Inseparable

by Simone de Beauvoir

You don’t believe what you believe on purpose: could you be punished because certain ideas come into your mind?

Never had anything as interesting happened to me. I suddenly had the impression that nothing had ever happened to me at all.

But what gave her the greatest prestige in my eyes were certain unique characteristics whose meanings I have never understood: when she looked at a peach or an orchid, or if anyone simply said either word in front of her, Andrée would shudder, and her arms would break out in goose bumps; those were the times when the heavenly gift she’d received—and which I marveled at so much—would manifest itself in the most disconcerting way: it was character. I secretly told myself that Andrée was one of those child prodigies whose lives would later be recounted in books.

When the wind blew, the poplars would whisper. The wind enthralled me. I felt that from one end of the earth to the other, the trees spoke to each other and spoke to God; it sounded like both music and a prayer were piercing my heart before rising to the heavens.

How many years? How many evenings? Is living nothing more than that: killing one day after the other? Would I be this bored until I died?

We made small talk, like adults do; but I suddenly understood, with astonishment and joy, that the emptiness in my heart, my gloomy feeling of recent days, had only one cause: the absence of Andrée. Living without her was no longer living.

to know why, with so much emotion in her heart, so many things to do, so many gifts, she often looked distant and seemed sad to me.

What would I have dreamed about? I loved Andrée more than anything, and she was here with me.

Andrée had found my letter ridiculous, which hurt me; but more importantly, she had no idea how much I needed to share everything with her. That was what saddened me the most: I had just realized that she had absolutely no idea of my feelings for her.

I would have liked to protest: “There isn’t just studying, there’s you.”

In books, I thought with sadness, people declare their love or hatred for each other, they dare admit to everything they feel in their hearts; why is that impossible in life? I would walk for two days and two nights without eating or drinking to see Andrée for an hour, to spare her any pain: and she had no idea!

I thought that if our mothers hadn’t been there, she would have kissed me.

Neither Papa nor the writers I admired were believers; and while the world probably could not be explained without God, God really didn’t explain that much, and besides, no one understood anything about Him.

I had only one idea of love: the love I felt for her.

Never! It was the first time that word struck my heart with all its weight;

Her beautiful black hair fell to one side; the neat line made by the part was so moving that I wanted to run my fingers along it with tenderness and respect.

Zaza died because she tried to be herself and was convinced that such a desire was evil.