Your charming Beaver
Hôtel de Bretagne
Douarnenez
Monday 25 September [1939]
My love, my dear love
My heart’s just a mush this evening, I’m consumed by passion for you and it couldn’t be more painful. This has been brewing all day and it came down on me like a tornado in the streets of Douarnenez, where I broke into sobs. Luckily it was moonlight! My love, we were together on this little bridge where there were lots of fishermen in red trousers sitting in a row on the parapet. And just now I missed your little arm in mine and your face beside me so strongly that I didn’t know what was to become of me. I’ve revisited Locronan — I remember it all so well. How, on the beach of St Anne de la Palud, you told me about Isoré and his loves. How, on the bay at Douarnenez, near a pine wood that I’ve seen again, you told me that you loved to see the sea through the pine trees, and we talked about evolutionism and mechanicism and about animals. Every morning we’d wake up in our twin beds and I’d ask you: ‘How are you, my little Poulpiquet?’.112 O my love, I do so long for your tenderness this evening! I feel I’ve never told you enough how I loved you, that I’ve never been nice enough to you. My sweet little one, how I’d like to hold you and cover you with kisses — how happy I’ve been with you! From all sides today the most heart-rending memories came crowding back to me.
I left this morning at 9 on a big red coach. We drove without stopping to Morgat, which I reached at 11. The route was very pretty — I really like all those Breton churches and villages — and Morgat’s on a wonderful stretch of coast. I went off for a long walk all round the peninsula, which is densely covered with heather and broom. There are big sheer cliffs over a blue-and-green sea — marvellous. The sun was dazzling and I felt really intensely that particular nature of Brittany: a white background of sky, stone and water, and the presence of the sea everywhere among the moors, giving them their meaning. The people at the end of the peninsula are at least as wild as the old women of Emborio.113 Everywhere I was regarded as a spy, and people muttered in Breton as I passed. I walked, I was gripped by what I saw, and this mingled with the regret I was feeling for you — it was poetic and intense. From the tip of the peninsula, you were right opposite Camaret and could see the Tas-de-Pois where we went when it rained so hard. And what with the wind, and the sun on the sea, and the height of the cliffs, it was really exhilarating. And surrounded by all that I felt my heart softening. I took the coach again at 5. You had to change at Locronan, so I went for a meal of eggs and milk at our hotel. But it’s no longer on the same premises, it’s across the way, in a Renaissance house with a dining-room done up with greater pomp — and, it must be said, very successfully. But the old premises are still there, and I revisited the old dining-room where on one wet day we were all alone. Then I caught another coach, which brought me here. I took a room, then went down to the harbour. It was sunset, and at the same time there was moonlight: you’d have said a nocturnal landscape lit by some extraordinary artifice — I’ve never seen light like that. And how charming the little boats were, with their blue nets outspread! There were girls too on the jetty, laughing aloud, and nice young people strolling in groups who were laughing too. I hadn’t heard anyone laugh in public, or sing, since the war started. It was one of the tenderest evenings of peace and happiness you could dream of. I strolled beside the sea till darkness fell completely, and cried like a baby. I love you, my beloved.
I came back here to write and am in the hotel café, where there’s a collection of strange individuals. There’s a bearded fellow with a contorted face who produces inarticulate sounds, and another bearded fellow in a pink shirt — they’re playing piquet. It’s only 8.30, but I’m going upstairs to read in bed. Tomorrow I’ll go to the Pointe du Raz.
I received a charming letter from Kos. — but nothing from you either yesterday or today. I’d so like to find a way of seeing you. My beloved, I love you and I’d be so nice if you were there. You’re my life, my happiness and my self. You’re everything for me — and this evening, above all, a tender face that I can’t think of without tears (in spite of the bearded fellows). I love you passionately.
Your charming Beaver
Write to me at 116 Rue d’Assas, c/o Mme Pardo.
[La Pouèze, Angers]
Thursday 28 September [1939]
My love, my dear love
I’m happy. I have three letters from you — you’re talking to me — you’re so close, it’s as if you were clasping me in your little arms. And I’m so much at ease here, in this beautiful dining-room at La Pouèze that I’ve been given as a bedroom, with a big wood fire, the silence, and the garden still light outside the window. I’m so much at ease with That Lady, with whom for the first time I can talk about you — you, just as you are (she’s the first person with whom I can do so, I mean). Mops has given me lots of photos, but I’m going to keep the ones of you until they’ve had copies made, then I’ll send you them too — you’ll find them amusing. I love the one of me where I’m seated. I’ve got one where you’re standing and looking extremely agreeable; and another where you weren’t posing and look wonderful, gazing at Zuorro with a quizzical look that I know so well — and that no photo has ever caught before.
My journey here was quite a little adventure. I took the train yesterday at 6, after writing to you. There was nothing else at the post office. (I have the letters of the 18th, 20th, 21st and 22nd. The one of the 19th must have been sent to Quimper, from where it’ll be forwarded on to me here, so I’ll certainly get that one too. If I understand right you have all of mine, so that’s fine.) I had a corner seat and till nightfall went on reading Gramont’s Memoirs,114 which are rather entertaining. The compartment was full, but of people who weren’t too disagreeable. There was moonlight over the countryside, and I listened to the people and looked at the flat landscape with a kind of infinite patience that war has given me, and that’s truly a sort of state of grace. I was at ease. I was a bit ashamed — thinking about Bost and you — to think how I’d the best of it, by such a long chalk. I know I can’t do anything about that. But if one had to choose — without the others knowing — one can’t be sure how one would choose (if they knew, that would invalidate it because pleasure at their gratitude would out-trump everything else). Well, however that may be, I watched the towns flit by, and the broad Loire, and the meadows — from time to time I’d doze for quarter of an hour — and I felt as though I could have stayed like that for days. But eventually we arrived at Angers. I had only 20 F. in my pocket for a hotel and a public conveyance if That Lady didn’t come, so I was a trifle worried. It was 2 in the morning and my suitcase was heavy. I walked towards the exit and there a soldier stopped me: ‘Mademoiselle de Beauvoir?’ ‘That’s me.’ I was a trifle surprised, but not too much. He explained to me that Mile de Staecklin115 — Marie-Noelle — had phoned during the day, that she’d come and pick me up next day, and that he’d booked a hotel room for me and got some things for supper. He took my case. He had a bottle of beer in his pocket and was laden with sandwiches and bananas — it was marvellous. He took my arm, saying: I’m forty, old enough to be your father’, then led me to a very fine hotel near the station. We placed the provisions on the table, and he asked: ‘Can I stay?’ with a funny expression — and he was looking at me in a pretty funny way. I never quite understood what was in his mind. It struck me as comical, unreal and copied from a novel — that arrival, and that soldier in my room at 2 in the morning, and that collation. I remained standing in some embarrassment, so he said: ‘Sit down — sit down on the bed,’ but I took a chair and chatted in a worldly manner. He’s a painter — a 1917 Rome Scholar116 — who lived in that same handsome building in Rue Vavin where the Nizans live. I ate the fruit and told him to drink the beer. ‘I’ll have to drink out of the same glass as you, if you don’t mind,’ he told me with the same peculiar expression. I said I didn’t — and carried on desperately about Brittany, my travels, etc. Finally at 3 he wi
thdrew, saying he’d come back at 7.30 and have me brought up some breakfast. This morning, when That Lady went to thank him, he insisted on treating me to the breakfast and the collation, while That Lady to my great discomfiture was paying for the room.
As for me I went to bed, highly amused and full of impatience to see That Lady. I woke up pretty early and was all ready by the time I was brought my breakfast at 8.1 went downstairs to write in the cafe below, and after that in a cafe on the main square where I’d arranged on the phone to meet That Lady. I wrote to Bienenfeld, to Kos., to Sorokine, and a short note to the Boxers: as you know, they tried to see me in Paris but I missed them, and they’ve now written from Provins saying they can’t live without knowing where you are. I at once sent them your address and said I’d like to go and see them in Provins one Thursday or Sunday in October — I’d enjoy that. I enjoy seeing people, especially so that I can tell you about it. I really feel in such cases as though I were living instead of you, by proxy. I’d like you to feel that too, and for it to seem like your life that’s continuing through me rather than just an account of my life addressed to a poor hermit.
Eventually, when it was almost noon and I’d just finished Gramont’s Memoirs, I saw That Lady’s car arrive. She was as spruce as could be and accompanied by Mops, resplendent in a white jacket, and Boudi.117 They arranged to meet me an hour later at the station, since they were going to visit Aunt Suzanne. So I went for a walk round Angers, which I found very agreeable with the cathedral, the chateau, the little streets and the quays. Then they met up with me again and brought me here, in the company of M.-N. de Staecklin — who looks like her mother but with a goitre. The weather was fine, I was happy. For the moment, I like entering upon a new form of life and abandoning myself to it. I was now placing myself in That Lady’s hands, and there was a novel experience to be lived — which was my life at La Pouèze — and this interested and charmed me. The countryside’s ugly and the village too, but the house is a marvel. We had lunch at once, and the meal was a sensual delight after so many hours of fasting: delectable roast veal, duck, fried potatoes, salad, preserves, apples and pears and cider. Then they showed me round all the rooms, including the study of That Gentleman,118 who’d laid some pseudo-philosophical books out ready for me on a velvet armchair. I even went to the attic and found three cupboards full of books, so that I now dream of spending two months here just reading and eating and sleeping — it was a real delight. I’ve already collected a dozen of the most alluring, but if I go on writing so much I’ll never get through them. I went to the post office, where there were three letters from you, and three from Bost dated the 21st, 22nd and 23rd — which is not long ago. His letters are all thick and very cheerful and incredibly appealing. What sickens him is going on manoeuvres. My God, if only (as you claim) they spare human resources — and he weren’t to be killed! Do write to him — I think you’ll find his letters amusing.
As for your letters, my love, how sweet you are to make them so long, and to answer me and speak to me. How close to you I feel! I read the anecdotic parts to That Lady and Mops, who laughed till they cried.
I don’t at all think that Bienenfeld will let you go. On the contrary, she told me how during the first days she used to sob at the post office while reading your letters, and how she’d hoped this war would put an end to your affair with Wanda. I just think that she’s so easily influenced, her thinking gets ruined as soon as she’s with idiots; and that she has to be kept on something of a short leash in order to be agreeable. That’s what I felt last year at Annecy too. Like you, I’m cool towards her at present; but I know that will pass, since she’s very estimable despite everything and often quite winning. As for the Kos. sisters, I think both of them have shown themselves at their best under these circumstances, and that perhaps they’ll be definitively marked by them for the better. I’ll be curious to see them installed in Paris. I didn’t understand anything either about that tangled tale of the lie.
I too feel somehow affected by the fact that Pitoëff has died.119 I forgot to tell you yesterday, in connection with Brittany, how odd it was encountering literally only children, old people, or those afflicted with goitre — it really is wholly denuded of men — and then an endless stream of aeroplanes in the sky and warships in slow procession over the sea.
At the Pointe du Raz, confronted by the starry sky, I wondered why it was that human consciousness constructed a world with durations and distances and masses that are not commensurate with man. Brunschwicg would speak of progress of consciousness,120 and of how the Greeks used to think of the world as finite, etc. But what I mean is that it’s odd the hyle121 should itself lead to non-human constructions. Of course, you can’t ask why the hyle is like that, but it’s strange — or isn’t it?
That Lady told me she might perhaps be able to do something for Sorokine, which would really set my mind at rest. We had tea and talked until 6, and since then I’ve brought my diary up to date and written to you. My diary’s already full up, and it’s really amusing to reread. Goodbye, my sweet little one, my love, my life — I love you, and you’re with me. Thank you, my love, for writing to me like that, for not leaving me. I’m overwhelmed by gratitude for you, and by admiration — or if you prefer astonishment, in the strong sense of the word — and by tenderness. I’ve never loved you more strongly. When I do see you again, I feel as though it will quite take my breath away.
Your charming Beaver
Do you want Tar as Bulba? And Gramont’s Memoirs? I have them. Let me know about this — and how about James’s Portrait of a Lady? Or Jouhandeau’s La Jeunesse de Théophile and Queneau’s Les Enfants de Limon? I’ve got all these from the Hungarian.
That Lady’s going to write to you. Guille is a telephone operator at some Army Headquarters, very cushy. Isorni122 is in a dreadful situation — with machine-guns. Zuorro in Constantine. Nothing’s known about the Pupil.123 Maheu’s letter was a big success — they’re going to type it out and distribute it.
[La Pouèze, Angers]
Saturday 30 September [1939]
My love
Being here is blissful I’m enjoying most heavenly life of reading and peace. They’re keeping me till the schools reopen, and I hope that’s going to be late — I’m going to call Paris in a moment.
On Thursday evening after I’d written to you we had dinner, and I said I wanted to go to bed early, seeing that my previous night had been so short. That Lady and Mops started fussing round me laughing like madwomen — bringing me dozens of dressing-gowns, preparing a nighttime snack with cider, preserves and chocolate, and trying out twenty forms of lighting and twenty arrangements of the cushions. It was like the queen’s going-to-bed ceremony, and I thought I’d never get between the sheets. But when I eventually did, I found myself in royal comfort indeed. There was a big wood fire, and I settled down to read Bessie Cutter, which I finished. After that I read a good Simenon, La Marie du Port, and then a good Pierre Very as well, Mademoiselle Bécut,124 so that I didn’t eventually turn the light out till past 1 in the morning. Then I still didn’t sleep, but thought about you and imagined you opening the door and coming to my bedside in your lovely little white garment — my love, it was incredible! When I really see your face again, I think I’ll faint with joy. I love you, dear little being, I can’t believe that we’ll remain separated for long. In the end I did fall asleep, but was up again by 8. I wrote to Little Bost, whom I hadn’t written to the day before. I ate a delicious breakfast, with apricot preserve. Then I read Generals Die in Bed,125 which left me full of black thoughts — it’s an excellent book, but I can’t really believe that it’s going to be like that again. Once it all really gets started and one has to believe it, how shall we be able to stand the idea? It’s going to be appalling.
I spent the morning without seeing anybody at all, which was very agreeable. I went for a little walk, with a fine, cold sky overhead, but this countryside’s off-putting. I climbed up to the attic, where I stripped an enti
re cupboard. It’s unbelievable the things they’ve got — old books, new ones, history, travel, detective stories, novels. I brought down a huge armful and must confide to you that I’m going to steal a few of them on the sly. Do you want Defoe’s Colonel Jack? Gide says that it’s excellent. And how about Last Chance Saloon by Jack London, which I’ve also managed to tuck away in my suitcase? I started reading Campagne by Raymonde Vincent,126 which is not too bad, and eventually saw That Lady and Mops, and That Lady took me off to the cellar to make my own choice of wine. I chose a Chambolle Musigny which was a delight. Nothing much seems to have happened at Juan-les-Pins after we left. There were some long, confused explanations that satisfied Zuorro, and war brought universal brotherhood. Zuorro took ship for Constantine, very pleased to be sent there. That Lady and Mops hastened to Limoges, where they’d fixed to meet Isorni if mobilization occurred. Isorni and Zuorro were apparently half-dead with fear during those last days, which disgusted Mops. She writes to her husband — who’s still at Fontainebleau — and she even goes to see him, but she still doesn’t give the least damn about him. Apparently Guille was extremely nice, and the Bel Eute perfectly decent.127 Guille was initially in a bad situation at Supplies, but then he became a switchboard operator at Headquarters, which was a real piece of luck.
We had lunch and That Gentleman sent a written note down to That Lady: it was the communique announcing the German-Russian Treaty. What now? It’s now that the war’s going to begin. I’m filled with dread this morning. I did some reading in the garden, in the sun. That dog who used to be so pitiful has now become a lusty bitch of monstrous size, who fawns on That Lady with bearlike graces. Boudi’s very mousy — it’s impossible to hear her, and she’s devoid of charm. Mops is unbearable with her. At 4 we left for Angers, where That Lady was taking a Russian princess who’s a refugee here and whom That Lady maintains: she’s totally deaf, and you have to write everything down on paper for her. We went to pick up Aunt Suzanne at St Martin. I shook the whole lot of them off, so that I could go for a little walk and write to Bienenfeld in a cafe — where they came to collect me. We took Aunt Suzanne home, then came back here. I finished Campagne, had dinner and went to bed. In bed I read some more — La Tradition de Minuit, which is a good book.128