’ said Pierre. ‘To make her love me is to dominate her, to enter into her world and ther
e conquer in accordance with her own values.’ He smiled. ‘You know this is the kind of victory for which I have an insane need.’

  ‘I know,’ said Françoise.

  Pierre looked gravely at her.

  ‘Only, I don’t want this sinful mama to drag me into spoiling anything between us.’

  ‘It can’t spoil anything, you said so yourself,’ said Françoise.

  ‘It can’t spoil anything vital,’ said Pierre, ‘but the fact is that when I’m worried because of her, I neglect you. When I look at her I don’t look at you.’ His voice grew urgent. ‘I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to call a halt to this affair. It’s not love that I feel for her: it savours more of superstition. If she resists, I become obstinate, but as soon as I think I’m sure of her, I become indifferent about her. And if I decide not to see her any more, I know very well that from one minute to the next I’ll stop thinking about her.’

  ‘But there’s no reason for that,’ said Françoise quickly.

  Surely, if Pierre took the initiative and broke with her, he would not regret it; life would go on again where it had left off before the advent of Xavière. With some astonishment, Françoise felt that this assurance awakened in her only some kind of disappointment.

  ‘You know,’ said Pierre smiling, ‘I can’t accept anything from anyone. Xavière offers me absolutely nothing. You need have no qualms.’ He again became solemn. ‘Think it over well; it’s serious. If you think it holds any threat whatsoever to our love, you must say so. I don’t want to run that risk at any price.’

  There was a silence. Françoise’s head felt heavy; she was conscious only of her head, she no longer felt a body. And her heart too was quiet: it was as if layers of fatigue and indifference had separated her from herself. Without jealousy, without love, ageless, nameless, confronted with her own life, she was no longer anything but a calm and detached spectator.

  ‘I’ve thought it all over,’ she said. ‘There’s no doubt about it.’