Letters from Simone de Beauvoir

thurs 30 oct 47

Nelson My love, ...I was deeply moved when I read in your letter that you loved, as well as my eyes, my ways in love. And I thought I had to tell you these ways were just my loving you. I had always the same eyes, but I never loved anybody in these ways, you have to know, with such pleasure in love and so much love in pleasure, so much fever and peace,.... I really and wholly felt that I was a woman in a man's arms and it meant much so much for me. Nothing better could have been given to me. ... Just come to me darling and take me with your strong , soft, greedy hands. I wait for them, I wait for you.

Friday 28 Feb 1947 (in a letter to Sartre)

"he's a typical american with a wooden face and an inexpressive body, who began by travelling across america on freight trains and as a pin boy , the one who collects the skittles in the bowling alleys. Then he wrote and had some success...

From La Force des Choses

"he lived in a hovel, without a bathroom or refrigerator, alongside an alley full of steaming trashcans and flapping newspapers;( this poverty seemed refreshing, after the heavy odour of dollars in the big hotels and elegant restaurants, which i had found hard to take.)

18 may 47

"My precious beloved chicago man, I think of you in Paris, In paris I miss you.

Fri 3rd oct 47

Camus told me I looked younger than before and "disgustingly happy" youth and happiness were given by you. yeah it is happiness even through so many tears.)

Wed 21 May 47

My beloved husband...You must write to me often, my beloved friend and lover, my dearest husband; for we must not feel apart from each other... We must try to live these months together in spite of the Atlantic Ocean and the wide Plains between us...I smile to you and love you... We have not parted and we'll never part. I am your wife for ever.

Fri. 23rd may 1947

I went to bed at 10 , and as there was no nice man to prevent me from sleeping, I slept until twelve the next morning...I write to you with the little red bright stylo you have given to me; and I have your ring at my finger. It is the first time I ever wore a ring and everybody in Paris was very amazed...(I wait eagerly for your letter, I miss you, you know , I miss your lips, your hands, your whole warm and strong body, and your face and your smiles, your voice. I miss you. But I like missing you so hard because it makes me feel strongly that you are not a dream, you are real, you are living, and I'll meet you again. A week ago we were yet together in the New York room. It seems long before meeting you again.) I kiss your dear face, your sweet lips with the most loving kisses. Your Simone. ....Here are little flowers of France I just gathered for you.

Sat 24th May

Dearest Nelson Algren. (I got your letters today, the little yellow letters, and I was very happy. The letters look like yourself, both sad and gay, and loving in a clumsy awkward way, so genuine too. You say I feel what is genuine and what is not and I am very proud of your saying so.... ..write to me very often please)... I love you so warmly so deeply that i am a little amazed at it. I did not think it could happen to me now. Well it happened and I am glad of it though it is pain too. Oh! I should like so much to be near you, to feel your shoulder against my cheek and your arms tightly enclosing me-- and you should look at me, I should look at you and we should know all there is to know and be so happy. your Simone

Thurs 29th May '47

My precious beloved Chicago man... Paris is beautiful. It is blue, and warm with leafy green trees, nice smells, fine women dressed in gay summer dresses and lovers kissing each other in the streets, and people looking happy... you may have your dinner in the open air, while people play nice bad music, you eat very good food with very good wine, feeling the sky above your head and the big city at your feet. ... (continues).. I love you and I kiss you passionately. your simone

Wed 4th June

My beloved husband.... I do not feel sensible at all this night, I feel unhappy. Let me cry a little. It would be so fine to cry in your arms. I cry because I do not cry in your arms, this is not sensible at all because if I were in your arms I should not cry. It is stupid to write love letters, love is not something you can put in letters..

Fri 21 nov 47

...I really care much for writing since I am a child, I gave my life to it, but you never know what you do, and sometimes I am afraid I shall never really do what I want to. Then I try to do something with Sartre in intellectual french life, with the hope it has real human meaning-- and i have not much hope. Sometimes you can work without hope, but when you are weak it becomes difficult. Then I stay far away from the man I love, from the happiness he gives to me: if I do not believe in the reasons of staying away everything comes wrong.... yesterday night, I felt I was falling in the bottom of a dark deadly pit and I struggled for two hours in fever and anguish and a kind of dispair... My beloved one peace and longing of my heart Nelson it was sweet to speak to you in this very confident(ial) quiet way, to speak about things I should not tell anybody if i did not feel so mixed with him. I like to tell everything to you good or bad and to have you stroking my hair and shoulder and looking at me with understanding loving eyes. I feel your love so precious more than anything in my whole life. I kiss your sweet loving lips. Your own Simone.

ADDITION: I write to you by the light of a candlestick, it is very romantic, perhaps too romantic...

Fri 3rd oct 47

You asked me once if i were a child or a wise woman...I am not wise but rather a coward and until my coming back to Paris I was reluctant, a little afraid to admit love in all its deepness and strength...it means now my happiness is in your hands and in a way i sdhould rather have kept it in mine, but well..I cannot help it anymore I have to admit this dependence,... besides my working life in France I care for nothing actually but you... In the Spring when i come back for a long time I'll wash the dishes and mop the floor and go to buy eggs and rum cake by myself I shall not touch your hair or cheek or shoulder without being allowed to do so; I shall try not to be sad when you'll be ill tempered because of the morning mail ...I shall not interfere with your freedom...to live near you is the only thing I care for. ... I am a little afraid of love, it makes me rather stupid. Anyway I spoke the way I felt I shall say something more since I have it in the heart: Nelson now I love you so much do not begin to love me less.

Wed 23 july 1947

My own beloved one, ... I love you but do I deserve your love if I do not give you my life? I tried to explain to you I cannot give my life to you. Do you understand it? Are you resentful about it? will you never be? ...the question is in my heart and my heart aches with it: is it right to give something of oneself without being ready to give everything? may I love him and tell him I love him without intending to give my whole life if he asked for it? will he never hate me? when we shall meet again we do not know what will happen, I just know that whatever happens i will never be able to give everything to you... ...Oh darling it is the hell to be so far away and unable to look at each other when you speak about such important things

Sat 28th July

Nelson my love i wrote today on this bright blue paper because there is a bright blue hope in my heart; something very happy is going to happen to us;... you'll wait for me in the house, you'll have got some nice whisky to drink and ham and jam to eat because I shall be very thirsty and hungry and tired. You'll have much love to give too, whole cans and bottles of the best chicago local love you can buy at the grocer's

Mon 18th Aug 1947

I like so much the way you are so greedy about life and yet so quiet, your eager greediness and your patience, and your way of not asking much of life and yet taking much because you are so human and alive that you find much in everything.... and I fell in love with you once more my sweet crocodile man.

Wed 22nd Oct 47

... please please, dont take the phoney blonde in our nest. She would drink my whisky, eat my rum cake, sleep in my bed and maybe with my husband.And then as our Chicago nest is the best place in the world she would never leave it, so I should have to get away when I should come to see you and I should have to take morphine myself. A very sad story. Please struggle hard and keep my home for myself I feel dreadfully selfish and stubborn about it. Well indeed i am kidding darling you'll do what you have to do, I shall not interfere with your freedom.

Sat 6 Dec 47

"the general idea is that you should feel yourself free as long as you dont betray our love, whcih could only be done if you really intended to. I fell many unpleasant remorses for having deprived you of some pleasant time. I am ashamed of it...I love you too much in a physical way too not to feel any jealousy, I think should have to be very cold blooded ... not to feel a bad pang in the heart, but this kind of animal instinct does not matter very much...next time you just sleep with the woman if you want to. Nevertheless, I take it as a tender lovely gift that this time you did not. But a gift is not an alimony; nobody is grateful for an alimony because it is due; you owe me nothing, that is why the gift was precious; dont let us make a system with it..

From La force des choses

"Often preached, rarely practiced, complete fidelity is usually experienced by those who impose it upon themselves as a mutilation; they console themsleves for it by sublimations or by drink...jealousy and boredom. There are many couples who conclude the same pact as Sartre and myself: to maintain throughout all deviations from the main path a "certain fidelity". ...such an undertaking has its risks. it is always poss that one of the partners may prefer a new attachment to the old one....[then] a victim and a torturer confront each other. Sartre and I have been more ambitious [than allowing ourselves mere "passing sexual liasons"] it has been our wish to experience "contingent loves";

Wed 5 nov 47

Nelson my love...It is very wicked of you to laugh at me because i try honestly not to interfere with your freedom, very insulting not to take me more seriously. Well I will interfeer with your freedom, I'll put an electric fence around our Chicago home, I'll poison your skin and lips so that if you touch any woman, she'll fall dead. ..

Sat 15 nov 47

love and love to my dearest husband last yr in this rainy winter i had never heard of you nor you of me... Darling if I had my cheek on your shoulder and could whisper softly in your ear I should dare to ask: Nelson, do you feel more happy than last winter? Do you feel happy to be so stupidly loved by your frog ?...

Thurs 23 Feb 1948

I did not suspect anything new could happen in my life, I felt too old; so few things are really worth caring for them, and then you gave me a second youth all was so cleverly done, I am yet wondering how you contrived it. It makes me a little afraid of you: if you asre so tricky, you could make me unhappy too. Maybe it would be wiser not to take this chance, not to go to America at all.....I have a gown made for you and me, that is the one I'll put off when I'll be with you, I love it, not because I'll put it on, but because I'll put it off. I hope you'll find it is really nice gown for undressing. ...long loving kisses for you, my beloved husband. Your Simone

15th July 1948

So Nelson, once more the cab drove away and i saw your face for the last time.. Oh darling it is hard to write... you have to know that it is not for pleasure or glamour or anything of the kind that I say I must stay here. I just cannot do anything else, believe me please please. ..If by any chance I could stay with you , Oh God , I should. Well in a way I loathe Paris, now, I felt just chilly and blank being here.

Mon 19 july '48

If I could give up my life with sartre i would be a dirty creature a treacherous and selfish woman... it is not by lack of love that I don't stay with you...Sartre needs me. In fact, he is very lonely , very tormented inside himself and I am his only true friend, I could not desert him...it is not possible to love more than I love you, flesh and heart and soul..but Sartre needs me.

Sun 8 Aug 1948

...(Sartre) he was my first lover, nobody had even kissed me before...but it was rather a deep friendship than love; love was not very successful. Chiefly because he does not care much for sexual life. He is warm lively man everywhere but not in bed. I soon felt it .. and little by little it seemed useless and even indecent to go on being lovers. we dropped it after about eight or ten years rather unsuccessful in this way...I did not expect love. I did not believe in being in love and you made me fall in love with you! and come back to chicago and love you more and more... I guess there will never be another man.

Sat 14 Jan

Oh Nelson! I'll be nice , and good, you'll see, I'll wash the floor, I'll cook whole meals, I'll write your book as well as mine, I'll make love to you ten times a night and as much in the day, even if i feel a bit tired. yea it will be smart to live in a little home of our own, writing and swimming and loving each other.

Fri 9 nov 1951

Dearest Patterson Island hard beast...something very important is happening! As a woman cannot live without some passion, and as love is forbidden, I decided to give my dirty heart to some thing not so piggish asa man: and I gave to myself a nice beautiful black car... So I'll try to give all my love to my nice black car. And be your friend the best friend you ever had: no other could care for you as much as I do. So in this new mood I'll stay for ever your own Simone.)

Mon 26th Sept 1949

Dearest man with the golden arm... I should like to give this new book to you, I mean to put your name printed on the first page, to dedicate it to you it is yours in so many ways. and first because I am yours would you accept it?

Thurs 3 July 1947

You see it has never been very easy for me to live, though I am always very happy. I like so much to live and I hate the idea of dying one day. And then i am awfully greedy I want everything from life, I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, and to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish. You see, it is difficult to get all I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.

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