[...]
After that the evening I’ve told you about began — and went on till 11. Now it’s Monday morning, and I’m finishing off my letter while eating breakfast — it won’t go before this afternoon anyway. I slept well and am just off to Rochebrune — feeling full of beans.
No letter from you, so I’m hoping for two today — those of the 27th and 28th. As for the ones of 29th and 30th, if there’s anything important in them you must repeat it, because they may go astray: wire post restante if you’re arriving by the 6th.
As for me, this evening and tomorrow I’ll write a single long letter which I’ll post in Paris on Wednesday — that’ll give it the best chance of getting there. I’m actually leaving tomorrow — Tuesday — which is the last day when there are adequate trains, but we don’t reach Paris until 9. With all the delays, Thursday would be too late. But I’m not letting anyone know about this early return, so I’ll have my free Wednesday in Paris — which delights me.
My love, perhaps in a week I’ll have you opposite me — I dream of that day and night. I love you, my little one, with all my heart.
Your charming Beaver
1940
Hotel-Pension Saint-Antoine
Les Houches (Hte-Savoie)
Tuesday 2 January [1940]
Most dear little being
I wrote to you yesterday morning then, while eating my breakfast. I put the letter into the little tidy which serves the hotel guests as a mailbox, then donned my skis and sped off in magnificent sunlight towards Megève.
[...]
In the Cafe des Houches I read — as I’ve in fact been doing throughout the past two days — a life of Heinrich Heine published by the N.R.F. 3 or 4 years ago, which the Hungarian lent me and which I’ve really been enjoying. Do you know it? A strange, individualist life, which nevertheless couldn’t have been more thoroughly steeped in the social. Rarely has a fellow been more ‘situated’ than that one. Through him you can trace the whole history of German Jewish immigration a hundred years ago — which is curious to see in the light of today. He knew a host of interesting individuals — Marx, among others, and Lassalle, and Wagner, and G. de Nerval, and hundreds of others. And his destiny was a strange one, and very impressive. I found it altogether gripping. And now, in another cafe, I’m waiting for the coach that will put me down at St Gervais-Le Fayet. I’ll have four hours before my train, which I’ll use to get rid of all my correcting for school, so that tomorrow in Paris I’ll have a huge day of work — which I covet. If Kos. isn’t there I’ll go to the cinema in the evening — otherwise probably in the late afternoon. I’m longing to do that — and to get back to Paris. But I’m also dreaming about the start of a new skiing season. I’ve enjoyed myself tremendously, and I’m genuinely beginning to be able to do a few things. Who knows, perhaps the two of us next winter, my love? I so long to resume my life with you, my little one.
I’m without any letters — but I told them to forward any to Paris. It’s because of the New Year, no one at the chalet had any. The last one I got was dated the 26th. Tomorrow in Paris I’ll get those of the 31st and 1st, perhaps — which is a happy thought.
Do tell me when you’re arriving, my love, so that I can arrange about your suit237 and rejoice in advance. I’m in such a hurry to see you! I love you passionately, my beloved
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Wednesday 3 January [1940]
Most dear little being
This morning I found your letter of 31 December waiting dutifully for me at the post office. But where are those of the 27th-28th-29th-30th? They’re adrift somewhere between Megève and Paris, and it annoys me not to have them. I’ve also had 3 books, but not the Shakespeare, you little wretch! I sent you a cable about it. My sweet little one, I’m really embarrassed to be obliged to tell Kos. that you’ve got her book, especially as last time she asked I told her I’d got it at school. It’s going to cause a fuss, and in any case it’s very unpleasant. I can’t simply buy a new one, since it has her name in it — and she looks on it as the apple of her eye. I implore you to send it off at once if you haven’t already done so. Some slight disappointment over the notebooks too — I really should have liked to read them. This day in Paris has been quite disappointing in general, since I was returning with the impression that I was going to ‘rediscover’ — but rediscover what? — you, of course, and I haven’t seen you anywhere, my love. I’m not sad, actually, just a bit dazed from the journey, as is only to be expected.
[...]
We got in at 9. Paris was mild and snow-covered, utterly deserted round the station where I waited almost quarter of an hour for a taxi. I returned to the hotel — no Kos. I unpacked, took my time getting dressed, then called in at the post office, read your letter at the Versailles while eating my breakfast, and sent off your parcel. The notebooks are a bit too big, but I couldn’t find anything else with ruled paper. As for the ink, it’s superb — best quality and the latest novelty. After that I went to Neuilly to collect your dough, then lunch at my mother’s, then to the Dôme where I spent 4 hrs working. I reread my last version of the novel for a while. It has already got to page 80 and I’ve the impression it has improved a hundred per cent. I found it really well done, and was pleased. But I need your opinion — perhaps you’ll find it has become too heavy. After that, I dutifully worked on my Chap. 4 — which needs only a few finishing touches and didn’t give me much trouble.
[...]
My father has read your book. He finds it ‘well written’, but crazy and stupid except for The Childhood of a Leader’, which he quite likes. But he can’t understand how it is that, after starting out on the left, you should become Action Française238 by the end. He’s outraged by the obscenities and by the fact that you dedicated the book to Kos., whom he suspects of being your mistress.
Goodbye, my love. This is a wretched little letter, but I’ve no strength. Have you sent the books to Bost? I promise them to him daily, poor thing. Send me Rauschning once you’ve finished it — or bring it with you, there’s no hurry. Till tomorrow, my little one — I’m hoping for a big bundle of letters. I miss you. I love you so much, my beloved.
Your charming Beaver
Le Dôme
Paris, Thursday 4 January [1940]
Most dear little being
It’s a big occasion today — I’ve had two letters from you, including one written only yesterday. The Megève ones still haven’t arrived, which annoys me a bit — but less and less so, as I’m back up to date with your life anyway. I’m beginning to hope that the Shakespeare may arrive at more or less the same time as Kos., who’s turning up tomorrow. Apart from that, my charming vermin are beginning to devour me again, and I’m finding it a bit overwhelming — I so much want to work, you can’t imagine. To tell the truth for a change, it’s Bienenfeld whom I find burdensome. Seeing Sorokine at lunch gave my heart a pleasing little jolt — so much so that I offered her my evening (I’m writing to you while waiting for her). And I quite enjoy the thought of seeing Kos. again tomorrow — she has written me an idyllic little letter. But this afternoon with Bienenfeld was wearisome and insipid. She was harassed because of her family — full of little worries, with nervous outbursts of passion — and I was thoroughly bored. I made my arrangements: two evenings a week, a lunch lasting an hour and a half on Monday, and the same on Friday. Actually, though complaining that we’ll hardly ever see one another, she’s scarcely disposed to grant me any more.
[...]
Back to the post office, where I found your yesterday’s letter and a note from Bost dated Monday. I called in at the hotel. Wanda came back this morning, Kos. is coming back tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll also see Merleau-Ponty for a couple of hours, which I’ll rather enjoy. And I’ll still have a good morning’s work, so it all fits in quite well.
I’m now waiting for Sorokine, whom I’ll take to a bar. I find you harsh regarding The Monk. It’s trumpery stuff — but the best kind — and I real
ly enjoyed it. I’m covetous of receiving Le Diable Amoureux.239 Do send those books to that nice little Bost, now that you’ve got some dough.
Goodbye, my dear little one. I can’t wait to know all your little theories, to show you my novel, to talk to you and to kiss you, my little one. I love you so much. It won’t be long, my dear, dear love
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Friday 5 January [1940]
My dear, dear love
It’s a big day again today: three letters from you, one from yesterday and two from Megève dated the 27th and 28th — there are only two left for me to recover. I also got three charming little letters from Bost, who’s at the front, eating like a prince, idle, and very much enjoying himself. All of this put me in a good mood. My dear little one, are you truly going to come for almost a fortnight? How happy we’re going to be! My head’s bursting with plans, and these next three weeks are going to proceed gently towards you, through work that delights me at present because I keep thinking how I’m going to show it to you. I love you, my sweet little one. I feel your love around me, so warm, so alive — o little hard one, who for me are more tender than dew. Your letters make me laugh, my love, and your whole little person — it’s for good reason that you’ve founded a comic tradition, o yourself.
I’ve got things to tell you. Well, Sorokine arrived at the Dôme, all sweet and pleasing. She didn’t want to go ‘to bars’, but had brought her treasure-chest to show me all her secrets. We bought mandarins and went up to my room. There she entrusted her most precious possessions to me: the colonel’s letters and her girl friend’s, her own little diaries, and diagrams of her ‘moods’, ‘work’, and ‘daily routine’ in the year 1937. These were in red and violet, on a squared background — and superb. In her charming way, she told me a big scandal she’d been involved in when she was sixteen — making me swear not to tell a soul, not even you. For one whole month of her life, she systematically stole with her girl friend from the Uniprix du Printemps store. Neither for fun nor on moral principle, but to earn money. They stole twenty-franc fountain-pens by the dozen, then resold them at school for five francs. They stole wool for pullovers and material for dresses, which their parents reimbursed them for in the belief that they’d bought it legitimately. She actually gave her mother a 50% discount: ‘She’s so poor, we couldn’t charge her the same price as in the department stores’, she told me artlessly. The profits went to pay for orgies of roller-coasters and coconuts at the World Exhibition. But then, one day, a fellow in plain clothes showed up in the street behind them and ordered them to follow him: they had their pockets full of fountain-pens. He called a policeman to help him out and, to avoid humiliating the girls too much, they took them to the police-station arm-in-arm like friends. The girls were trembling with fright. They were put in the cells, where a woman was groaning: ‘It’s a disgrace, I only stole a handbag’ — so they took responsibility for the woman’s fate: she gave them a pneu to post, addressed to a fence friend of hers, to warn him. Meanwhile, the families were being rounded up. Old man Sorokine arrived, and the girl friend’s grandfather and grandmother: collapse, sobbing, admonishments from the superintendent, supplications from the parents. The worst thing was that they regarded the parents with suspicion, thinking they’d sent the children out to do the job for them — they’d had 500 F. worth of goods on them. So policemen went off to search the homes of those decent folk, all overcome with shame. Eventually the two thieves were released. ‘Last month she was even on the list of merit!’ her father was telling the superintendent, to win his sympathy. It’s since then that her father has looked upon her as ‘the lowest of the low’. Her parents are currently planning to separate, and they’re arguing over who’ll not have to take her with them.
After that we began to kiss, and without any desire — but from a sense of scruple — I asked her if she wanted us to have ‘complete relations’, as we’d said. She answered: ‘As you like’ — so I promptly confined myself to ordinary embraces. After quarter of an hour she started punching the wall, twisting about nervously and half-sobbing into the pillows. Then I told her that for my part I certainly did want more complete relations, but didn’t want to do anything that might displease her. ‘We mustn’t be hypocritical’, she moaned. So then I began to undress her a bit, and she said: ‘Turn off the light, please.’ I told her we could stop right there if she wanted. ‘No — but provided the light’s turned off.’ I turned it off, and a moment later she asked me with the greatest politeness: ‘How about you, would you mind undressing?’ I took off my blouse and a moment later she said — this time without hypocrisy, but with a taste for plain speaking: ‘Very well! All right, we’d better go on to the end while we’re about it, but don’t turn on the light.’ So we undressed and got into bed. I caressed her — intimately, but briefly — then we talked. It was strange and pleasing. Clearly it interested her as an experience more than it gave her pleasure, since she was paralysed by shyness. She asked if I used to sleep like that with you, if it didn’t embarrass me, and if you walked round the room naked (I said no). She couldn’t be more of a virgin, mistrustful of the male and embarrassed about her body. ‘It’s ridiculous, the moment when you get undressed or dressed,’ she said. There was no question of mad passion — she was mainly happy because it seemed ‘really intimate’, and she’d like the most complete intimacy. As for me, I was charmed by her — I truly like her a lot. She left me at midnight, with dough for a taxi and quite radiant.
[...]
Goodbye, my little one. I’m going to work really well till your arrival, when you’ll see 200 pages of the new version — all last year’s work gone over and recast. I’m really happy. Till tomorrow. I love you and am waiting for you, o yourself, my happiness and my life. I kiss you most tenderly, little beloved one.
Your charming Beaver
[Paris]
Saturday 6 January [1940]
Most dear little being
I’ve had your last little letters from Megève — and a letter written the day before yesterday. How sweet and pleasing they always are, my love, and what a sensible little life you do lead. But heavens! how I’d love to see you and how I am languishing for you! So yesterday I waited for M. Ponty and for Kos., but neither of them turned up — only Wanda, who asked me for dough and whom I invited to go with me to the College Inn at about 9, if her sister didn’t arrive. But while waiting I didn’t do any work. Just brought my diary up to date — which it really needed — and corrected a sheaf of exercises. I’m going to have two probationers, who’ll take that burden off my shoulders for a month. Meanwhile I had dinner Chez Pagès, while reading Gilles240 — which I’m beginning to enjoy less. M. Ponty called in for a couple of minutes to make an appointment with me for today. Then Wanda showed up, with her beautiful black velvet coat and a little blue scarf, perfectly charming. I’d bought some fine cigarettes, she ordered a whisky and I a cocktail, and we chatted with more ease than ever before. I told her lots of gossip and she did the same for me — I find she has a great deal of charm. She’s nurturing little dreams about the possible sale of pictures that she might perhaps paint. She’d done a few very poor sketches at [Laigle], but at least she had the urge. She must have told you all about the Lunar Woman and how she wants to become a social celebrity after the war. We came home at 11 and I’d spent a very pleasing moment — I understand perfectly your having tender feelings for that little person. The Kos. sisters ‘have class’, as our mutual friend [Bienenfeld] says — there’s no denying it. I went to bed, read Gilles and slept. But not enough: having grown accustomed to long nights, I’m tired this evening.