She Came to Stay

by Simone de Beauvoir

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Xavière, almost in a whisper. She suddenly opened the door and closed it behind her.

  Pierre walked to the window and for a moment remained motionless, pressing his forehead against a pane. He was watching her leave the building.

  ‘Now we’re in a fine mess,’ he said, walking back to the bed.

  ‘And how clumsy you were!’ said Françoise nervously, ‘what ever came over you? The last thing in the world you should have done was to come back like that with Xavière to tell me at once all about your conversation. The situation was embarrassing for everyone. Even a less sensitive girl would not have stood it.’

  ‘Eh! What else could I have done?’ said Pierre. ‘I made the suggestion that she should come and see you alone, but of course she felt that that was more than she could cope with. She said that it would be far better for us to come together. And as for me, there was never any question of my speaking to you without her. We would have looked like a couple of grown-ups making our own arrangements for her over her head.’

  ‘I don’t deny it,’ said Françoise. ‘It was a very delicate matter.’ She added with a strange stubborn pleasure: ‘In any case, your solution was not a happy one.’

  ‘Last night it seemed so simple,’ said Pierre. He assumed a far-away look. ‘We discovered our love. We came to tell it to you as a beautiful story that had happened to us.’

  The blood rushed to Françoise’s cheeks and her heart was filled with resentment. She hated this role of a dispassionate benevolent divinity which they obliged her to play to suit their own convenience, on the pretext of revering her.

  ‘Yes, and the story was thereby hallowed in advance,’ said Françoise. ‘I quite understand; it was even more important for Xavière than for you to think that I would be told about last night.’ She recalled their delighted look of mutual understanding when they came into her room; they were bringing her their love, like a beautiful gift, that she might return it to them transformed into a virtue. ‘Only, Xavière can never picture things in detail. She did not understand that words had to be used. She was horrified as soon as you opened your mouth. I am not surprised that she was, but you ought to have foreseen the result.’

  Pierre shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I didn’t think of taking it into account,’ he said. ‘I had no suspicions. That little fiend! If you could have seen how submissive and yielding she was last night. When I said the word “love”, she trembled a little, but her face gave immediate consent. I took her home.’

  He smiled, but he looked as if he did not feel that he was smiling. His gaze remained vague.

  ‘When I was about to leave her, I took her in my arms and she held her lips up to me. It was a completely chaste kiss, but there was so much tenderness in her gesture.’

  The picture seared Françoise like a burn. Xavière – her black suit, her plaid blouse and her white neck; Xavière – supple and warm in Pierre’s arms, her eyes half closed, her mouth proffered. Never would she see that face. She made a determined effort; she was going to be unfair, she did not want to allow herself to be submerged by this increasing resentment.

  ‘You’re not offering her an easy love,’ she said. ‘It was only natural for her to be frightened for a moment. We don’t usually look at her from that point of view; but after all, she’s a young girl and she has never loved. That does count, in spite of everything.’

  ‘I only hope she doesn’t do anything foolish,’ said Pierre.

  ‘What do you think she might do?’

  ‘With her, you never know. She was in such a state.’

  He looked anxiously at Françoise.

  ‘Will you try to reassure her? Explain everything to her. You’re the only one who can put matters right.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Françoise.

  She looked at him, and their conversation of the previous evening flooded back into her mind. She had loved him too blindly, and for too long, for what she received from him; but she had promised herself to love him for himself, and even in that condition of freedom of which he was now availing himself to escape from her; she would not stumble over the first obstacle. She smiled at him.

  ‘What I shall really try to get into her head,’ she said, ‘is that you are not one man between two women, but that all three of us form something very special, something difficult, perhaps, but something which could be beautiful and happy.’

  ‘I wonder if she’ll come at midnight,’ said Pierre. ‘She was so unlike herself.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to persuade her,’ said Françoise. ‘It isn’t really so serious.’

  ‘And Gerbert?’ said Françoise, after a short silence. ‘Is he right out of it now?’

  ‘We hardly mentioned him,’ said Pierre, ‘but I think you were right. He attracts her for the moment, and a minute later she no longer gives him a thought.’ He rolled a cigarette between his fingers. ‘Still, it was that which brought the whole thing to a head. I found our relationship delightful, such as it was. I wouldn’t have tried to change a thing if jealousy hadn’t aroused my domineering instinct. It’s chronic, as soon as I feel I’m being met with resistance, I lose my head.’

  It was true that he had within him a dangerous mechanism of which he was not master. Françoise felt a tightening in her throat.

  ‘You’ll end up by sleeping with her,’ she said.

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she was overwhelmed by an unbearable certainty – Pierre, with his caressing masculine hands, would turn this black pearl, this austere angel, into a rapturous woman. He had already crushed his lips to her soft lips. She looked at him with a kind of horror.

  ‘You know that I’m no sensualist,’ said Pierre. ‘All I ask is to be able at any time to see an expression like the one I saw last night, and moments when I alone in this world exist for her.’

  ‘But it’s more or less inevitable,’ said Françoise. ‘Your domineering isn’t going to be content with half-measures. To make sure that she always loves you as much, you’ll ask a little more of her each time.’

  In her voice there was a harsh hostility that wounded Pierre. He made a slight grimace.

  ‘You’re going to make me disgusted with myself,’ he said.

  ‘It always seems a sacrilege to me,’ said Françoise more gently, ‘to think of Xavière as a sexual woman.’

  ‘But it does me, too,’ said Pierre. Resolutely, he lit his cigarette. ‘The point is, that I won’t tolerate her sleeping with another man.’

  Again Françoise felt that unbearable searing in her heart.

  ‘That’s just why you’ll be brought to sleeping with her,’ she said. ‘I don’t say at once, but in six months, in a year.’

  She envisaged each step along the fatal path that led from kisses to caresses, from caresses to complete surrender. Through Pierre’s failing, Xavière would end up there like anyone else. For a moment she frankly hated him.

  ‘Do you know what you are going to do now?’ she said, taking care to control her voice. ‘You’re going to sit down in your corner, as you did the other day, and do some work. I’ll rest for a while.’

  ‘I tire you out, I know,’ said Pierre. ‘I forget far too often that you’re ill.’

  ‘It’s not you,’ said Françoise.

  She closed her eyes. She was suffering from unpleasant suspicions. Exactly what did she want? What could she want? She did not know; but it was absurd to have imagined that she could escape by renunciation; she was too fond of Pierre and Xavière; she was too involved. A thousand painful recollections swirled through her head and battered at her heart; she felt that the blood coursing through her veins was poisoned. She turned to the wall and began to cry silently.

  Pierre left Françoise at seven o’clock. She had finished her supper and she was too tired to read; she could do nothing else but wait for Xavière. But would she come? It was terrible to be dependent on that capricious will, without having the means to influence it. A prisoner. Franço
ise looked at the bare walls; the room smelt of fever and night, the nurse had taken away the flowers and turned off the ceiling light. There remained nothing but a shell of pale light round her bed.

  ‘What do I want?’ Françoise asked herself again in anguish.

  She had only been able to cling obstinately to the past; she had let Pierre proceed alone. And now that she had let go, he had gone too far for her to reach him. It was too late. ‘And if it weren’t too late?’ she thought. If in the end she were to decide to throw all her reserves into action instead of standing stock-still, with limp and empty arms? She pulled herself up a little on the pillows. She, too, must give herself without reservation, that was her only chance: perhaps then she, in her turn, would be caught up by this new future into which Pierre and Xavière had preceded her. She looked excitedly at the door. She would do that; she made up her mind to do that: there was absolutely nothing else to do. If only Xavière would come! Half-past seven. It was no longer Xavière she was awaiting, her hands moist and her throat dry; it was her life, her future, and the resurrection of her happiness.

  There was a soft knock.

  ‘Come in,’ said Françoise.

  Nothing happened. Xavière must have been afraid that Pierre was still there.

  ‘Come in,’ cried Françoise as loudly as she could; but her voice was strangled. Xavière would go away without hearing her and she had no way of recalling her.

  Xavière came in.

  ‘I’m not disturbing you?’ she said.

  ‘Certainly not, I was looking forward to seeing you,’ said Françoise.

  Xavière sat down beside the bed.

  ‘Where have you been all this time?’ said Françoise gently.

  ‘I’ve been for a walk,’ said Xavière.

  ‘How upset you were,’ said Françoise. ‘Why do you torment yourself like that? What are you afraid of? There’s no reason for it.’

  Xavière lowered her head; she seemed to be completely worn out.

  ‘I was perfectly foul just now,’ she said. She added timidly: ‘Was Labrousse very angry?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Françoise. ‘He was just worried.’ She smiled. ‘But you’ll reassure him.’

  Xavière stared at Françoise with a look of terror.

  ‘I don’t dare go and see him,’ she said.

  ‘But that’s absurd,’ said Françoise. ‘Because of that scene just now?’

  ‘Because of everything.’

  ‘You’ve worked yourself up over a word,’ said Françoise, ‘but a word doesn’t change anything. You don’t think he’ll feel he has any rights over you?’

  ‘You saw just now,’ said Xavière. ‘It’s already caused a row.’

  ‘It was you who made the row, because you became panic-stricken,’ said Françoise. She smiled. ‘Anything new always upsets you. You were afraid to come to Paris, afraid of the theatre. And after all, so far, you’ve met with no great trouble.’

  ‘No,’ said Xavière with a shadow of a smile.

  Her face, drawn with fatigue and anguish, seemed even more impalpable than usual; still, it was made of soft flesh against which Pierre had pressed his lips. For a while Françoise gazed with loving eyes at this woman whom Pierre loved.

  ‘On the contrary, everything could be so easy,’ she said. ‘A couple who are closely united is something beautiful enough, but how much more wonderful would be a trio who loved each other with all their being.’ She waited a while. Now the moment had come for her, too, to commit herself and to take her risks. ‘Because, after all, it is certainly a kind of love that exists between you and me.’

  Xavière threw her a quick glance.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. Suddenly, an expression of childlike tenderness softened her face and impulsively she leaned towards Françoise and kissed her.

  ‘How warm you are,’ she said. ‘You are feverish.’

  ‘I’m always a little feverish at night,’ said Françoise. She smiled. ‘But I’m so happy you’re here.’

  It was so simple; this love, which of a sudden swelled her heart with sweetness, had always been within her reach; she had only to stretch out her hand, her timid and avaricious hand.

  ‘You see, if there is also love between you and Labrousse, what a beautiful well-balanced trio that makes,’ she said. ‘It’s not a recognized way of living, but I don’t think it will be too difficult for us. Do you share my view?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Xavière, who seized Françoise’s hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Just let me get well, and you’ll see what a beautiful life we’ll have, the three of us,’ said Françoise.

  ‘You’ll be back at the end of a week?’ said Xavière.

  ‘If all goes well,’ said Françoise.

  She suddenly became aware of the painful stiffening of her whole body. No, she would not stay in this nursing-home any longer, this was the end of any peaceful detachment; she had regained her keen zest for happiness.

  ‘That hotel is so dismal without you,’ said Xavière. ‘In the old days, even when I didn’t see you for a whole day, I felt you were up there above me and I heard your step on the staircase. It’s so empty now.’

  ‘But I’ll be coming back,’ said Françoise, with emotion.

  She had never suspected that Xavière paid such particular attention to her presence. How she had misjudged her! How she would love her, to make up for time lost! She pressed her hand and looked at her in silence. Now when her temples were throbbing with fever and her throat was dry, she understood at last what miracle had entered her life. She had been slowly withering away under the protection of painstakingly built patterns and leaden-heavy thoughts, when suddenly, in a burst of purification and freedom, all this too-human world had collapsed into dust. One open childlike look from Xavière had sufficed to destroy that prison, and now, on this liberated earth a thousand marvels would come to life, thanks to this exacting young angel. A sad angel with gentle feminine hands, as red as those of a peasant woman, with lips perfumed with honey, Virginian tobacco and green tea.

  ‘My precious Xavière,’ said Françoise.

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  Elisabeth’s eyes ran over the upholstered walls, and came to rest on the miniature theatre painted in red at the far end of the room. For a time she had thought with pride: ‘This is my work.’ But it was not so very much to be proud of; it had, after all, to be the work of somebody’s hands.

  ‘I must go home,’ she said. ‘Pierre is coming to supper with Françoise and the Pagès girl.’

  ‘Ah! Pagès is walking out on me,’ said Gerbert with a slightly mortified expression.

  He had not taken the trouble to remove his make-up; with his green eyelids and the thick layer of ochre covering his cheeks, he looked much more handsome than he actually was. Elisabeth had brought him and Dominique together, and made her accept his marionette number. She had played an important part in the organization of the night-club. She smiled bitterly. With the aid of drinking and smoking she had had, during the discussions, the intoxicating feeling of playing an active part, but it was like the rest of her life – her actions had no real value. This she had understood, during these three gloomy days; nothing that happened to her was ever real. Sometimes, far into the fog, it was possible to catch a glimpse of something which faintly resembled an event or an act; some people could let themselves be taken in by it, yet it was nothing but blatant deception.

  ‘She’ll walk out on you more often than you think,’ said Elisabeth.

  In Xavière’s absence. Lise had resumed her part and, in Elisabeth’s opinion, played it at least as well. Still, Gerbert appeared put out. Elisabeth studied him closely.

  ‘That child has some talent,’ she continued, ‘but she seems to lack conviction in whatever she does, and that’s a pity.’

  ‘I can understand that it isn’t much fun for her having to come here every night,’ said Gerbert, slightly on the defensive, a fact not lost on Elisabeth. She
had for a long time suspected that Gerbert had a soft corner for Xavière. It was amusing. Did Françoise suspect this?

  ‘Which day shall we meet to make a start on your portrait?’ she said. ‘Tuesday evening? I only want to make a few sketches.’

  What she would very much like to know was what Xavière thought of Gerbert. She could not be very interested in him, they kept her too close in hand; still, her eyes had had a strange sparkle that opening night while she danced with him. If he were to make advances to her, how would she react?

  ‘Tuesday, if you like,’ said Gerbert.

  He was so shy. He would never dare to take the initiative: he did not even suspect that he stood a chance.

  Elisabeth lightly pecked at Dominique’s forehead.

  ‘Goodbye, darling.’

  She went out into the street. It was late; she would have to walk quickly if she wanted to get there before them: she had delayed sinking back into herself until the very last minute. She would manage to speak to Pierre somehow; the game was lost in advance, yet she wanted to take this one last chance. She pursed her lips. Suzanne was triumphant; Nanteuil had just accepted Partage for next winter, and Claude was oozing fatuous satisfaction from every pore. Never had he been so tender as during the past three days, and never had she hated him more. He was a careerist – vain and weak; he was eternally bound to Suzanne and eternally Elisabeth would remain the licensed and clandestine mistress. During these past few days, the truth, in all its unbearable crudity, had become obvious to her: she had nursed her vain hopes out of cowardice, she could expect nothing of Claude; and yet she would bear anything to keep him, for she could not live without him. She had not even the excuse of a generous love, her suffering and bitterness had killed all love. Had she really ever loved him? Was she capable of loving? She quickened her pace. There had been Pierre. If he had devoted his life to her, perhaps she would never have grown up with these discords or these lies within her. Perhaps for her, too, the world would have been complete and she would have known peace in her heart. But that was all in the past. She was hurrying to him without finding within herself anything but a desperate desire to do him harm.