Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Sunday 15 December [1940]
Most dear little being
How it delights me to write to you, now that I know my letters are getting through. I’m going to tell you everything. Well, yesterday I found your little letter, which filled my heart with joy: I’d like some details of this new theatrical art and your work.2931 think it’s a new string to your bow for good now, and that you’ll be working relentlessly for the theatre on your return. I wrote to you from the Select, then worked. I’m redoing the first part, livening up the character and life of Françoise — which is easy — and trying to establish Pierre better, which by contrast is very hard.
[...]
Since yesterday, I’ve been happy. I love you passionately.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
[16 December 1940] — Monday
My love
I’m going to tell you about my evening with Sorokine. You should first know that she has left her mother’s, shamefully driven out amid frightful scenes because the bitch was no longer willing to support her — she even stole a bracelet from her. Sor. counter-attacked by stealing soap to the value of 350 F. and an electric fire. The Russian colony has been thrown into turmoil by all this. Sorokine accordingly has to live off a few lessons, some meagre assistance on my part, and the help of the fellow of whom she has made a conquest. He’s a young philosophy student of 21, fairly good-looking, very intelligent, a bit too austere, who at 17 had an amazing three-way affair with a homosexual and a woman — who was none other than our friend Claudine Chonez, which I found prodigiously amusing. There are lots of hilarious details (I was shown textual proof). This fellow has installed Sor. in a kind of lodging-house, where he himself lives, on Bd Port Royal. She took me to her room, where we ate sardines and jam and talked — she was terribly nice and engaging. The situation, in broad terms, is that the fellow is madly jealous of me. She, on the other hand, persists in loving me — although she does want to avoid losing him, and even (for material reasons) to marry him. My inclination’s to push her into his arms, but she won’t listen to a word. Oh! I’d like to tell you everything in detail — but I’ll try gradually. Tell me what you’d most like me to write about — it’s so annoying having to choose, when I’ve such a lot to tell you. I live with you all the time — you’re my sole reason for living and I don’t leave you. I love you, my little one.
Your charming Beaver
Envelope
KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST — Prisoners of War
Vor- und Zuname: Sartre Jean-Paul
Gefangenennummer: Mle 10788
Lager-Bezeichnung: Stalag XII-D
Sender: De Beauvoir Simone
21 Rue Vavin Paris
[Paris — Official Form]
Wednesday 18 December [1940]
Dear little being
I was really moved just now because I met the chambermaid from the Hôtel Mistral, who stopped me in Rue Vavin and asked me effusively for news of you. It reminded me of that happy past of ours, my love — we’ll go back there, won’t we? Her husband’s a prisoner too. During the day I also met old man Gerassi, who gave me news of Fernand and Stépha: they’re in New York with the kid and very happy. I had a studious day: from 8 to 11 working at the Dome; 1 hour’s teaching; lunch with Bost in a pleasant bistro opposite your grandmother’s place — hardly anybody goes there except labourers and there’s a big stove in the middle of the room. After that, I listened to Bach records for an hour in Bd St Michel, and since 3 I’ve been working at the Dome — it’s 6 now and I’m going to work on. You run into Merleau-Ponty almost every morning at the Dome — he’s now married to that young Jolibois woman. I was the one who made the marriage — did I tell you about it? She was expecting a baby again, and didn’t want any other solution. She was very nice, moreover, explaining to me how she wanted the marriage personally, but didn’t want to impose it on him. And he was sickening, going on about how — even when they were living apart — he was afraid of any least hint of a responsibility. What’s more — objecting to that little ‘contortion’ men perform when they don’t want a child — he left her to take care of all the risks on her own, so regarded it as her own fault if things turned out badly. They’re living in separate Montparnasse hotels and maintaining polite relations.
Goodbye, my little one, how I’d love to tell you everything in more detail. You’re with me all day long. I love you.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Saturday 21 December [1940]
My love
So here I am on holiday, with Paris enjoying the most superb cold, dry, ski-ing weather. I’ve got hold of heaps of books by Kierkegaard and Scheler, and also some books on music, and I’m going to listen to heaps of concerts — so I feel I’ve got a good holiday ahead of me. So they’re going to stage your Christmas mystery-play, are they? — in fact, they’ll already have done so by the time you get this note — but I shan’t see it. It does make me bitter at times — even if I think you’re at peace — to think of you without me. I’d give all the amenities of my life, and accept all the hardships of yours, in order to live beside you — even if I were only to see you for a few hours each week. You’re more precious to me than the rest of the world put together. I love you solely, my sweet little one. My days oscillate, you see, between a tranquil satisfaction (because they’re very full and pleasant) and an all-consuming regret because you alone count in my eyes. When I think that I’ve had you to myself for days and weeks! That we used to talk for hours on end, and I used to see your face! Praise be to Heaven, I’ve never been light-minded: I’ve always understood what a miracle it was that you should be granted me, and in 11 years I don’t think I’ve wasted a minute of your presence. I try not to think too much about all I’m lacking through your absence. As soon as I feel it, though — as at this moment — as soon as I see your face again too much, it’s unbearable. I love you passionately, my little one — and I’d like you to feel it. It’s not just a tranquil fidelity that welds me to you. When I think about you, it’s as burning within me as if you were there — and I think about you all the time. Since getting your note, I’ve not been sad any more. But at times I literally choke with the need to see you — it shakes me to the core. Do keep me with you, my little one. I wrote to yesterday morning. It was the day the University was reopening and there was a rush at the Sorbonne library. It was really agreeable seeing the Latin Quarter come back to life. I went to hunt for books and met lots of former pupils. I read a book about Bach at the Mahieu, had lunch with Bost, read some more, went to school, finished revising the first part of my novel, then spent the evening with Sorokine — whom I kept to sleep at my place, which put her in seventh heaven. This morning I went to a concert at the Conservatoire, then had lunch with Bost. I’ll tell you all about it. But I felt my need of you so intensely that I haven’t been able to talk about anything else. You’re everything to me.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Monday 23 December [1940]
My love
It’s very cold this morning throughout Paris and particularly in the Dome. Merleau-Ponty’s here, a few steps away, busy reading my novel. I had dinner with him yesterday (we ate at the Creperie Bretonne and had a drink at Les Vikings), but I didn’t find him much fun. He thinks C. Gibert’s pregnant — it’s an epidemic. Actually, he congratulates himself on not having been changed by marriage. You have no more ardent fan: he reads your philosophical works to his pupils and tells them stories about you. Apparently he spends his life preparing his lectures. Before seeing him, I’d been to listen to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, which is superb. This morning I saw Sorokine, still tender and charming, who told me about a dreadful 17-hour quarrel with her young man. What it boils down to is that he realizes she doesn’t love him — which she barely troubles to hide from him — and hates me. H
owever, he loves her too much to break off, so I wonder how it’s going to end. She left at 10 and I’m busy reading Kierkegaard, and Wahl’s essays on him — it really interests me and I’m glad to have got down to reading again. I was expecting Bost, but there’s no sign of him: he must be having another scene with Kos. She’s continually mistaking nervous fits for material disorders, and he’s pretty fed up with it. She’s becoming a nasty piece of work, though she makes amends by turning on the cheap charm. I think she’s off to Laigle tomorrow. Goodbye, my dear little one. How I long for a letter from you! I often see again, in its entirety, your little person — body and soul — and am moved to tears by it. I love you, my beloved.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Wednesday 25 December [1940]
My love
Here’s my second Christmas without you — and sadder than the other one, since I don’t know when I’ll see you again. From time to time I’m filled with dread — it’s especially hard at night. I love you so, my little one, I remember your dear expressions so well and miss you so desperately. It’s 3 in the afternoon and I’m at the Flore. There’s all the usual crowd and it’s packed and warm. Outside the weather’s beautifully cold and dry, and Paris has a deserted, country look. I feel comfortable because I’m going to spend quite a while reading Kierkegaard, then I’ll go to the concert, and then at 8 I’ll meet up with Bost.
It was a strange Christmas Eve, and pretty lugubrious. The cafès stayed open till 2.30, and were fairly full but not very lively. Outside it was pitch dark and, since neither Métro nor taxis function after midnight, people had to go home on foot. Moreover, Boulevards St Michel and St Germain were utterly deserted. I met Bost at 10.30 at the Deux Magots, and we went off to the Capoulade. On our way we met a woman asking, with some anguish, if Concorde was still a long way off. She was going to Miromesnil — and God knows where she came from. We spent the time conversing — we were glad to be together and it was pleasant. We took a room for the week in a neighbourhood hotel. This morning we got up late, and had something to drink and a sandwich at the Mahieu and the D’Harcourt. Now B.’s off to celebrate Christmas with his family and I’ve come here.
My little one, I’ve a good life but I’m in real distress. I’d so hoped you’d be restored to me at Christmas. I dreamt last night that you were forgetting me — and it was dreadful. But I know it’s false.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Thursday 26 December [1940]
My love
Your letter has just arrived, exactly like a beautiful Christmas present. My sweet little one, I so needed to feel I was still really present to you. I found all of you — with such emotion — through your spidery scrawl, dear, dear little being. Yesterday, after writing to you, I read The Concept of Dread294 at the café de Flore, then went to the Châtelet to listen to a superb Bach Magnificat, some fairly agreeable Berlioz, and a bad rendering of Franck’s Beatitude. I called in at my hotel and that’s when I found your letter in my pigeonhole — and pounced upon it. I’d had something of a presentiment that it was going to be there.
[...]
Goodbye my love. I love you with all my might.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Saturday 28 December [1940]
My love
I’m continuing to permit myself a lazy existence. Yesterday afternoon I went to the Ursulines with Bost and saw Garnet de Bal — seeing Harry Baur made me laugh, because I recalled your imitations.295 Apart from that and Jouvet, there’s hardly any entertainment to be found. After that we went and drank mulled wine at the Capoulade, and by 7 rushed off to the Petit St Benoît, where there was nothing to eat except leeks and tripe — which was a disappointment, since in an exaggerated excess of thrift we hadn’t had any lunch. (I find it ironical to be speaking to you about food shortages.)
[...]
Goodbye, my dear little one. I wish I could write to you at greater length, with copious preambles. I’m no longer so sad, since I’ve had your letters. I love you and kiss you passionately.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Tuesday 31 December [1940]
My love
I’ve just seen your mother and am really moved, because she has seen some fellow from your camp who was set free, and he has given her news of you. To think that people have the luck to have you all alive to themselves! I wouldn’t be one to choose freedom, in such circumstances. How I long to have you back, dear little being, salt of the earth! I miss you. On the other hand, I’m continuing to spend an excellent holiday season with Bost. On Sunday afternoon we went to an excellent Ravel festival at the Salle Pleyel, returned home to eat pâté and turkey sent by Kos. in our room, then went for a drink at the Balzar (in the morning I’d seen Bienenfeld for two hours — she’s going to marry Lamblin finally — and then had lunch with Bost at St Germain-des-Pres, before going on to the Flore). Yesterday morning I saw Sorokine at the Mahieu. She’s more and more sickened by her young man, and they weave lots of ethical and psychological complications around the simple fact that she doesn’t love him while he loves her. With me, things are working out wonderfully well and it’s a real success. She has realized she’d never be able to build her life with me — and doesn’t hold it against me or suffer from it — yet she continues to care about me in the pleasantest possible way. Our relations are still interspersed with storms over such matters as soap she won’t give me, or cakes of mine she wants to eat up, or because she suddenly takes it into her head to be jealous of Mouloudji. But we no longer come to blows and by and large there’s perfect harmony.
Goodbye, my little one, I’ll tell you the rest in my next letter. I love you — with need, tenderness and passion.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Tuesday 31 December [1940]
Dear little being
Yesterday morning, then, I saw Sorokine and after that went to wait for Bost at the Flore, where I spotted Bienenfeld — who now permanently has quivering nostrils, difficulty in breathing, and anguish of spirit. Her father was conferring with M. Lamblin: she knows she’s getting married in a fortnight, but doesn’t know to whom — Lamblin or the American? It’s a pitiful situation, yet one with which I can summon up no sympathy.
[...]
I lunched with Bost, saw your mother, and here I am at the Dome — which has just been provided with an appallingly noisy ‘pick-up’ that reduces me to despair.
Here’s the last day of a year in which we’ve been well and truly separated, my love. Perhaps this next year will be the one in which we recover one another for ever. Be patient, above all, and leave everything to Providence.2961 love you, my little one.
Your charming Beaver
1941
[Paris — Official Form]
Wednesday 1 January [1941]
My heart’s so full this evening I’m on the verge of tears. It has been snowing over Paris since morning and, as there are no taxis or other vehicles, the snow has remained on the streets. Everything’s as white and silent as in the middle of the countryside, with a grey winter-sports sky. I’m thinking about you. I always think about you, but this evening it’s through so many dear memories and such yearnings that it’s suffocating me. When shall I see you again, my sweet little one? I could wait for you for years, allowing the time to slide by like this indefinitely, but they’d be that many years of my life stolen from me — and my life’s none too long any more for all the love I have for you. I wrote to you yesterday from the Dôme, then in the evening went with Bost to see L’Avare.297 The theatre was half empty, which is unfair because Dullin’s literally miraculous: even smaller than in real life, all old, dirty and patched — never, by a long chalk, have I seen him act so well. It was New Year’s Eve and we went to the Capoulade — which was dismal. At midnight, they switched off the lights and gave twelve gong-
strokes. My heart was full there too. We dragged on till about 2 in the morning, pretty much in silence. I couldn’t get on better with Bost — yet how alone I always am in his company! How alone I am, wherever you’re not present! This evening I have violent memories of how happy I’ve been. I’ll have you back one day, my dear happiness, my life. I clasp you passionately in my arms.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris — Official Form]
Wednesday [1 January 1941]
My dear little one
I’m a bit troubled this evening. Wanda’s at Laigle, and this afternoon I entered her room with Bost and saw in her diary that — despite excellent feelings for you — she was intensely annoyed by having twice received news of you from me. This is how it had occurred. I don’t know if I’ve told that, when I got your address, I was utterly devastated by the words ‘Kranken-Revier’.298 I knew nothing about you and thought you must be dying. I spent a dreadful evening. I’d arranged to meet Kos. at the Atelier, so got Tyssen to translate the address for me — and burst into tears virtually on the spot. In the course of the evening W. saw me with ‘dragonfly eyes’ (as she put it) and was sickened by it. Later on — thinking she must be worried — on receipt of your 1st letter I said you were charging me with giving news of you to everybody and left a little reassuring note for her. Subsequently, when your mother had a letter from you, I copied it out and read it out to Wanda (telling her clearly that it was to your mother). Anyway, as 50 people have asked me for news of you and I was providing them, it couldn’t fail to get back to Wanda’s ears. I’d find it unbearable if you were to think I’d acted thoughtlessly, my little one — I’ve mentioned only one letter to me and one to your mother. Incidentally, Gégé’s offering W. the chance of joining the firm of Kientz: for 4 hours’ work each afternoon, she’d learn the job and earn 600 F. I wish she’d accept, so she’d at least have a job in hand. She has a truly wretched life. She hates me, though — that’s why I’ve given up bothering about her.