Simone Beauvoir - The Woman Destroyed

‘No.’

‘Then why are you messing about with your gum?’

‘I’m making sure it doesn’t hurt.’

Last year he used to take his pulse every ten minutes. It is true his blood-pressure was a little high, but treatment steadied it at a hundred and seventy, which is perfect for our age. He kept his fingers pressed against his cheek; his eyes were vacant; he was playing at being an old man and he would end by persuading me that he was one. For a horrified moment I thought, ‘Philippe has gone and I am to spend the rest of my life with an old man!’ I felt like shouting, ‘Stop, I can’t bear it.’ As though he had heard me, he smiled, became himself again, and we went to bed.

He is still asleep. I shall go and wake him up: we will drink piping hot, very strong China tea. But this morning is not like yesterday. I must learn that I have lost Philippe—learn it all over again. I ought to have known it. He left me the moment he told me about his marriage: he left me at the moment of his birth—a nurse could have taken my place. What had I imagined? Because he was very demanding I believed I was indispensable. Because he is easily influenced I imagined I had created him in my own image. This year, when I saw him with Irène or his in-laws, so unlike the person he is with me, I thought he was falling in with a game: I was the one who knew the real Philippe. And he has preferred to go away from me, to break our secret alliance, to throw away the life I had built for him with such pains. He will turn into a stranger. Come! André often accuses me of blind optimism: maybe this time I am harrowing myself over nothing. After all, I do not really think that there is no salvation outside the world of the university, nor that writing a thesis is a categorical imperative. Philippe said he would only take a worthwhile job … But I have no confidence in the jobs Irène’s father can offer him. I have no confidence in Philippe. He has often hidden things from me, or lied: I know his faults and I am resigned to them—and indeed they move me as a physical ugliness might do. But this time I am indignant because he did not tell me about his plans as they were forming. Indignant and worried. Up until now, whenever he hurt me he always knew how to make it up to me afterwards: I am not so sure that this time he can manage it.

Why was André late? I had worked for four hours without a pause; my head was heavy and I lay down on the divan. Three days, and Philippe had not given any signs of life: that was not his way, and I was all the more surprised by his silence since whenever he is afraid he has hurt me he keeps ringing up and sending little notes. I could not understand; my heart was heavy and my sadness spread and spread, darkening the world; and the world gave it back food to feed upon. André. He was growing more and more morose. Vatrin was the only friend he would still see and yet he was cross when I asked him to lunch. ‘He bores me.’ Everyone bores him. And what about me? A great while ago now he said to me, ‘So long as I have you I can never be unhappy.’ And he does not look happy. He no longer loves me as he did. What does love mean to him, these days? He clings to me as he might cling to anything he had been used to for a long while but I no longer bring him any kind of happiness. Perhaps it is unfair, but I resent it: he accepts this indifference—he has settled down into it.

The key turned in the lock; he kissed me; he looked preoccupied. ‘I’m late.’

‘Yes, rather.’

‘Philippe came to fetch me at the Ecole Normale. We had a drink together.’

‘Why didn’t you bring him here?’

‘He wanted to speak to me alone. So that I should be the one to tell you what he has to say.’ (Was he leaving for abroad, a great way off, for years and years?) ‘You won’t like it. He could not bring himself to tell us the other evening but it is all settled. His father-in-law has found him a job. He is getting him into the Ministry of Culture. He tells me that for anyone of his age it is a splendid post. But you see what it implies.’

‘It’s impossible! Philippe?’

It was impossible. He shared our ideas. He had taken great risks during the Algerian war—that war which had torn our hearts and which now seems never to have taken place at all—he had got himself beaten up in anti-Gaullist demonstrations; he had voted as we did during the last elections …

‘He says he has developed. He has come to understand that the French left wing’s negativism has led it nowhere, that it is done for, finished, and he wants to be in the swim, to have a grip on the world, accomplish something, construct, build.’

‘Anyone would think it was Irène speaking.’

‘Yet it was Philippe,’ said André in a hard voice.

Suddenly everything fell into place. Anger took hold of me. ‘So that’s it? He’s an arriviste—a creature that’s going to succeed whatever it costs? He’s turning his coat out of vulgar ambition. I hope you told him what you thought of him.’

‘I told him I was against it.’

‘You didn’t try to make him change his mind?’

‘Of course I did. I argued.’

‘Argued! You ought to have frightened him—told him that we should never see him again. You were too soft: I know you.’ All at once it crashed over me, an avalanche of suspicions and uneasy feelings that I had thrust back. Why had he never had anything but pretentious, fashionable, too-well-dressed young women? Why Irène and that great frothy marriage in church? Why did he display such an eager desire to please his in-laws—why so winning? He was at home in those surroundings, like a fish in its native water. I had not wanted to ask myself any questions, and if ever André ventured a criticism I stood up for Philippe. All my obstinate trust turned into bitterness of heart. In an instant Philippe showed another face. Unscrupulous ambition: plotting. ‘I’m going to have a word with him.’

I went angrily towards the telephone. André stopped me. ‘Calm down first. A scene will do nobody any good.’

‘It will relieve my mind.’

‘Please.’

‘Leave me alone.’

I dialled Philippe’s number. ‘Your father has just told me you’re joining the Ministry of Culture right up at the top. Congratulations!’

‘Oh, please don’t take it like that,’ he said to me.

‘How am I to take it, then? I ought to be glad you’re so ashamed of yourself that you didn’t dare tell me to my face.’

‘I’m not ashamed at all. One has the right to reconsider one’s opinions.’

‘Reconsider? Only six months ago and you were utterly condemning the régime’s entire cultural policy.’

‘There you are, then! I’m going to try and change it.’

‘Come, come, you aren’t of that calibre and you know it. You’ll play their little game as good as gold and you’ll carve yourself out a charming little career. Your motive is mere ambition, nothing more …’ I don’t know what else I said to him. He shouted, ‘Shut up, shut up.’ I went on: he interrupted, his voice filled with hatred, and in the end he shouted furiously, ‘I’m not a swine just because I won’t share in your senile obstinacy.’

‘That’s enough. I shall never see you again as long as I live.’

I hung up: I sat down, sweating, trembling, my legs too weak to hold me. We had broken off for ever more than once; but this clash was really serious. I should never see him again. His turning his coat sickened me, and his words had hurt me deeply because he had meant than to hurt deeply.

‘He insulted us. He spoke of our senile obstinacy. I shall never see him again and I don’t want you to sec him again either.’

‘You were pretty hard, too. You should never have treated it on an emotional basis.’