Inseparable

by Simone de Beauvoir

She was a brisk woman who had a mustache and whom I respected a lot.

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.

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.

Andrée stared at me somewhat mockingly. “Don’t you ever dream about things? Doesn’t that ever happen to you?” “No,” I replied humbly. What would I have dreamed about? I loved Andrée more than anything, and she was here with me.

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!

Under the continual imposition of these constricting traditions, any spirited individualism is crushed from the start. There is no worse outrage to Simone, which is what the novel wishes to bring to light: here is a scandal that could be called philosophical, as it deals with the human condition. The affirmation of the absolute value of subjectivity lies at the heart of her beliefs and her work, not the subjectivity of the individual, one person out of a cross-section of many but of unique individuality, which makes each of us “the most irreplaceable of beings,” to quote Gide, the existence of our consciousness, hic et nunc. “Love the thing you will never see twice.” An unshakable, primal conviction, and one that philosophical reflection will support: the Absolute is played out in this world, on this earth, during our sole, unique existence. It is thus understandable that Zaza was risking everything.