Here Jean-Paul Sartre, the iconic philosopher, playwright, novelist, critic and father of French existentialism, writes to his equally legendary partner, feminist philosopher and author of The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir. At the time of this letter’s writing, de Beauvoir was a teacher, and somewhat notorious for seducing young female students and passing them along to her husband. In 1939 Sartre was serving as a meteorologist for the French army.
June 1939
My darling Beaver
Are you truly in Bellegarde, my sweet? In Bellegarde Basses-Alpes? I’m all a-tremble, for I’ve lost, God knows where, my notebook with your address. We’ll chance it and trust to God. You must be having a sad time, my poor dearest, and more than once I’ve found myself very moved as I imagined your fragile little iron-willed self on wet roads, completely stubborn and completely soaked. I’m eager to have a note from you. Tomorrow I’ll drop by my place. I love you so much. I hope your eyes will be soothed by the time you get back, poor little thing with the pitiful eyes, and I long to hold you tightly in my arms.
Lots of goings-on here, but as you know, goings-on that are cataclysmic and inconsequential. I’m leading an odd life. Wasted time, of course, tremendously wasted, but consensual waste. Whence an odd dreamy state, not too unpleasant. Of course, there were storms and despair and clamoring on Saturday, because I got in at nine o’clock. Or rather I found a prostrated creature bearing all the pressures of the world. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing.” “But what is it?” “Nothing.” “But?” “But I already told you, it’s nothing!” A little scene: she goes to the washbasin, puts cream on her face, powder, lipstick. Silence. And then finally, in a good-faith effort: “All right, I came in without looking in my letter box. I waited impatiently till 8:45, and only then did I think of going down to see if there was something for me.” “And that’s when you found my pneumatique.” She nodded, and then dryly, “Well, whaddaya want, that’s the way I am. I get tied in knots waiting. But that’s the way I am, that’s all. It’s not my fault.” And I, of course: “If you were telling me you hated me till 8:45, all well and good. But after you found my note at 8:45,” etc. etc. This goes on for awhile longer. Thereupon, impatient, I say, “Come on, let’s go out!” We go out. Outside, silence. I say, “Listen, I’m not angry at you. Let’s stop all this.” But no, not in the least, she felt like going on: “But you forced me to go out before things were settled, and now you want us to work it out with all these people around, in this…vortex!” So we walked down empty streets. The Rue Pigalle, the Boulevard Haussman, which was in fact completely dark, and then she said, “I’m tired,” and we went into a big café with music, the German café-konditorei sort and more specifically, you may remember, like the one in Hamburg, near the station, with a balconied second floor. There were gypsy musicians, a clientele of widowers and respectable adulterers. As it was so profoundly gloomy, she suddenly perked up, and rubbed her head against my shoulder, and things were turning rosy when, after forty-five minutes, a soprano drove us out of the café. Then Tania got a headache. She wanted us to go to the Café de Flore. Upon which her mood turned sour. This sort of dialogue in the Métro, punctuated with long silences: “I’ve got a pimple on my chin, I’m furious.” “What from?” “You gave it to me, with your bad food; you’re full of them, I told you to change your diet but you refuse to listen, I won’t tell you again,” etc. At the Café de Flore, where Léon Daudet—I think that’s who it was—was sitting, I finally got mad.
“Look,” she said, “it’s all right, I’m in the wrong. But why do you insist on pointing it out to me? It ties me up in knots to admit I’m wrong.” We went back by cab, and then came the obligatory reconciliation in my room (the tiresome part is that, down to the minute, one can predict the reconciliation). Naturally she didn’t sleep a wink, I slept four hours, and in the morning there was some quarrel or other. Out of weariness. Nobody felt like pursuing the argument to its end. I left her at 12:15, after letting her know that the week I was spending with her would be poisoned, that I had hoped for a certain flair. To which she replied, “It’s as though you’re doing something out of the ordinary, spending a week with me. But it’s just something natural, and you should have done more of it during the year.” Then she promised to be charming. And with that I went off to be with my family. Without a fuss. Around 8 I found Mouloudji and Tania, radiant, they had talked it all out, there was nothing the matter, nothing at all, it was my fault in fact, and Mouloudji was a charming child. The charming child left (by the way, he eavesdrops at doors and peeps through keyholes) and Tania, now lively and lighthearted, came over to sit on my knees with dubious intentions. I’m always so suspicious of her demonstrations of affection. She mussed my hair and plied me with a thousand affectionate gestures, we left by Métro for La Coupole, she was charming, and then around midnight she gave out and I took her home by cab, where she slept like a log till eight. In the morning (it was Monday) I took her by cab to Poupette’s. I’m seeing her again today. That’s when I sent you your money order. I looked in the phonebook for the Département, but there are six Bellegardes—Ain, Haute-Vienne, Basses-Alpes, etc.—and I know neither geography nor your itinerary. I took a chance and sent it to Bellegarde Basses-Alpes. Thereupon Tania wandered over to Demory’s. And there occurred a most extraordinary conversation.
Alas, my dearest, I can’t report the conversation to you now. It’s late and she’ll show up any minute.
My darling Beaver, I love you enormously. I’m spending a little time away from you—quite absurd and contingent. I would so like to see you, my stubborn little thing, and tell you my stories and hold your hand. You are my love, you good little being. Far from you I measure the nothingness of the flesh, and I’m not having much fun. Till Saturday, you, my little sweet, I send you a big kiss.
From Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone De Beauvoir, 1926-1939. New York: Scribner, 1992. pp. 183-184.
FURTHER READING
Read Lisa Appignanesi’s defense of de Beauvoir and Sartre’s open marriage at The Guardian and a somewhat different take on their “strange liaison,” from Louis Menand of The New Yorker.
Read an interview with Simone de Beauvoir about her novel The Coming of Age.