Simone Beauvoir - The Mandarins

‘All I can say is I’m damned happy to be back!’ he exclaimed, his face beaming.

‘And we’re not exactly unhappy to have you back, you know,’ Luc said. ‘In fact we were even beginning to need you. I warn you, though, you’re going to have a hell of a lot of work to catch up on.’

‘Well, I hope so!’

The typewriters were clicking away. They separated in the hallway after a few more jokes and bursts of laughter. How young they seemed after coming from a country in which everyone was ageless! Henri opened the door to his office and sat down in his chair with the satisfaction of an old bureaucrat. He spread out the latest issues of L’Espoir before him. The usual by-lines, the same careful layout – not a fraction of an inch of space wasted. He jumped back one month and began leafing through the issues, one after another. They had got along wonderfully without him, and that, of course, was the surest proof of his success. L’Espoir wasn’t merely a wartime adventure; it was a solid enterprise. Vincent’s articles on Holland were excellent, and Lambert’s on the concentration camps even more so. No question about it, they had hit precisely the right note – no nonsense, no lies, no humbug. Because of its scrupulous honesty, L’Espoir appealed to the intellectuals, and it attracted the masses because it was so alive. There was only one weak point: Sézenac’s articles were rather thin.

‘Can I come in?’ Lambert asked, standing in the doorway and smiling timidly.

‘Of course! Where’ve you been hiding? You could at least have come to the station, you lazy bum.’

‘I didn’t think there’d be enough room for four,’ Lambert explained. ‘And their little party …’ he added with a grimace. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘Not at all. Pull up a chair.’

‘Was it a good trip?’ Lambert asked. ‘I guess you’ve been asked that question twenty times already,’ he added with a shrug of his shoulders.

‘Good and bad. A beautiful setting, and seven million people starving to death.’

‘They certainly have excellent cloth,’ Lambert remarked, examining Henri approvingly. He smiled. ‘Is that the style there, orange shoes?’

‘Orange or lemon. But it’s good leather. There’s plenty of everything for the rich; that’s the lousiest part of it. I’ll tell you all about it later, but first fill me in on what’s been happening here. I’ve just finished reading some of your articles; they’re damned good, you know.’

‘I felt as if I were back in school writing a composition: Describe your impressions while visiting a concentration camp,’ he said ironically. ‘I think there were more than twenty of us there writing on the same subject.’ Suddenly his face brightened. ‘Do you want to know something that’s really good? Your book. I started it after driving a whole night and day without sleep, and believe me I was really beat. But I read it straight through, couldn’t go to sleep until I finished it.’

‘You make me happy,’ Henri said.

Compliments always embarrassed him. Yet what Lambert said gave him real pleasure. It was precisely the way he had dreamed of being read – straight through in a single night by an impatient young man. That alone made writing worthwhile. Especially that.

‘I thought maybe you’d like to see the reviews,’ Lambert said, tossing a thick yellow envelope on the desk. ‘You’ll find my two cents’ worth in there, too.’

‘You’re damned right I’d like to see them. Thanks,’ Henri said.

Lambert looked at him questioningly. ‘Did you do any writing there?’

‘An article on how I found things.’

‘And now you’ll be starting another novel?’

‘I’ll get to it as soon as I have the time.’

‘Find the time!’ Lambert said. ‘While you were away, I was thinking …’ he began, his face colouring. ‘You have to defend yourself.’

‘Against whom?’ Henri asked with a smile.

Lambert hesitated again. ‘It seems that Dubreuilh has been waiting impatiently for you to get back. Don’t let yourself get involved in his schemes …’

‘I’m already more or less involved in them,’ Henri said.

‘Well, if I were you, I’d get myself disinvolved fast!’

‘No,’ Henri replied, smiling. ‘It just isn’t possible nowadays to stay apolitical.’

Lambert’s face grew sombre. ‘I suppose that means you disapprove of me, doesn’t it?’

‘Not at all. What I mean is that it’s impossible for me. We’re not the same age, you know.’

‘What’s age got to do with it?’ Lambert asked.

‘You’ll find out. You change, you begin to understand a lot of things when you get older.’ Henri smiled and added, ‘But I promise you I’ll find time enough to continue writing.’

‘You have to,’ Lambert said.

‘I just remembered something, my sermonizing friend! What happened to those short stories you were telling me about?’

‘They aren’t worth a damn,’ Lambert replied.

‘Let me have them. And then we’ll have dinner together some evening and talk about them.’

‘Right,’ Lambert said. He got up. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll want to see her, but little Marie-Ange Bizet is dead set on interviewing you. She’s been waiting for two hours. What’ll I tell her?’

‘That I never give interviews and that I’m up to my ears in work.’

Lambert closed the door behind him and Henri emptied the contents of the yellow envelope on his desk. On a bulging folder, his secretary had written: ‘Correspondence – Novel.’ He hesitated a moment. He had written the novel during the war without ever having given any thought to what the future might hold for him; he hadn’t even been sure that the future would hold anything at all for him. And now the book had been published, people had already read it. All at once, Henri found himself judged, discussed, classified, as he himself had so often judged and discussed others. He spread out the clippings and began going through them one at a time. ‘A sensation’, Paula had said, and he had thought she was exaggerating. But, as a matter of fact, the critics also used some pretty impressive words. Lambert, of course, was prejudiced; Lachaume, too. All those young critics who had just come into their own had a natural predisposition for the writers of the Resistance. But it was the admiring letters sent by both friends and strangers that confirmed the verdict of the press. Really, without getting a swelled head about it, it was certainly enough to make any man happy. His pages, written with deep feeling, had actually stirred people! Henri stretched happily. In a way, it was miraculous – what had just happened. Two years earlier, thick curtains had veiled blue-painted windows; he had been completely shut off from the black city, from the whole earth; his pen would pause hesitantly over the paper. Now those unformed sounds in his throat had become a living voice in the world; the secret stirrings in his heart had been transformed into truths for other hearts. ‘I should have tried explaining it to Nadine,’ he said to himself. ‘If others don’t count, it’s meaningless to write. But if they do count, it’s wonderful to gain their friendship and their confidence with words; it’s magnificent to hear your own thoughts echoed in them.’ He raised his eyes; someone was opening the door.

‘I’ve been waiting for you for two hours,’ said a plaintive voice. ‘You could at least give me fifteen minutes.’ Marie-Ange planted herself solidly in front of his desk. ‘It’s for Lendemain . A big front-page spread, with pictures.’

‘Look, I never give interviews.’

‘Exactly. That’s why mine will be worth its weight in gold.’

Henri shook his head, and Marie-Ange said indignantly, ‘You wouldn’t ruin my whole career just because of a principle?’