Inseparable

by Simone de Beauvoir

Overcome by the oppressiveness of existence? Faced with a large rock that Sisyphus must roll uphill, only to have it roll down again? Plagued by the existential tension between justice and freedom? Striving for inner authenticity or, indeed, for meaning? Worried by how many men you’d have to sleep with in order to wipe the stain of the haute bourgeoisie from yourself forever? “Take a nice brisk walk in the fresh air,” my mother would have said, “and you’ll feel a lot better.” When I was waxing too depressingly intellectual and/or morose, this was her advice to me.

I would look at the enormous wardrobe and the hand-carved wooden clock that held within it two copper pinecones and the obscurity of time.

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?

My joy transformed into anguish: what would become of me if she died? I wondered. I would be sitting on my little seat, the principal would come in and say in a serious voice: “Let us pray, dear children, your little friend Andrée Gallard was called to God last night.” Well! It’s simple, I decided, I’d slip under my chair and fall down dead as well. The idea didn’t frighten me because we would soon be reunited at the gates of heaven.

Dodo

I wanted 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.

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.

“Why were you in such a bad mood?” I asked. Andrée stood silent for a moment. “Just like that, no reason; just everything.” She hesitated. “I’m tired of being a child,” she suddenly said. “Don’t you find it endless?”

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!

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 like roses; they are ceremonial flowers that die without fading, in a curtsy.”

“But that’s a lie,” said Dédé. “I’m the one who will lie, all you have to do is say nothing; you won’t be telling a lie. When you’re big, you’re sometimes allowed to lie,” Andrée added, reassuring her. “It’s convenient being big,” said Dédé with a sigh.