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She Came to Stay
Simone de Beauvoir
Written as an act of revenge against the 17 year-old who came between her and Jean-Paul Sartre, She Came to Stay is Simone de Beauvoir’s first novel – a lacerating study of a young, naive couple in love and the usurping woman who comes between them.‘It is impossible to talk about faithfulness and unfaithfulness where we are concerned. You and I are simply one. Neither of us can be described without the other.’It was unthinkable that Pierre and Francoise should ever tire of each other. And yet, both talented and restless, they constantly feel the need for new sensations, new people. Because of this they bring the young, beautiful and irresponsible Xavière into their life who, determined to take Pierre for herself, drives a wedge between them, with unforeseeable, disastrous consequences…Published in 1943, 'She Came to Stay' is Simone de Beauvoir's first novel. Written as an act of revenge against the woman who nearly destroyed her now legendary, unorthodox relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, it fictionalises the events of 1935, when Sartre became infatuated with seventeen-year old Olga Bost, a pupil and devotee of de Beauvoir's.Passionately eloquent, coolly and devastatingly ironic, 'She Came to Stay' is one of the most extraordinary and powerful pieces of fictional autobiography of the twentieth century, in which de Beauvoir's 'tears for her characters freeze as they drop.'
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
She Came to Stay
Translated by Yvonne Moyse
and Roger Senhouse
Copyright (#ulink_b0deac46-80a5-5442-9b08-e6675a04792b)
HarperPress
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This edition published by Harper Perennial 2006
Previously published in paperback by Flamingo 1984 and by Fontana 1975
This translation first published jointly by Seeker & Warburg
and Lindsay Drummond 1949
First published in France by Editions Gallimard under the title L’Invitée 1943
Copyright © Editions Gallimard 1943
PS section copyright © Louise Tucker 2006, except ‘The Pain of Freedom’ by
Fay Weldon © Fay Weldon 2006
PS
is a trademark of HarperCollinsPubishers Ltd
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
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Ebook Edition © MAY 2018 2012 ISBN 9780007384938
Version: 2018-05-16
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Dedication (#ulink_fb79bb00-ab1a-5160-81df-d0fb94b3f59e)
To Olga Kosakievicz
Contents
Cover (#uce6b4d93-5cb0-5c85-ab4a-51fc2b2388ff)
Title Page (#uc4007030-52a7-5164-bb3c-6d1ec6d980dd)
Copyright (#u1e5b4864-0dbd-59a1-8ae8-5e20c179e162)
Dedication (#u7f105704-27e1-5e6b-8f95-3c50858376ba)
PART ONE (#u06c57617-acca-5f4e-93ce-e3759eccbc33)
Chapter One (#u6d6769ec-3649-59e2-bbec-bf90d1dbb0c1)
Chapter Two (#u4a8acd6c-e280-5d74-af19-acc1dd50902b)
Chapter Three (#ua76611e2-b9a3-5820-a20a-eac41305925d)
Chapter Four (#udfce4220-a749-5d61-b026-a23be3692db3)
Chapter Five (#u90837c4f-778b-5754-92ae-a166a3fbb538)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
P.S. Ideas, insights & features … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Finding a Voice by Louise Tucker
Life at a Glance (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Book (#litres_trial_promo)
The Pain of Freedom by Fay Weldon
Read On (#litres_trial_promo)
Have You Read?
If You Loved This, You Might Like … (#litres_trial_promo)
Find Out More (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#ulink_376c0db8-a76d-5616-93ac-b2253048c9c8)
Chapter One (#ulink_e98de7b3-c526-5b8f-ab21-dff26e84747e)
Françoise raised her eyes. Gerbert’s fingers were flicking about over the keyboard of his typewriter, and he was glaring at his copy of the manuscript; he looked exhausted. Françoise herself was sleepy; but there was something intimate about her own weariness, something cosy. The black rings under Gerbert’s eyes worried her, his face was haggard and tense; he almost looked his full twenty years.
‘Don’t you think we ought to stop?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m all right,’ said Gerbert.
‘Anyway, I’ve only one more scene to revise,’ said Françoise.
She turned over a page. Two o’clock had struck a short time ago. Usually, at this hour, there was not a living soul left in the theatre: tonight there was life in it. The typewriter was clicking, the lamp threw a rosy glow over the papers … ‘And I am here, my heart is beating. Tonight the theatre has a heart and it is beating.’
‘I like working at night,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Gerbert, ‘it’s quiet.’
He yawned. The ashtray was filled with the stub-ends of Virginian cigarettes; two glasses and an empty bottle stood on a small table. Françoise looked at the walls of her little office: the rosy atmosphere was radiant with human warmth and light. Outside was the theatre, deprived of all human life and in darkness, with its deserted corridors circling a great hollow shell. Françoise put down her fountain pen.
‘Wouldn’t you like another drink?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Gerbert.
‘I’ll go and get another bottle from Pierre’s dressing-room.’
She went out of the office. It was not that she had any particular desire for whisky; it was the dark corridors which were the attraction. When she was not there, the smell of dust, the half-light, and their forlorn solitude did not exist for anyone; they did not exist at all. And now she was there. The red of the carpet gleamed through the darkness like a timid night-light. She exercised that power: her presence snatched things from their unconsciousness; she gave them their colour, their smell. She went down one floor and pushed open the door into the auditorium. It was as if she had been entrusted with a mission: she had to bring to life this forsaken theatre now in semi-darkness. The safety-curtain was down; the walls smelt of fresh paint; the red plush seats were aligned in their rows, motionless but expectant. A moment ago they had been aware of nothing, but now she was there and their arms were outstretched. They were watching the stage hidden behind the safety-curtain: they were calling for Pierre, for the footlights and for an enraptured audience. She would have had to remain there for ever in order to perpetuate this solitude and this expectancy. But she would have had to be elsewhere as well: in the props-room, in the dressing-rooms, in the foyer; she would have had to be everywhere at the same time. She went across the proscenium and stepped up on to the stage. She opened the door to the green-room. She went on down into the yard where old stage sets lay mouldering. She alone evoked the significance of these abandoned places, of these slumbering things. She was there and they belonged to her. The world belonged to her.
She went through the small iron stage-door and out into the middle of the formal garden. The houses all round the square were sleeping. The theatre was sleeping, except for a rosy glow from a single window. She sat down on a bench. The sky was glossy black above the chestnut trees: she might well have been in the heart of some small provincial town. At this moment she did not in the least regret that Pierre was not beside her: there were some joys she could not know when he was with her; all the joys of solitude. They had been lost to her for eight years, and at times she almost felt a pang of regret on their account.
She leaned back against the hard wood of the bench. A quick step echoed on the asphalt of the pavement; a motor lorry rumbled along the avenue. There was nothing but this passing sound, the sky, the quivering foliage of the trees, and the one rose-coloured window in a black façade. There was no Françoise any longer; no one existed any longer, anywhere.
Françoise jumped to her feet. It was strange to become a woman once more, a woman who must hurry because pressing work awaits her, with the present moment but one in her life like all the others. She put her hand on the door-knob, then turned back with a qualm of conscience. This was desertion, an act of treason. The night would once more swallow the small provincial square; the rose-coloured window would gleam in vain; it would no longer shine for anyone. The sweetness of this hour would be lost for ever; so much sweetness lost to ali the earth. She crossed the yard and climbed the green wood steps. She had long since given up this kind of regret. Only her own life was real. She went into Pierre’s dressing-room and took the bottle of whisky from the cupboard. Then she hastened back upstairs to her office.
‘Here you are, this will put new strength into us,’ she said. ‘How do you want it? Neat, or with water?’
‘Neat,’ said Gerbert.
‘D’you think you’ll be able to get home?’
‘Oh, I’m learning to hold my whisky,’ said Gerbert with dignity.
‘You’re learning …,’ said Françoise.
‘When I’m rich and run my own house, I’ll always keep a bottle of Vat 69 in my cupboard,’ said Gerbert.
‘That will be the end of your career,’ said Françoise. She looked at him with a kind of tenderness. He had pulled his pipe out of his pocket and was filling it with great deliberation. It was his first pipe. Every evening, when they had finished their bottle of Beaujolais, he put it on the table and looked at it with childish pride; he smoked it over his glass of cognac or marc. And then they went out into the streets, a little dazed after the day’s work, the wine and the brandy. Gerbert strode along, his lock of black hair over his face and his hands in his pockets. Now that was all over. She would often be seeing him again, but only with Pierre or with all the others, and once more they would be like two strangers.
‘And what about you! You hold your whisky well for a woman,’ said Gerbert, quite impartially. He looked hard at Françoise. ‘But you’ve been overworking today, you ought to get a little sleep. Then I’ll wake you up, if you like.’
‘No. I’d rather finish it off,’ said Françoise.
‘Aren’t you hungry? Wouldn’t you like me to go out and get you some sandwiches?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Françoise. She smiled at him. He had been so considerate, so attentive. Whenever she felt discouraged she had only to look into his laughing eyes to regain her confidence. She would like to have found words in which to thank him.
‘It’s almost a pity that we’ve finished,’ she said. ‘I’ve become so used to working with you.’
‘But it will be even greater fun when we go into production,’ said Gerbert. His eyes glistened; the whisky had given a flush to his cheeks. ‘It’s so good to think that in three days everything will be starting all over again. How I love the opening of the season.’
‘Yes, it will be fun,’ said Françoise. She pulled her papers towards her. He was apparently not at all sorry to see the end of their ten days together; that was only natural. She was not sorry either; surely she had no right to expect Gerbert alone to be sorry.
‘Every time I walk through this dead theatre I get the shivers,’ said Gerbert. ‘It’s dismal. This time I really thought it was going to stay closed the whole year.’
‘We’ve had a narrow escape,’ said Françoise.
‘Let’s hope that this lasts,’ said Gerbert.
