Simone de Beauvoir biography personal life. Unconventional marriage: Simone de Beauvoir - Jean-Paul Sartre

She was different, unlike her contemporaries. Free, free, winged like a bird. François Mitterrand called her an “exceptional personality,” and Jacques Chirac called her “an entire era.” Since the middle of the 20th century, all of Europe has been captivated by her philosophical ideas. And in America, the reading public immediately bought up a million copies of her fundamental, without exaggeration, work called “The Second Sex.” In it, Simone consistently and convincingly told how, over thousands of years, a woman became a man’s “prey and property.” The fact that the learned lady herself was never anyone’s prey, much less property, did not prevent a deep insight into the essence of this eternal topic.

The immutable qualities of an original personality - adventurism, willfulness, the desire to challenge public opinion - were apparently in Simon from birth. Otherwise, why would a pious girl, raised in a respectable religious family, suddenly renounce marriage and children, declare herself absolutely free from all existing “prejudice” on this topic, begin to write provocative novels, preach the ideas of female independence and openly talk about atheism and rebellion? and revolutionary changes? Mademoiselle de Beauvoir never hid her recognition of her originality and spoke about it openly, including on the pages of her “memoirs,” noting that from childhood she was inclined to consider herself unique. She explained that her “superiority over other people” came from the fact that she had never missed anything in her life - and in the future her “creativity greatly benefited from such an advantage.” And Simone made a conclusion for herself very early on, which became one of the fundamental ones in her subsequent “philosophy of existence”: living at twenty does not mean preparing for your fortieth birthday. And also - life, following Simone, is an attitude towards the world; by making his choice of attitude towards the world, the individual determines himself.

Comprehensive reality

Simone de Beauvoir, an inquisitive nature, made her own choice - to feel the fullness of life, to comprehend reality in a variety of manifestations, to experience them and comprehend them - as a teenager. First, she tries to realize her plan in religion, prayers, sincere faith in God, then the feeling of this completeness will come to her through daily intellectual work, and later through literary creativity.

Simone de Beauvoir was born in early 1908, on January 9, in Paris. Although for her the very beginning of the year will subsequently be not the first day of January, but September 1st. Her father, Georges de Beauvoir, was a lawyer, a good family man, but at the same time an enthusiastic and gambling person. At the beginning of the First World War, he loaned his fortune to the tsarist government of Russia and lost it. Simone's mother, Françoise, a religious and strict woman, raised her two daughters in the same way as children were raised in wealthy aristocratic families back then. The girls were sent to the Cours Desir College, where the main subject was the Holy Scriptures. (Simone was then in her sixth year.) Education at this educational institution meant the formation of young students into pious girls, convinced of the faith of future mothers. Subsequently, Simone recalled how, falling at the feet of the blond God, she was thrilled with delight, tears flowed down her cheeks and she fell into the arms of angels...

But with the loss of her fortune, her family’s usual way of life underwent serious changes. Parents were forced to move to a small apartment, do without servants, lead a more modest lifestyle - find themselves in an unusual environment. And the sisters, accordingly, lost their dowry, and with it their chances of a good marriage. Realizing this, Simone decided to master some profession at all costs in order to earn her own living, and began to study with renewed vigor, while remaining a devout young lady who took communion three times a week. But one day, at the age of 14, an event happened to her that greatly influenced her future fate: according to Simone, she was undeservedly reproached and offended by her spiritual mentor Abbot Martin. While he was talking, “his stupid hand pressed on the back of my head, forced me to lower my head, turn my face to the ground, until my death it would force me ... to crawl on the ground,” Simone recalled. This feeling was enough for her to change her lifestyle, but even in new circumstances she continued to think that the loss of faith was the greatest misfortune. Being in a depressed state, asking herself many questions about the essence of life, Simone came to books in which she searched and found many answers, sometimes like this: religion is a means of curbing a person.

Books gradually filled the spiritual void around her and became a new religion, which led her to the Faculty of Philosophy at the Sorbonne. In discovering the book world and new names in it: Cocteau, Claudel, Gide and other writers and poets, Simone’s cousin Jacques helped her in many ways... He also told her about the life of Paris at night, about entertainment in bars and restaurants. And her rich imagination immediately interpreted his stories as adventures, which she so lacked to feel the same fullness of life. She also wanted to be at home less - communication with her parents tired her daughter, especially traditional dinners with relatives and the conversations she knew to the smallest detail at such dinners.

When, during the summer holidays of 1926, this relationship became tense, she went on a trip to Paris at night, taking her younger sister with her.

What didn't her parents like about her? It seemed to them that she had “fallen out” of normal life, that her studies had made her divorced from reality, that she was going against everyone and everything. Why was Simone conflicted? Because it seemed to her that they were constantly trying to teach her, but at the same time, for some reason, no one ever noticed her growing up, becoming, and academic success. Simone's age-related maximalism reached its apogee, and under the pretext of participating in public brigades, she ran away from home in the evenings and wandered around the counters of night bars, studying the morals of the public present there. Having seen enough of everything, Simone summed up that she saw another life, the existence of which she had no idea about. But “sexual taboos turned out to be” so tenacious for her that she could not even imagine debauchery. In this sense, the “fullness of life” did not yet interest her. She writes about herself at seventeen that she was an extremist, “I wanted to get everything or nothing.” “If I fall in love,” wrote Simone, “then for the rest of my life, I will then surrender myself entirely to the feeling, soul and body, lose my head and forget the past. I refuse to be content with the husks of feelings and pleasures that are not associated with this state.”

Meeting

On the eve of the epoch-making year 1929 - her meeting with Jean Paul Sartre - Simone de Beauvoir was already unlike other intellectuals. She was 21 years old, and he was 24. He noticed her himself, but for some reason he first sent his friend to her. When the whole company began to prepare for the final exams, Sartre realized that he had met the most suitable life partner, in whom he was surprised by “the combination of male intelligence and female sensitivity.” And she, in turn, later wrote: “Sartre exactly corresponded to the dreams of my fifteen years: he was my double, in whom I found all my tastes and preferences...” She admitted that “it was as if I had met my double” and “knew that he will remain" in her life forever. From now on, after successfully passing the exams, where Sartre got first place, and Simone - second place (the chairman of the examination committee explained that Sartre had unique intellectual abilities, but Simone was a born philosopher), she, together with him, began to overthrow the aesthetic and social values ​​of modern society, following the original philosophical doctrine - humanistic existentialism. The social catastrophes of the 20th century were seen by them as a “world of absurdity”, in which there is no place for either meaning or God. The only reality of this existence is man, who himself must fill his world with content. And in him, in this man, there is nothing predetermined or laid down, since, as Sartre and De Beauvoir believed, “existence precedes essence.” And the essence of a person is made up of his actions, it is the result of his choice, or rather, several choices throughout his life. Philosophers called the motivators of actions the will and the desire for freedom, and these motivators are stronger than social laws and “all kinds of prejudices.”

Upon completion of his studies, Sartre was drafted into the army for a year and a half. But Simone remained in Paris and continued to study. After the army, he received a position as a professor in Le Havre and began to receive special attention from female students: a great original, a skilled rhetorician, a man of extensive knowledge, he was for them the ruler of thoughts. But Simone was not embarrassed by his hobbies on the side, as is commonly believed and as she, however, wrote herself. Their union was generally special, unlike usual unions. The young people called their relationship a morganatic marriage and said that they were in this state in two guises: sometimes they played the poor and happy bourgeoisie, sometimes they imagined themselves to be American billionaires and behaved accordingly, imitating the manners of the rich and parodying them. Sartre, in turn, noted that Simone, in addition to such joint transformations, “split into two” on her own, “turning” either into Castor (Beaver, she received this nickname from friends during her student years), or into the capricious Mademoiselle de Beauvoir. And when suddenly reality became boring for him, both of them explained this by the fact that Sartre was briefly possessed by the soul of an elephant seal - an eternal sufferer - after which the philosopher began to grimace in every possible way, imitating elephant anxiety.

They had no children, no common life, no obligations, trying to prove to themselves that this was the only way to feel radical freedom. In their youth, they amused themselves with all kinds of games and eccentricities. “We lived in idleness then,” Simone recalled. Pranks, parodies, mutual praise had, she continued, their purpose: “they protected us from the spirit of seriousness, which we refused to recognize as decisively as Nietzsche did, and for the same reasons: fiction helped to deprive the world of oppressive gravity, moving it into the realm of fantasy..."

Judging by Simone's memories, she really was madly in love and infinitely happy from the knowledge of who was next to her. She in every possible way noticed the extraordinary nature of her chosen one, said that his tenacious, ingenuous attention grasped “things alive”, in all the richness of their manifestation, that he inspired her with the same timidity that was later inspired only by some crazy people who saw intricacies in a rose petal intrigue. And how can you not become delighted when next to you is a person whose thoughts alone fascinate you? “The paradox of reason is that man, the creator of necessity, cannot rise above it to the level of existence, like those soothsayers who are able to predict the future for others, but not for themselves. That is why I guess at the basis of human existence as a creature of nature is sadness and boredom,” Sartre wrote in a Paris newspaper in the late 1920s.

In general, Sartre’s “aesthetics of negation” of this period turned out to be very consonant with Simone’s thoughts, and her social portrait then seemed to her as follows: “He was an anarchist to a much greater extent than a revolutionary, he considered society as it existed worthy of hatred and was quite pleased with the fact that he hated him; what he called the “aesthetics of negation” was in good agreement with the existence of fools and scoundrels and even needed it: after all, if there was nothing to smash and crush, then literature would be worth little.”

Fight with crabs

“An original writer, while he is alive, is always scandalous,” Simone noted. Consequently, it is also necessary to expose the vices of bourgeois society in a scandalous way; a scandal is generally a catalyst for the knowledge of society, just as a person’s internal conflict leads to the knowledge of his hidden qualities. Both Simone and Sartre were big supporters of the study of various extreme human states, including mental ones. Simone admitted that they were always attracted to neuroses and psychoses, that they revealed purified patterns of behavior and passions of people who are called normal. It is known that not only Simone and Sartre had a craving for such observations; many writers, poets, and philosophers drew the necessary “material” from such observations and studies of the human soul.

Mad Men attracted Simone and Sartre with their multifaceted, complex and at the same time surprisingly accurate revelations of existing reality, with which madmen, as a rule, are at odds. This looking glass of the human soul excited philosophers, prompting them to analyze the psyche, actions, and states of man. In addition, at the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists and psychiatrists came to grips with the issues of human psychopathology. And of course, Simone and Sartre read and studied the works of K. Jaspers, Z. Freud, A. Adler. Sartre also tried to create his own methods of cognition of personality. Simone helped him in this as best she could. But the philosopher was literally mired in this abyss. He also tried to experience anomalies in the perception of the real world on himself, causing “shifts” in reality with injections of mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug, after which Sartre began to have nightmare visions in the form of a battle with crabs and octopuses... After the effects of the drug ended, they disappeared.

In addition to madmen, philosophers were fond of friendship with all sorts of outcasts, like the author of “The Diary of a Thief” Jean Genet or Boris Vian, a scandalous writer who overthrew the morality of bourgeois society. It is surprising that such rebels, sometimes with very dubious biographies and occupations, attracted Simone and Sartre much more than, for example, individuals who achieved technical achievements in those years, such as flight into the stratosphere.

Red tape

Paris of the 20-30s of the XX century was, as we know, the epicenter of arts, fashion and, of course, philosophy, which then played the role of “the key to the truth.” Here Jean Paul and Simone continued their teaching activities, receiving positions as teachers of philosophy. It is worth saying that during this period and in the future they never lived under the same roof, they deliberately settled in different hotels, but met every day. We talked with artists, came to their cafes and workshops, spent time in cinemas...

Five years after the formation of this intellectual union, a permanent lover appeared in the lives of Simone and Jean Paul - the Russian aristocrat Olga Kozakevich. She seemed to be teasing this couple, showing passion first for her and then for him. And then one day Jean Paul, contrary to established traditions of not being separated from Simone, spent the entire vacation with Olga, leaving his beloved intellectual in Paris. Remembering Kozakevich, Simone said that with all her behavior she was against conventions, prohibitions, and social taboos. “She claimed to break out of the captivity of the human lot, to which we too submitted not without shame.” “She indulged in pleasures without measure, she happened to dance until she fainted. They say that Sartre offered his hand and heart to the “rebel” Kozakevich, while continuing to experience the most genuine feelings for Simone... After the refusal, Jean Paul, of course, did not grieve - he spread to her sister, Wanda. And Simone pretended that nothing special was happening, although who, except Sartre, could feel what de Beauvoir really felt at such moments. In general, this spicy topic has been discussed more than once, while it is constantly noted that Simone herself was even more frank in her connections on the side. It was as if she went on vacation with one student or another, and then introduced them to Sartre. Allegedly, one of these was Bianca Lamblen, who later became a famous philosopher.

Timelessness

At the end of the 30s of the 20th century, the lifestyle of Simone and Sartre changed, and not so much the image itself, but their attitude to what was happening in the world - the events of those years left their mark on their worldview. The Spanish Civil War, the defeat of the Republicans, the activity of the Italian fascists... The rise of Nazism in Germany.

With the outbreak of World War II, Sartre was mobilized, and in June 1940 he was captured by the Germans. Simone at this time taught in Paris and studied literature. She wrote the novel “A Girl is Invited to Visit,” where the main character, the guest, ruined the life of one married couple. But in general, recalling the literary life of the 1940-1943s, de Beauvoir noted that literary expression was then in decline. The only event for her was the story of A. Saint-Exupéry “Military Pilot” (1941).

Sartre returned from captivity in 1943 and immediately launched an active work: he published Simone’s book in a good publishing house, convinced her to take up literary work, joined the ranks of the Resistance, founded the newspaper Combat, in which he published pro-communist articles and, of course, popularized his philosophy - humanistic existentialism. At the same time, Simone and Sartre became close to A. Camus, whom the philosopher met at a rehearsal of the play “The Flies.” Their friendship grew into new acquaintances, and at the end of the war, a fairly large circle of intellectuals was organized around Sartre, Simone and Camus. The uplifting time contributed to new ideas and new policies. The latter then entered their lives firmly. Simone recalled how Gaullists, communists, Marxists fraternized in 1945... As Camus concluded on this matter: “Politics is no longer separable from individuals. It represents a person’s direct appeal to other people.”

In 1945, Sartre left for New York. He didn't take Simone. For many years of their creative union, he took such a step for the first time. There he fell in love with actress Dolores Vanetti Ehrenreich and stayed in the United States, where Simone flew after some time.

American husband

In 1947, Simone de Beauvoir had another epoch-making meeting in the USA. Nelson Algren, an American writer, invited a French woman to accompany her around Chicago. (She flew to the USA at the invitation of several American universities and stayed there from January to May.) And Simone, at the age of 39, came to another great feeling. Their romance lasted 14 years, as Nelson, suffering from love and separation, later wrote, she exhausted him over the years, rejecting at the very beginning the proposal to start a family and get married.

“My beloved Nelson. How do you, proud man, know that my feelings for you are unchanged? Who told you this? I'm afraid they haven't really changed. Oh, what agony of love and joy, what pleasure I experienced when I read your letter...” Simone wrote on December 15, 1948 in one of 304 letters to her lover, whom she called “beloved husband.” These letters were subsequently published by Simone's adopted daughter Sylvia le Bon de Beauvoir. It is no coincidence that this correspondence is called a “Transatlantic Novel” - it is all pure feelings, and next to them are thoughts about everything that is happening around: “Darling, dear. Here I am again in Algeria, under the window there is a huge garden of palm trees, I see many pink and purple flowers, houses, pine trees, and behind them ships and the pale blue sea... We saw how helpfully the United States wants to “help” us » organize an army capable of defeating the USSR? Tell them that they overdid it and we didn’t appreciate their efforts. The idea that the French should take part in the war is quite strange. Stalin is hated to the same extent as Wall Street, what should we do?..”

Glory

In 1949, Simone published a book that exploded public opinion. First, The Second Sex was released in France, and then in almost all Western countries. The very idea of ​​this socio-biological, anthropological work was suggested to the writer by Sartre, who had incredible intuition towards it. And this feeling did not let him down. His companion coped with the task brilliantly, she began with an analysis of the myths of different peoples, in which ideas about the role and purpose of women were established and reflected, and then, following the chronology, she examined numerous works on this “eternal issue”, trying to understand why the universally accepted difference: a man is a full-fledged person, a subject of history, a woman is a dubious creature, an object of his power. Simone particularly highlights the work of Poulain de la Barre “On the Equality of Both Sexes.” She accepts the author's point of view that the unequal position of men and women in society is the result of women's subordination to brute male force, but is by no means the purpose of nature. In general, the book “The Second Sex” occupies a special niche in feminist literature; several generations of women, despite the understandable reaction of the church fathers, considered it a kind of Bible. But the most important thing is that to this day this research is the most fundamental in its field. And then, in 1949, it appeared just in time. In Russia, The Second Sex was published only after almost half a century had passed since the book was published in France. But what can we say about this book? Even if “Memoirs of a Well-Brought-Up Girl” was also refused publication. In her book “Ultimately,” Simone de Beauvoir notes how Tvardovsky himself could not decide to publish Sartre’s “Lays” (1964), for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, which he famously refused.

Of course, the book “The Second Sex” caused a flurry of responses, some of which were extremely negative. A. Camus was furious, saying that De Beauvoir made a French man a target for contempt and ridicule. The Catholic Church was especially indignant, and she had good reason.

And yet, after 1949, Simone became very popular; she was invited to give lectures and give presentations in different cities and countries. In 1954, her fame reignited. The published novel “Tangerines,” which describes the story of her love relationship with Nelson Algren, seemed very frank to readers. Simone was awarded the Goncourt Prize, and Algren himself was indignant: he never expected that his feelings would become public property. Simone, as best she could, tried to calm him down, explaining that this work was by no means a mirror of their relationship, that she had only extracted the quintessence of this relationship, describing the love of a woman like Simone and a man like Nelson.

In my Parisian apartment. 1976 Photo JACQUES PAVLOVSKY/SYGMA/CORBIS/RPG

Special correspondent

A new hobby may have helped Simone decide on such a plot: in 1952, she fell in love with Claude Lanzmann, a correspondent for the newspaper “New Times,” where Sartre and Beauvoir worked as editors.

The new chosen one was young - 27 years old, fresh, pleasant, smart, gallant, infinitely polite and quite ambitious. Simone simply could not help but fall in love with such a person. She later frankly recalled how his proximity freed her from the burden of age. Although 44 years old is this age for existential philosophy? Surprisingly, Simone’s feelings were so deep that she invited her chosen one to her apartment, which she had never offered to anyone before - and he moved in. They were together for seven long and happy years.

Arletta

Simone's new hobby did not in any way diminish her attention to Sartre: they saw each other every day, although at that time he also had his own special love story under the name Arletta Elkaim, a young and pretty Jewish girl from Algeria. And here, it seems, Simone’s self-control finally failed: she felt how carried away Sartre was. So much so that he even began to avoid his best friend. The last straw was that Jean Paul decided to adopt Elkaim. In response, de Beauvoir adopted one of her friends or students - Sylvia le Bon (mentioned above), who became the heir to De Beauvoir's work. But despite certain disagreements in their personal lives, Simone and Sartre continued to be at the epicenter of socio-political events. They were keenly interested in Soviet reality.

In 1955, during a short stay in the USSR, Simone watched the play “The Bedbug” by Mayakovsky, noting that for her and Sartre the theme of the play was very close: the vices and excesses of modern philistinism are impossible to accept. But one should not think that both philosophers accepted the “new world” of the Land of the Soviets unconditionally: both of them had acquaintances with Soviet immigrants and dissidents in France and had no illusions about the Soviet regime. And yet “the transformation of the Soviet man into a working man” was interesting to them.

In 1956, the uncompromising Sartre, in an interview with Express magazine, openly condemned Soviet aggression in Hungary, saying that he was completely breaking off relations with friends from the USSR. And in 1961, Sartre and Beauvoir received an invitation to visit Moscow from the Writers' Union and accepted it: cultural life in different countries has always interested them. It is noteworthy that after this visit, relations between the USSR and France noticeably warmed up. Simone took away this curious impression from this trip: “In the USSR, a person creates himself, and even if this does not happen without difficulty, even if there are heavy blows, retreats, mistakes, everything that happens around him, everything that happens to him , is filled with significant meaning."

In 1970, Sartre became seriously ill, and Simone began to devotedly care for him. On April 15, 1980, he passed away. Subsequently, in the book “Adier,” Beauvoir will write: “His death separated us. My death will unite us." She outlived her master and friend by six years, spending these years alone: ​​with the death of Sartre, the gushing energy that was surprising to everyone gradually began to leave her. The horizon disappeared, the goals disappeared. And once upon a time, Simone expressed with her whole being the Kantian optimism that was unconditional for her: you must, therefore you can.

Sartre rested in the Montparnasse cemetery, where, by a strange coincidence, the windows of her small apartment overlooked. She passed away in the spring. April 14, 1986. She died in one of the hospitals in Paris, the staff of which could not believe that Simone de Beauvoir herself was living out her last days within their walls: she left alone, no one came to her or inquired about her well-being. And who dared to assume that Simone could grow old and leave? She became a legend during her lifetime, and legends, as we know, are eternal...

The married couple of famous French writers professed the principles of “free love”. While the husband’s intimate relationship went far beyond the boundaries of ordinary shocking, the wife had no choice but to become a “classic of feminism” and, secretly from her followers, suffer from the pangs of jealousy.

Simone de Beauvoir’s book “The Second Sex,” which is a very controversial and biting polemic about the position of women in the modern world, created a real sensation in the circles of the intelligentsia of Europe and America. She became a true symbol of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. One of the central ideas of the book was the call: “A woman should live for herself.” The author wrote: “Few jobs are so similar to Sisyphean labor as the work of a housewife; day after day she washes the dishes, wipes the dust, mends the linen, but the next day the dishes will be dirty again, the rooms will be dusty, the linen will be torn. The housewife... does not create anything, she only preserves unchanged what exists. Because of this, she gets the impression that all her activities do not bring concrete Good...” Naturally, women are not biologically programmed for housekeeping to the same extent as for childbearing. However, children tie them to the house, which then becomes their “prison” and remains so in the future, no matter how the women strive to decorate and equip it...

The philosophical works of Simone de Beauvoir are marked by balanced objectivity, insight, horizons, good style, and an educational spirit, but not everyone in society liked her; she was criticized by both Marxists and Catholics. They believed that her “purely female” rebellion was not a justification for the need for emancipation, but evidence of unbridled pride and a torn soul. Simone’s calm, harmonious state, as she admitted, was destroyed more than once throughout her life, and the writer subjected her fate to merciless analysis both in works of art and in scientific research.

The husband of the “founder of feminism,” French philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartre, has always been the center of attention of European criticism. They argued about him, refuted him, agreed with him, admired him and were indignant so that in the end his political views overshadowed his work, and his personal life took on the character of a real show. The public's constant interest was aroused by the philosopher's numerous love affairs, his shocking statements about sexual freedom, marital relationships, problems of childbirth, and so on, for which Sartre even tried to give a philosophical justification.

Loneliness, fear of death, freedom - these are the themes that were central to his philosophy, which bore the mysterious name “existentialism” (from the Latin “existential”, which means “existence”). The widespread popularity of existentialism in the post-war years was explained by the fact that this philosophy attached great importance to freedom. Because, according to Sartre, to be free means to be oneself, since “man is doomed to be free.” At the same time, freedom appears as a heavy burden, but a person must bear this burden “if he is a person.” He can give up his freedom, stop being himself, become “like everyone else,” but only at the cost of abandoning himself as an individual.

The writer himself used this freedom in a very original way, openly demonstrating to society a complete disregard for all moral restrictions, reaching both in behavior and in intimate life to such manifestations that clearly crossed the boundaries of ordinary shocking. And this individualism of Sartre was as attractive as his philosophical views and his artistic creativity.

Jean Paul Sartre's family belonged to the French petty bourgeoisie. His father, Jean Baptiste Sartre, a naval engineer, died of tropical fever contracted in Indochina when his son was less than a year old. Mother, Anne Marie, a cousin of Albert Schweitzer, came from a family of famous Alsatian scientists. Maternal grandfather Charles Schweitzer, professor, German philologist and founder of the Institute of Modern Language, in whose house Jean Paul spent his childhood, adored his grandson. He admired his tricks and gradually prepared him for literary activity, instilling in him a love of reading books.

Sartre later wrote: “I began my life on June 21, 1905, as, in all likelihood, I will end it—among books.” Grandfather's upbringing thus naturally led to the teaching profession. But the boy himself dreamed of more, believing that he was entrusted with some important mission. True, reality did not provide many reasons for such dreams. Having begun to communicate with his peers, Jean Paul suddenly discovered that he was short in stature, physically much weaker than his friends and was not always ready to stand up for himself. This discovery shocked him. However, there was a loving grandfather nearby: “He saved me, without wanting it, and thereby pushed me onto the path of new self-deception, which turned my life upside down.”

This “self-deception,” or rather, escape from reality, was writing. Jean Paul began to write novels in a chivalrous spirit, drawing plots from books and films. Relatives, delighted with the first literary experiments of the 8-year-old novelist, began to predict a career as a writer, and his grandfather decided to send him to the Montaigne Lyceum: “One morning he took me to the director and described my merits. “He has only one drawback,” said the grandfather. “He’s too advanced for his age.” The director did not argue... After the first dictation, my grandfather was urgently summoned to the lyceum authorities. He returned beside himself with rage, took from his briefcase an ill-fated piece of paper, covered with scribbles and blots, and threw it on the table... “Markof grows in Agarodi.” At the sight of the “agarod,” my mother was overcome with uncontrollable laughter. It got stuck in her throat under her grandfather’s menacing gaze. At first my grandfather suspected me of negligence and scolded me, but then he announced that I had been underestimated!”

The real education of the young talent began at the Lyceum of Henry IV and continued in 1924 at the privileged educational institution Ecole Normale Superiore. Having chosen philosophy as the subject of his studies, Jean Paul quickly gained authority among teachers and fellow students. A circle of talented youth formed around him, passionate about Sartre’s idea of ​​​​creating a new direction in the philosophical understanding of existence. It was then that Jean Paul noticed a capable, beautiful, and most importantly, intelligent student Simone de Beauvoir, who, unlike the other girls, behaved proudly and independently. Through his friend Paul Nizan, Sartre confessed his love to Simone, and then a closer acquaintance took place. After some time, it turned into a mutual feeling, especially after Jean Paul expressed to his chosen one his unusual views on marriage, friendship and intimate relationships.

The words of the practical young man fell on fertile soil. The fact is that Simone was an extraordinary person. Her father, the famous Parisian lawyer Jean de Beauvoir, passionately dreamed of a son and for a long time could not come to terms with the idea that on January 9, 1908, his wife Françoise had a daughter. Apparently, trying to prove her “worthiness,” Simone already in childhood acquired character traits that were not typical for girls: she behaved quite independently, despised the weak, never cried, was not inferior to boys in fights, and at the age of 13 she finally decided that she would not have children and will become a famous writer. Be that as it may, observing the family life of her parents and their friends, smart Simone early came to the conclusion that family kills love, turning life into a measured series of banalities: bedroom, dining room, work. At the age of 19, she announced to her relatives: “I do not want my life to be subject to anyone’s wishes but my own.”

Why did she pay attention to Sartre? After all, outwardly he could not be called a representative, much less an attractive young man: short in stature, narrow in the shoulders, sparse hair, an asymmetrical face, a noticeable squint, and on top of that, a very respectable belly. True, as a speaker he had no equal. His passionate speeches were enthusiastically listened to by many fans and admirers, among whom, of course, was Simone.

Finally, the long-awaited declaration of love and a completely extraordinary marriage proposal occurred. Jean Paul told his fiancee that he adheres to anti-philistine principles. And therefore, their relationship must be built on a completely different basis, that is, on a kind of family contract: “Getting married and living under the same roof as husband and wife is bourgeois vulgarity and stupidity. Children also bind and kill love, and besides, fussing with them is a pointless fuss and a waste of time. On the other hand, they commit to always being there for each other, to consider themselves as belonging to each other and to drop everything if one of them needs help. In addition, they are obliged not to have secrets and tell each other about everything, as in confession. And finally, and most importantly, lovers must give each other complete sexual freedom.”

Simone was indescribably delighted with this “marriage contract”: her relationship with Sartre would be unique, and this is exactly what she dreamed of. True, at that time she did not really delve into the meaning of the phrase “complete sexual freedom,” but, apparently, she decided that this concept was closely related to the philosophical ideas of her lover.

However, there was a person who did not share Simone's delight - her father. Moreover, he was beside himself with anger. Not only has the daughter chosen the profession of philosopher, which is completely “indecent” for their circle, she is also going to marry a man of radical convictions, almost a Marxist, who undermines the moral foundations of society. But Simone always liked to tease her parents; she believed that this was how a woman’s independence should be demonstrated. And besides, among her friends, where Jean Paul dominated, such things as property, money, social manners and bourgeois good manners were especially despised.

After graduating from university, the newlyweds had to separate because there were no vacancies in Paris. She went to Marseille, he went to Le Havre to teach philosophy. They had to meet two or three times a month, but they wrote letters to each other almost every day.

Simone was clearly bored away from her husband and did not know what to do with the notorious “freedom.” She had few hours at the Lyceum, her colleagues seemed stupid and uninteresting to her, and Sartre was far away. Therefore, having received another letter in which he said that he intended to leave for Germany, she decided to go to him. And when she appeared in a tiny room in a run-down Berlin hotel, her husband, instead of greeting, joyfully announced that he was “having a little romance.” Since introducing his wife to the heroines of “little romances” was a condition of their contract, Sartre first described his new friend in detail, and then introduced her to Simone.

Beautiful, languid Marie Girard was the wife of one of the local French students. She attracted the young teacher with her dreaminess and some extraordinary look “above objects and people.” When they met, the red-haired beauty only glanced at her friend’s wife and advised her to teach Sartre how to make love, “otherwise he is very boring in bed.” Simone barely restrained herself so as not to seem offended. And after this meeting, the husband enthusiastically told his friends that his once-solid union with his wife had stood the test of time: they were still like-minded people, looking for their own path in creativity.

Indeed, their creative path was successful. In 1938, Sartre’s story “Nause” was published, making him a famous writer, and Simone worked hard on the novel “The Host”. The soon-published collection of short stories by Jean Paul, “The Wall,” was awarded the following praise in the press: “Tales are terrible, cruel, disturbing, shameless, pathological, erotic... Masterpieces of the cruel genre.” The author was incredibly flattered by this assessment.

Soon the couple settled in Paris. Their nightly place of residence was the famous Three Musketeers cafe on Maine Avenue. Dozens of Jean Paul's fans flocked here to listen to his speeches and argue. True, the fashionable writer and philosopher looked rather strange: a dirty shirt, a rumpled hat, worn-out shoes, sometimes of different colors. Simone's appearance has undergone almost no changes, except that she has become even more ascetic: a false braid on smoothly combed black hair, unpretentious plaid skirts, strict fitted jackets. Among the cheeky Parisian bohemia, she looked somewhat unusual, but did not attach any importance to it.

For some time now, spouses began to appear everywhere together with some pretty girl. Everyone around knew that this was another young mistress of Sartre and his feminist wife, who did not disdain lesbian sex. In the mid-1930s. This role was played by Olga Kozakevich, the daughter of Russian emigrants, who was still Simone’s student in Rouen. In society, Olga behaved quite cheekily: she defiantly sat on Sartre’s lap, suddenly began to hug him and kiss him passionately, and could cause a small scandal. This, however, did not irritate Jean Paul at all; on the contrary, it even somewhat impressed him.

Olga Kozakevich was replaced by her sister Wanda, then Camilla Anderson appeared, then Bianca Bienenfeld... After Sartre’s next novels, which Simone found increasingly difficult to bear, she had to admit to herself that, no matter how hard she tried to be an independent and free person, she, alas, was the most ordinary woman. Despising herself for her weakness, Simone, nevertheless, was painfully jealous of her husband and hated his often changing mistresses. Fed up with female students, Sartre became interested in exotic oriental beauties, whom he found somewhere. Out of jealousy, de Beauvoir began to drink, often appeared in the audience drunk, but at the same time she continued to repeat even to her closest friends that she was “absolutely happy with her husband” and that they had “an ideal marriage of a new type.”

During the Second World War, Jean Paul did not join the active army due to a visual defect, but served as a meteorologist in the rear. After the Nazis captured France, he spent some time in a concentration camp for prisoners of war, but in the spring of 1941 he was released and returned to literary and teaching activities. The main works of this time were the play “Behind a Locked Door” and the voluminous work “Being and Nothingness,” the success of which allowed Sartre to leave teaching and devote himself entirely to philosophizing.

It is believed that during this period the couple took part in the Resistance movement. However, all of Sartre’s “active participation” in the fight against fascism comes down to several months of the existence of the group “Socialism and Freedom”, which he organized upon his return from captivity and which disintegrated in the fall of 1941, after which the philosopher thought not so much about the Resistance, but about his own writing career. But Simone always had a guilt complex due to the fact that she did not know the feeling of hunger, did not freeze and did not experience deprivation. Morally, the lack of such experience depressed her much more than the conscious refusal to have children. In the end, children were replaced by numerous books, where she tried to understand herself and, for example, what children are as a form of continuation of the human race.

The “ideal marriage” of Sartre and de Beauvoir was the talk of the town in Paris. They lived separately, on different floors of a run-down hotel on Sel Street, categorically refusing to own any property. In the morning, before classes, they invariably drank morning coffee together; at seven o’clock in the evening, despite the weather and circumstances, they met and walked around the city, talking about philosophy or their literary works. We usually dined at the Three Musketeers, where we stayed until late at night.

But then an event occurred that came as a surprise to everyone: Simone fell in love, which she immediately confessed to Sartre. He was quite amazed, although, it seemed, he should not have been surprised at his wife’s affair, since, according to the contract, they both had the right to “sexual freedom.” She was 39 years old at the time, he was nearly fifty. We must give Sartre his due - no matter how unexpected this news seemed to him, he pulled himself together and treated it with philosophical calm.

In January 1947, Simone de Beauvoir visited the USA at the invitation of several American universities. While passing through Chicago, on the advice of a friend, she met with the young writer Nelson Algren. He took her around the city, showed her the Chicago “bottom”, the slums and brothels, the Polish quarter where he grew up, and the next evening she left for Los Angeles...

Two months later, she wrote to a new acquaintance: “Now I will always be with you - on the dull streets of Chicago, on the elevated train, in your room. I will be with you like a devoted wife with her beloved husband. We will not have an awakening because this is not a dream: this is a wonderful reality and everything is just beginning. I feel you next to me, and wherever I go now, you will follow me - not just your look, but the whole of you. I love you, that's all I can say. You hug me, I cuddle up to you and kiss you, as I kissed you recently.”

From that time on, endless flights across the Atlantic and short meetings with a new lover began. Nelson lived in his own comfortable home with manicured lawns and a melodious bell at the door. He brought Simone coffee in bed, forced her to eat healthy and regularly, gave her cooking lessons, and gave her negligees and lace underwear. Such “little things in everyday life” and intimate accessories made a great impression on the “convinced feminist.” And although it was “philistine,” she felt happy.

In Paris, however, she had to lead a completely different life. De Beauvoir's 1949 book, The Second Sex, became a feminist classic. Less than a week after its publication, Simone became the most famous and popular writer in France. Sartre was pleased: the idea for the book belonged to him.

At that moment, Nelson Algren arrived in Paris and put a dilemma before his mistress - he or Sartre. After long, painful doubts, Simone made her choice. She stayed with her husband because she could not “betray the common ideals.” But this also meant the loss of the only hope for new love and liberation. Once they came up with this saving formula together, but over the years it turned into an axiom. Each spouse achieved their goal. Simone wrote dozens of books, Jean Paul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 “for his creativity, rich in ideas, imbued with the spirit of freedom and the search for truth, which has had a huge influence on our time.” Citing the fact that he “does not want to be turned into a public institution,” and fearing that the status of a Nobel laureate would only hinder his radical political activities, Sartre refused the prize.

In 1965, when the writer was already sixty, and his union with his wife was 36 years old, he inflicted the last mental trauma on her by adopting his 17-year-old Algerian mistress Arlette el-Kaim. She was threatened with deportation from the country, and Sartre did not want to part with her. To Simone's indignation, this, in her words, shameless girl dared not to let her into her own husband's house. The old womanizer could not do without female company: “The main reason why I surround myself with women is that I prefer their company to the company of men. Men usually bore me." And yet he still needed a devoted wife, who remained the only person who understood his ideas even better than himself.

In the second half of the 1960s. he was more involved in politics than literature. With a zeal worthy of better use, Jean Paul sought to restore “the good name of socialism.” He traveled a lot, actively opposed class and national oppression, defended the rights of ultra-left groups, and participated in student riots in Paris. Strongly condemning American military intervention in Vietnam, Sartre took an active part in the anti-war commission organized by Bertrand Russell, which accused the United States of war crimes. He warmly supported the Chinese reforms and the Cuban revolution, but later became disillusioned with the policies of these countries.

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Sartre supported various left-wing extremist groups, was the editor of the Maoist magazine Delo Narod, criticized communist parties for “opportunism,” and became one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the left-wing radical newspaper Libération. In 1974, his book “Revolt is a Just Cause” was published.

In the last years of his life, Sartre was almost blind due to glaucoma. He could no longer write, but he did not retire from active life: he gave numerous interviews, discussed political events with friends, listened to music, and asked his wife to read aloud to him. True, at the same time he became addicted to alcohol, which young fans supplied him with, which, of course, could not help but irritate Simone.

When Sartre died on April 15, 1980, there was no official funeral ceremony. Shortly before his death, the writer himself asked for this, disgusted by the pathos of ceremonial obituaries and epitaphs. The closest ones followed the coffin. However, as the funeral procession moved through the city, 50 thousand Parisians spontaneously joined it. The Le Monde newspaper wrote: “Not a single French intellectual of the 20th century, not a single Nobel Prize winner, had such a deep, lasting and comprehensive influence on public thought as Sartre.”

Simone de Beauvoir outlived her unfaithful but beloved friend by six years and died almost on the same day as him, April 14. United by incomprehensible ties in the earthly world, they are buried side by side - in a joint grave in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. Their unusual married life turned out to be long, and the path to their ideals was tortuous and often confusing. But they never even thought about the simplicity and clarity of their paths, either in creativity or in love.

The final resting place of writers is now less visited than the graves of chansonniers and pop musicians. However, there are signs of love and gratitude - on the tombstone of Sartre and de Beauvoir there are always red carnations and pebbles, similar to pebbles picked up on the seashore.

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

I am the hero of a long story with a happy ending. You are the most perfect, the smartest, the best and the most passionate. You are not only my life, but also the only sincere person in it.

Jean Paul Sartre

We have discovered a special type of relationship with all its freedom, intimacy and openness.

Simone de Beauvoir

He is an outstanding philosopher who mercilessly tormented heads prone to routine and conveyed his ideas through literature; she is a recognized writer, a courageous apologist for the new female ideology of the 20th century. Both are self-sufficient, purposeful, fiery, charming and... unbearable. Both of them fairly battered the effeminate morality, announcing the arrival into the world of a new philosophy, perhaps not ideal for human development, but an attractive form of being without restrictions, based on unheard-of claims to freedom. In reality, this highly paradoxical union could never qualify for the definition of “happy.” If not for a few “buts”.

The epicenter of extraordinary desires

The concept of “father” for Sartre remained a zone of heightened anxiety all his life. The person who took part in the conception of a new life died before the baby began to perceive him. “My grandmother constantly insisted that he [the father] had shirked his duty” - this obsessive impression of childhood haunted Sartre like a shadow, and he always, throughout his life, saw this ghost behind him, repeating about his parental apostasy. It is in this contradictory attitude towards the father that one should look for the reason for his own refusal of paternity. It was not the death of his father and the fact that he had never seen his parent, but a ruthless and somewhat cynical interpretation of this event that brought the young creature to a volcanic shock and a breakdown of the soul. “There are no good fathers - that is the law; men have nothing to do with it - the bonds of fatherhood are rotten,” wrote Sartre in adulthood. He recognized only majestic deeds, but to stoop to “mean fatherhood” would be unbearable, vulgar and too reminiscent of the average man. It would have been too reminiscent of his father, whom he did not want to be like even in the deepest essence of his aspirations. Obsessed with love, love for someone, and most of all for himself, from a young age he saw himself as a hero, tuned in to the wave of heroism, developed in himself, if not contempt, then a caustic irony for everything that exists. And there was every reason for that.

These reasons were given by the mother. For his mother he was everything; Apart from her son, nothing else existed for her. Living at the expense of her parents, she was able to fulfill only one, although very important for a child, function - to radiate blind and omnipresent love. This was the dramatic paradigm of relations within the grandfather’s family. Having been born into an environment of “Christian piety,” the boy was at the same time faced with the horrors of double standards - a monster generated by public morality constantly stood in his way to his mother, reducing love, weakening the desire to honor the person who gave him life. The quiet and consistent suppression of his mother by her parents - his grandparents - as if in punishment for the absence of his father, turned out to be the most cruel contradiction of his childhood, from which he took away several stable beliefs. The first consisted of an unconscious fear of fatherhood, rejection of it as such, repression of the desire to procreate; the second is in the blasphemous vampiric absorption of love. From the first years of his life, the boy who almost died at birth (which made his mother worry about him even more) became both a locator and a solar battery, unerringly searching for the epicenters of love and absorbing its warmth until the source was depleted. This vampirism sustained Sartre throughout his life. And the categorical judgment about the mother - “called to serve me” - testifies both to selfless maternal love and the child’s lack of competitors, and to innate selfishness. Little Jean Paul grew up affectionately and was not allowed out of his arms. In general, freedom and encouragement prevailed in the educational process. By the thinker’s own admission, “there was no shortage of applause.”

But if he was idolized by his mother, grandparents, and other relatives, then the attitude of those around him towards his mother was completely different. Through the adults' omissions and allegories, the baby sensed the disdain and disapproval caused by the general assessment of the role this woman had chosen. His heightened perception of this role through the prism of an even older, respectable and instructive generation brought him closer to his own mother, but alienated him from any other woman-mother. Sartre’s predatory attitude towards women was born precisely from the desire to compensate, to contrast the protruding, turned inside out self, “a person without complexes,” without a problematic and flawed mother. The definition of the mother as “a virgin living under the supervision of the whole family,” used by Sartre in his autobiographical “Words,” suggests that he separated her from the rest of the world of women, gave her the status of a separate, inviolable object, unlike everyone else and beautiful in of his infantile, blissful naivety. She remained a martyr for Sartre (“they didn’t even let her go on a visit alone”), imprisoned in an imaginary monastery, a saint.

If Jean Paul had not had a grandfather in his life, his upbringing as a woman could have had contradictory, and perhaps not even the best, consequences; the grandfather passed on to the boy a strong masculinity, the roots of which went deep into a spiritual and intellectual worldview, filled with music, literature and mandatory mental activity. “My grandfather adored me - everyone saw it,” Jean Paul proudly reported many years later. Within a family built on strict patriarchal principles, this had special significance. The grandfather, in fact, was an extraordinary person: an esthete who deftly wielded philological formulations, Charles Schweitzer is the author of a textbook that has been reprinted for many years and the discoverer of the captivating world of books for his grandson. It is curious that he was also the cousin of the famous philosopher Albert Schweitzer. Although Sartre himself noted that the hasty disappearance of his father rewarded him with “a very weakened Oedipus complex: no “super-ego” and, in addition, not the slightest aggressiveness,” his grandfather, who replaced the competitive environment of his peers, with his precise remarks and injections managed to arouse in the boy a desire to express himself brightly , in an adult way, crushing those around him with his greatness. Grandfather made it possible to feel the intoxicating taste of reading, but it also gave rise to distrust of names; authorities and favorites descended from heaven and became accessible and close. The grandfather allowed the boy to enjoy “writing,” but it was he who helped him realize that not all writing can lead to success. This man sowed seeds of contradictions and doubts in the boy, which, germinating, forced him to reflect for a long time on life goals and possible points of application of efforts.

And what about his companion? What principles pushed her into the bottomless abyss of his unrestrained consciousness? If Jean Paul was the only one in the family, then Simone was the first child in the intelligent family of a Parisian lawyer. The children who appeared after her seemed to prop her up, hinting that in the near future she would be the first to be forced out of the family cocoon, she would be the first to demonstrate to others how and where to seek happiness. Her own mother seemed to her, first of all, a poor and deceived woman, who had ruined herself in an endless household, drowned in a host of endless childhood problems. She did not want such a fate for herself; such a role seemed too bitter, stupid and ambiguous to her. Later, urging women to live for themselves, she wrote, seeing her mother before her eyes: “...day after day she washes the dishes, wipes the dust, mends the laundry, but the next day the dishes will be dirty again, the rooms will be dusty, the linen will be torn...” No, Simone will never come to terms with her mother’s life scenario, she will never allow herself to turn into a mechanical doll wound up by an invisible key. The regularity and integrity of family life began to irritate her early on - she saw in the role of wife and mother a rejection of her self, the destruction of freedom and desires in favor of the principles approved by society. The depressing prospect of becoming a housewife early made her think about a way out of this impasse. At the same time, she had to take care to counter the threat of social rejection with something significant, a status that would be taken into account. For example, to become a writer, a scientist, generally a legislator of social principles, a person who creates and approves new rules for society. Simone, who early learned the beauty of independence and, not without irony, appreciated her ability to play the role of a parent for her younger ones, received a stable motivation to acquire knowledge and receive an education. Elastic like a steel spring, she focused on her studies, seeing her diploma as a lifeline.

Where did she get such strength and such self-confidence?! The secret lies in the relationship with his father. What happened is what often happens when a father is expecting a boy and a girl is born first. The passionate energy of anticipation resulted in the passionate and surprisingly active activity of the teacher. As a result, the girl became the owner of many boyish traits, which, however, did not prevent her from remaining feminine and charming throughout her life. She was not a beauty, but she created a successful image thanks to the ability to always stand out, to be different from others, not like everyone else, to appear before others in such a paradoxical form that they were speechless. In life, these bizarre forms of self-expression will result in a vow of celibacy, a relationship with the eccentric Sartre, lesbian love, a threesome, an almost complete renunciation of material values, and finally, a bohemian-fearless lifestyle. But the main thing, of course, is in her literature, permeated with a refined and at the same time piercing, like a sword, philosophy. In general, everything that is valuable to the average person automatically becomes alien to her. In return, she must and does find a worthy replacement, a new fetish, introduced with impudent dispassion into the mass consciousness under the guise of value extracted from the ocean depths.

Simone walked forward with such self-denial, not noticing the world around her, that without noticing it she became too far removed from her peers. And not only from peers - from women in general; Without realizing it, she had already stepped one foot into the male field, losing her female guidelines. Countless books, endless studies, nightly vigils over textbooks - as if she was preparing herself for some fierce struggle. It turned out that the mission had crystallized. She brought her mind to the boiling point, already experiencing the first signs of disappointment from communicating with superficial peers. It is unknown where she would have ended up if she had not met Jean Paul Sartre on her life’s path - an equally detached seeker of ways to attract attention to herself and teach the whole world something.

When they met, they were elements deliberately displaced from their families and from their society. Sartre did not feel within himself a future father and family man in the classical sense of the word, because he did not know about the role of the father, and his ideal image of a man was superimposed on the contours of a grandfather-mentor, rejecting authority and speaking about everything in the tone of an apostle. The mother made it clear to her son that the image of his grandfather was quite achievable for him, and his condescending attitude towards women was completely justified. Although she herself managed to get married a second time, it seems that Sartre did not take her stepfather seriously or it was too late to change the worldview formed in childhood. Simone ignored and did not even completely accept the role of her own mother against the backdrop of a clear awareness of her inner strength - the result of her father's love and encouragement.

Their views on the world around them turned out to be very similar, they helped them look in the same direction and openly trust each other with their feelings. Both of them, by the time they met, were already strong enough to challenge social norms. Moreover, each of them secretly desired such a challenge, preparing to build their life strategy on its platform. Both were psychologically prepared for a new form of relationship with the opposite sex, in fact, long before the meeting, they had created in their imagination a revolutionary surrogate family, which was later proclaimed a new cultural symbol of the era and defended with some kind of absurd belligerence throughout their lives. This anti-family pose conveyed both the sincerity of a dog barking at an uninvited stranger and the irony of an adventurer, a card player, looking at the world through the prism of his greedy hopes.

So, Simone and Jean Paul were already infected with a thirst for creativity, a desire to radiate a brilliance unusual for the eye of a contemporary, and were ready to abandon the typical life scenario. It is curious that both Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir throughout their lives used every opportunity - from socio-political actions to autobiographical works - in order to create their joint image, born from separate fragments of the masculine and feminine. And along with this, they always had an unquenchable thirst for self-improvement, a desire to hone their skills and throw out their matured mental strength. These impulses were common to both, and therefore united them; in the quest for stardom, even love passion came second. They found each other.

Beyond the limits of conventional perception

By the time they became close, they had one thing in common in their worldview: both completely rejected the parental role. When they first met, Sartre was on the verge of leaving his last educational institution; Simone had already been living independently for two years after she announced to her family her intention to build her destiny in her own way, known only to her. They turned out to be very suitable interlocutors for each other, and the too similar principles caused a special surprise for everyone, as if they were written by an invisible hand as a carbon copy. “Sartre realized the type of personality that would become his hero, the object of his thoughts, in many ways his discovery and which, in turn, was the most characteristic product of the 20th century, the era of the “death of God,” lost stability and destroyed faith” - this is how he very accurately defined the life attitude of the philosopher, Russian scientist, professor of Moscow State University L. G. Andreev. Simone herself defined Jean Paul for herself as a “soulmate,” thereby emphasizing the primacy of the spiritual, intellectual unification.

It is curious that both he and she hesitated for a long time between literature and philosophy; and although they assigned literature the highest rung on the hierarchical ladder, they still gained stardom precisely thanks to their original philosophy. This nuance is extremely important, since it largely explains their inextricable connection and preservation of spiritual fidelity to each other. There is a feeling that if Sartre had been faithful to his chosen one, she would have supported him and would never have gone beyond the boundaries of the relationship within the couple. But Sartre’s pathological desire for a polygamous model of existence imposed this unusual format of relationships on her, establishing it as an end in itself, as a challenge to society and the cultural values ​​of the bygone era. Perhaps Simone simply had no choice but to accept the proposed model. In this acceptance there was that same attractive resonance, a touch of sugary scandal that elevated her to the stratospheric rank of a revolutionary on the barricade erected against public morality.

They behaved quite strangely, often shocking those around them and, quite possibly, deliberately offending journalists. They met constantly, but preferred different hotel rooms, perhaps so as not to bother each other again and, God forbid, not to get bored. Joint morning coffee, long walks, seasoned with philosophy and literature, heady evenings in places where all those who considered themselves to be a special breed of creative intelligentsia, capable of despising all sorts of foundations, any obstacles to freedom, gathered. Sartre's bed often served as a haven for a special category of girls who claimed to be looking for extravagant erotic pleasures, but in fact were in search of their love. For some time, Sartre and Simone did not disdain to appear in public in the presence of some young female person, hinting at or even emphasizing a threesome bed relationship. What was behind this sexual cynicism?! First of all, Sartre's desire to demonstrate rebellion against society, undoubtedly with the aim of attracting more attention to his works and his social role in society. In addition, the fulfillment of transcendental desires and, most importantly, the clearly intentional demonstration of this endowed the writer-philosopher with a special status and added a touch of novelty to the preached philosophy of freedom. After all, in the end, all philosophers have spoken about freedom throughout the observable history of mankind, and each of them showed his own dimension of freedom. Even slyness was not new, so the use of eroticism as a mechanism, as a universal weapon, as a modern high-precision technology allowed Sartre to arouse curiosity in the public. And surprise her with the fact that an obvious vice can be interpreted, if not as a virtue, then as an established norm. A special form of sexual relations, which ceased to be intimate and were demonstrated by Sartre to the general public, like fragrant home-baked pies, became a trap for the audience. And what does that eccentric Sartre have behind his damn attractive sign? And even those readers who later became hopelessly drowned in Sartre’s deep philosophizing or had difficulty digesting his literary views, at least knew about his existence. His figure became more and more noticeable, his popularity grew steadily, almost a continuation of his extreme shockingness for his contemporaries.

As for Simone’s perception of the extramarital relations of her eternal companion, her demonstrative refusal of the monopoly on her beloved man is associated with the forced acceptance of his rules. By accepting the rules, she emphasized Sartre's strength and thus was able to play her own game with the audience. The woman swallowed her mental pain by plunging into philosophical literature. And here the Martian relationship with Sartre played a positive role: at first she was perceived as Sartre’s writing friend, then as an independent literary figure who knew how to lure her into the abyss of her impressions.

Deliberately expelled from the fruitful garden of their relationship, eroticism gave many reasons for misunderstandings and accusations of both of them of insincerity. These accusations, of course, concerned Simone more, who was sometimes really tormented, but tried to survive, relying on willpower. The idea of ​​freedom within the couple was elevated to an absolute, freedom became the most important value, and the subconscious desires of the owner were sacrificed on the altar of this value. And freedom, oddly enough, has become that protective shell, the protective film that is always present for a couple who can go through a long life path hand in hand. Neither Sartre's love psychosis, nor the dulled perception of love-eroticism within the couple, nor the exaltation of the thinker's passions destroyed their spiritual core, once created by mutual desire. Loving beauties, cutesy students, out of curiosity, getting in touch with the famous writer-philosopher, could quench his sexual thirst and give an unusual shade to his pose, but they were absolutely not suitable for a serious relationship, it was impossible to discuss anything with them. But literature and self-expression remained the main thing for Sartre, and here Simone had no equal, and their mutual frankness, seasoned with comments about the nature of things, which they could see through the eyes of the opposite sex, became an important ingredient in the creativity of each. It is not by chance that Sartre, after ten years of marriage with Simone, addressed his eternal beloved with lines emphasizing her intelligence, which he put above her primordially feminine qualities: “You are the most perfect, the smartest, the best and the most passionate. You are not only my life, but also the only sincere person in it.”

No less surprising, purely philosophical, was the attitude of this extravagant couple towards everyday life. They gave up a lot, believing that imaginary values ​​distract from the goal, infringe on freedom and hinder personal development. The literary teachers demonstratively did not acquire anything, preferring the cold, harsh life of cheap hotels to the comfort of home. Speaking about Sartre, eyewitnesses talked about a shabby shirt and perpetually worn-out shoes. Simone, however, maintained elegance and taste, appearing in public in strict and dark colors, gracefully enlivened by airy white elements. Taking the spiritual concept as a basis and abandoning any other attachments has become another umbrella from life’s bad weather, allowing you to focus on the main thing. It is significant that Sartre dedicated the novel “Nausea” to Simone, as if speaking in the special language of those involved in eternity, that only with her he connects his spiritual future. Simone knew how to take care of herself and look charming and seductive. Olga Kazakevich, one of the erotic muses who ignited Sartre’s masculine nature, noted Simone’s ability to skillfully use makeup.

“For me, our relationship is something precious, something that keeps tension, at the same time bright and light,” Simone once admitted to Sartre. As philosophers and psychoanalysts by vocation, they were well aware of the challenges that time poses to love. Therefore, the refusal to recognize marriage, the demonstrative promotion of polygamy and frequent separations can be considered part of their unusual, but remarkably coordinated response to these challenges. They didn't want to be caught off guard by boredom and getting used to each other; the thirst for a change of hypostasis, a change in appearance while maintaining the philosophical core - this is what maintained their interest in each other throughout their rather long life together. These two separated the world of each other’s intimate experiences, as if they took it outside the brackets of their love formula. Somewhere this revelation can be seen as a sincere attempt to avoid falsehood in a relationship.

They created a special environment around themselves, challenging and incomprehensible to the rest of the majority and at the same time surrounded by impregnable ramparts and ditches of their own beliefs. This was their common shell, which allowed them to look impressive, freed everyone’s hands and at the same time left room for spiritual improvement, and made it possible to continue the search for truth. And if not for this last thing, their approach might seem empty and unnecessary posturing, giving off a bad smell, a farce. But posturing is a temporary phenomenon, and their union has stood the test of time. People who are alien to each other will sooner or later show this through their actions, but they managed to enrich each other and stimulate creative exploration. And what is very significant is that each of them retained their own path, and with it their own individuality, the bright colors of which emphasized the unique portrait of the couple. While acting as Sartre's spiritual friend, Simone, strictly speaking, was not his assistant. This was both her strength and weakness at the same time. Strength because it allowed her to express herself as much as possible in literature and philosophy, and weakness because this format indicated, if not the rivalry of symbols put forward by each, then a refusal of full empathy, of full penetration into each other.

Simone claimed that Sartre’s mind was constantly “in a state of anxiety,” but her thoughts were also looking for more and more space, often bumping into an obstacle invisible, as if made of glass - despite the apparent complete freedom, Simone often found herself in some kind of restraining container, behind the limits of which it was impossible to escape. Hiding behind her career as a writer-philosopher, she rushed between two poles of herself: between a woman eager to be conquered, and a woman soaring above everyone in clouds woven from her own truths. The second one won, and the truths replaced her children. Her thirst for self-actualization sometimes resembled a terrible vivisection. Simone de Beauvoir left four autobiographical works, in which even the titles “Memoirs” well mannered girls", "Memories diligent daughters” betray an adamant archaeologist of his own feelings. Even more revelations in the program work "Second gender”, which became a manifesto of the growing feminism. Being in the deep mines of her soul, she found peace for a while, only to slip out and soar into the sky in the next moment. Sartre was waiting for her there, close and unattainable, dear and elusive, but still the only interlocutor capable of covering with his vast intellect the entire spectrum of his companion’s experiences. This is how she lived her life, caught between her proud self-sufficiency and the secret, gnawing desire to be caressed and lost in the arms of a loved one. Both turned out to be strictly dosed, as in a pharmacy recipe, but this was enough for a periodic feeling of happiness. Almost enough, because who but Simone de Beauvoir knew that true oases of happiness arise only in the desert-dry lands of melancholy and ordeal.

The main evidence of the inability to live a life, by which most people understand ordinary family happiness, was Simone’s conscious refusal to leave forever with Nelson Algren for the United States of America. It seems that if this woman had accepted the offer of a man in love with her, she would really have had a chance to bathe in the eternal pollen of endless happiness, but then the languishing and torn apart Simone would have fallen asleep forever, there would have been no more creator left, the passionate thief of other people’s souls would have disappeared. And she perfectly understood her prospects, calculating her capabilities very well. She consciously chose the pain that tickled and tore apart her inflamed imagination, preferring it to a peaceful and sublime contemplation of life. Perhaps it was precisely in this pain that she saw the only opportunity to experience the joy of the all-consuming ecstasy of creativity, which stands in the system of values ​​incommensurably higher than sensory sensations.

What is the real reason for Simone's abandonment of her family? Sartre?! I think no. She herself. Simone corresponded with a man with whom she thought she had been in love for almost twenty years. Published a decade after her farewell to the world, the letters of revelation were intended to shock all those who believed in her great union with Sartre. It’s easy to call a friend with the words “beloved”, “my husband”, being separated from him by an ocean; it’s completely different to overcome the phase of crazy passion and plunge into everyday family life. And Simone de Beauvoir was well aware of this; she was not ready for the role of a wife with generally accepted gender role functions and everything else that goes with it. In one of her articles - about the Marquise de Sade - she allowed herself the following phrase: “His wife was not an enemy for him, but, like all wives, she embodied a voluntary victim and accomplice.” She had already agreed to the role of an accomplice-conspirator, free and strong, and played it perfectly, but the role of a victim was not her role. Simone was ready to dream and secretly sob about another family happiness, but changing the already immortalized relationship with Sartre was beyond her strength. Sartre did not encroach on her freedom, he only “stabbed” her with his love affairs, and she tried to take his place. On the one hand, Nelson Algren, like any unoriginal man, longed to have exclusive possession of her. On the other hand, by becoming a victim, she did not acquire a new accomplice: this man did not intend to crush and surprise the world, he had no intention of establishing alternative moral values. But it’s not even a question of the risk that her husband would become boring to her. She fell into the trap set by her own works. If she had gotten married, Simone de Beauvoir - a fashionable philosopher of modern times, an extraordinary writer, a highly shocking personality - would cease to exist and would immediately lose the trust of millions of fans. The greatest image in history would be destroyed, like a dilapidated building struck by a merciless lightning. She would have acknowledged the worthlessness of everything that she so desperately preached; she had to forget about the brilliance of her personality, intellect, and be content with raising children - something that she always despised. The social role of a mother was alien to her, and the only man who encouraged this strange desire for a woman to be childless, while loving her, was Sartre. Marriage would have immediately made Simone ordinary, and it is unknown whether it would have given her happiness or not. No, the affair with Nelson Algren only strengthened Simone in the idea that her only possible mission was to be with her aging, battered, little Sartre, with his paunch, blindness and powerful mind.

During her life, she could see many times that the modern world has given a man somewhat greater opportunities for maneuver. That’s why I once remarked: “The most ordinary man feels like a demigod in comparison with a woman.” These words written by Simone greatly clarify her philosophy of life. In this self-abasement and self-suppression, both the pain of learning secret truths and the desire to find a way to confront break through. This is where Simone kills the possessive woman within herself and ostentatiously neglects eroticism as a secondary sphere of relationships against the backdrop of the growing philosopher within her. The philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir is, first of all, an attempt to acquire chain mail from the male, polygamous idea of ​​​​the world. In her youth, she acquired a turtle shell for herself - it seemed more convenient to broadcast to the world her principles that were dangerous for Puritan society, considering herself invulnerable and unattainable. She learned to rip open reality with her sharp formulations, like a fish’s belly, without disdaining or fearing splashes of blood. The sight of torn insides never made her feel sick - she longed to penetrate to the very depths of truths, even risking the integrity of her own personality.

Was she consumed by the pangs of jealousy?! Yes and no. Yes, because, rejecting the role of the only female who belongs to only one man, tearing the owner out of her soul, she could not overcome the female monogamous desire for one single embrace, for one native smell. And no, because she completely owned the soul of her partner.

The cult of freedom, or Happiness inside out

Sartre and Simone taught themselves to understand each other, they took up a game in which all moves are allowed. Their happiness in life consisted solely in a similar worldview, although sometimes the will stood in defense of reason and forcibly preserved the once established principles. Only a soul aching in pain, as if pinched by a closing door, is able to understand the difference between verbal vows and the real sensations of seeing the back of a partner’s head instead of a face. But two outcasts, who had carved out a place for themselves apart from society and seemed to hover above it, learned to overcome this pain consciously, convincing themselves that eroticism was initially separated from love. Happiness for them was self-conviction of the correctness of their new formulation of the relationship between a man and a woman, a conviction that they themselves managed to endure not without effort, not without self-hypnosis. Of course, it was harder for Simone, who every now and then faced the factor of male polygamous sensuality, which sometimes had nothing to oppose except her warlike unfeminine will, except her aggressive intellect, returning Sartre the man to Sartre the philosopher, turning him away from loving beauties, for the philosopher in he always occupied a dominant place. But Sartre’s immersion in bodily sensations, no matter how hard Simone tried to convince herself of the insignificance of physiology in comparison with the spiritual, always remained thorns in her own soul. After all, she was well aware that sex has its own philosophy and that her happiness lies in the fact that women who give her friend sensual pleasures of the flesh are unable to satisfy his soul. Only she was in charge of this vast zone of personal things, closed from everyone by a heavy safe, only she had the key to his boundless spiritual world, and she could be proud of this, despite the public recognition of a woman’s second-class status in society. But even in her, the philosopher, after much hesitation and doubt, still won, and this was expressed in the refusal of a “happy” marriage with Nelson Algren. Simone's decision reveals masochism, an ascetic suppression of desire in favor of principles. This was the final victory of reason over sensuality, of will over a woman’s comfortable feeling of belonging to someone. The desire to seize all the freedom of the world turned out to be stronger than the pleasant shackles of marriage. The couple who went through such a test could be proud: the witchcraft potion of self-hypnosis won a victory, a new elixir of happiness was found! But didn’t this victory turn out to be an artificial illusion of conceit, woven from an airy web? Nobody knows this.

Over time, Sartre's views changed somewhat. There was a logic to this. Firstly, with age there was less and less need for amorous adventures. In a frank letter to Simone, he even admitted that he “feels like a bastard” for his frivolous relationships. And although even at the age of sixty in his chaotic life there was a frivolous adventure with a seventeen-year-old Algerian girl (eventually adopted), it was rather a struggle of the flesh with extinction, and his life partner treated this struggle with a certain condescension. Secondly, he became heavier, more serious and wiser, and devoted more and more space to philosophy in his life. This area belonged exclusively to Simone, here she reigned supreme, without competitors. Thirdly, the long-awaited glory came. There were noisy, crowded halls - his lectures. There were long and exciting trips, including a joint visit to the USSR with Simone. There was an epochal dispute with Camus, interrupted by the tragic death of the latter. There was the Nobel Prize and the proud refusal of it in favor of his principles. Finally, old age came, and the body, exhausted by incredible work, made itself felt. However, he never intended to abandon Simone; she always, even during periods of insanely riotous life, remained his only affection. He did not look for an alternative to her, he simply did not want the duality in his life that is so often characteristic of men: to live and love one, seek sensual pleasure with another or others, and hide all this even from himself. He offered an open admission of his polygamous nature, refusing to make any demands on his partner, but acknowledging his right to ignore her demands. But she supported her companion and did not even think about making any demands. “The very principle of marriage is obscene, since it turns into a right and a duty what should be based on an involuntary impulse,” was her official answer, confirmed by the book publisher. These two people lived a rather strange life together, but their invariably caring attitude towards each other, mutual spiritual enrichment and unabated desire to communicate with each other convince us of their right to such a union. They owed each other a lot and consciously appreciated it. Simone's landmark book The Second Sex was Sartre's idea, kindly offered to his friend; The accurately conveyed female experiences in his works appeared thanks to the revelations of his companion. They lived with one breath, possessed a single soul - poetic and rational at the same time, wandering as if in a dream, succumbing to secret impulses and crazy impulses. But it was their choice.

True relationships are tested not so much by life as by death. But the last seven years of the life of the almost completely blind Sartre were enveloped in the warmth of Simone’s devotion. And during these years, his companion remained for him “his clear mind,” “comrade, adviser and judge.” The mental strength of Simone de Beauvoir can be judged even by this seemingly curious fact: Françoise Sagan, in fact her follower in views and a frequent interlocutor of Sartre, diligently avoided meeting her...

Sometimes it seems that their platonic connection claims to rise above all other forms of relationships between a man and a woman, because with contemptuous condescension it displaces sex and does not notice everyday life. Together they seemed like a detachment, a combat unit, voluntarily thrown into the affirmation of some absurd and moral theorems. The main thing that they gave each other was the satisfaction of their claim to self-sufficiency, the possibility of complete self-realization. The brilliance of one complemented the brilliance of the other, together they blinded millions of contemporaries, because it is impossible not to react to an unexpected flash of light, it is impossible not to notice the explosion, to ignore an obvious anomaly. “His death separates us. Mine will not connect us again. It’s just wonderful that we were given the opportunity to live so much in complete harmony.”

Five decades of joint-separate family-unfaithful life, in which they relied on each other’s spiritual strength, were nourished by a similar worldview and managed to maintain admiration for each other. It was half a century of joyful worship of the absurd for the sake of unbridled freedom and boundless glory. Were they lying? Did they play with the world to please the virtually ghostly images created in the public consciousness of a kind of majestically shocking, unpredictable couple, standing apart from the entire Universe and reveling in their relationship, incomprehensible to others? Most likely, this is the case. But the truth is that their worldview was distorted from the very beginning, as if they saw themselves reflected in a crooked mirror - not even in a mirror, but in a metal ball on which the images spread like surreal pancakes. They were not capable of ordinary human happiness in the understanding of the average person, but they adapted the world to themselves, united, and found a replacement for it, an ersatz similar in form instead of a real fruit. Whether this is a worthy replacement, no one will undertake to judge, but they did not lay claim to the standard of happiness, they only expanded the limits of perception of its possibility.

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Chapter Two SARTRE SMOKED ON A FRYING PAN

Simone de Beauvoir

In the Shadow of Sartre

She deserved much more than to spend her life in the shadow of her husband, playing the role imposed by him. But, having made once and for all a choice between love and freedom in favor of the first, she defended the second so fiercely that the whole world believed her. A sophisticated intellectual and daring philosopher, a fighter for the rights of all the oppressed and a magnificent writer - she consciously preferred to play only second roles, but only when the great Sartre was in the first place. Her whole life was a great service - but to whom, philosophy or love?

She was born in Paris on January 9, 1908 in the family of the scion of an aristocratic family, Georges de Beauvoir, a successful lawyer and amateur actor, a gambling and amorous man. He chose his wife, Françoise Brasseur, because of her large dowry and prospects for inheritance - Françoise's father was a banker - but he went bankrupt without having time to pay the dowry due to his daughter. Nevertheless, Georges was very attached to his wife and, although he never received the desired son, he sincerely loved both daughters. They named their eldest daughter Simone-Lucy-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir - the first name was chosen by her father, who considered it truly chic, and the rest were given to the girl in honor of relatives and the Virgin Mary. However, soon the girl arbitrarily shortened this entire long series of names to the simple “Simone de Beauvoir.” She grew up as a spoiled child, constantly demanding attention to herself - but despite her childhood jealousy of her younger sister Helen, she remained Simone’s only friend for many years.

Françoise, a devout Catholic, raised Simone and her sister Hélène with strictness and religious fear: home teachers, prayers and lessons in good manners. At the age of six, Simone was sent to the Catholic school Cours Desir: here young girls were trained to be future wives and mothers - or novices of the monastery - and Simone, in her own words, for a long time could not decide on her choice. At school she met Elizabeth Le Coyne (in her memoirs Simone will call her under the name Zaza), who would become her closest and beloved friend. Elizabeth died when she was only fifteen: her tragic death literally destroyed the entire cozy world in which Simone felt herself. She cried all night - and by the morning she had forever lost her faith in God, acquiring in return the fear of death. It was the struggle with this fear that first gave her the idea to take up literature: “I wanted to make my existence real for others, conveying to them, in the most direct way, the taste of my life,” she admitted. In 1917, Georges de Beauvoir lost his entire considerable fortune, unsuccessfully investing it in the infamous loan to the Russian tsarist government. The family lost their income, and the sisters lost their dowry and hopes for a good marriage. Simone decided that she was obliged to master a profession that would allow her to earn her own living, and, seeing her only friends and answers to all her questions in books, she finally decided to become a writer. Simone decisively broke with her family, and with faith, and with bourgeois prejudices, which stated that the main purpose of a woman is to get married and have children. “I am not ready to build my life in accordance with anyone’s desires except my own,” she wrote. Simone wanted intellectual pursuits, freedom and, of course, love. “If I fall in love,” wrote Simone, “then for the rest of my life, I will then surrender myself entirely to the feeling, soul and body, lose my head and forget the past. I refuse to be content with the husks of feelings and pleasures that are not associated with this state.”

Simone de Beauvoir, 1914

After graduating from Cours Desir, she studied mathematics at the Catholic Institute and languages ​​and literature at the Sainte-Marie Institute, and later entered the famous Sorbonne, where she studied philosophy. At that time, according to her memoirs, she led a life diametrically opposite to the one that her parents imposed on her: she spent nights in bars, communicated with the dregs of society and was sincerely convinced that in this way she would learn real life. She was considered pretty, dressed provocatively and elegantly, and at the same time was known as one of the most brilliant students at the university. She demonstrated such an outstanding mind that the first intellectuals of the Sorbonne sought her acquaintance, and worked so hard that one of them, Rene Maillot (named Andre Herbault in her memoirs), the future famous philosopher and Director General of UNESCO, nicknamed her Castor, then there is Beaver: due to the consonance of her surname with the English name for beaver - beaver, in 1929 Mayo brought Simone to a student party, where he introduced him to his friend Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre, the owner of an amazingly ugly appearance and an even more amazing mind, instantly struck Simone with both his intellect and his dissimilarity from everyone she saw around: he fundamentally rejected any rules and restrictions - something that Simone dreamed of and something that Simone never fully decided on . When they met, it turned out that the two separated halves found each other. Later it turned out that Sartre liked her immediately, but for a long time he did not dare to approach her, sending his friends to her instead. After just a few meetings in the company, Sartre discovered that Simone was the woman of his dreams: “She was beautiful, even when she put on her ugly hat. What was surprising about her was the combination of male intelligence and female sensitivity,” he wrote. And she, in turn, recalled: “Sartre exactly corresponded to the dreams of my fifteen years: he was my double, in whom I found all my tastes and passions.”

Simone de Beauvoir with her sister and mother

Soon they were inseparable and promised each other to spend the rest of their lives next to each other. However, both Simone and Sartre did not mean marriage at all: it seemed to them a bourgeois relic that binds free people. They also did not demand loyalty from each other - they were supposed to be united only by honesty, intellectual brotherhood and kinship of souls. They agreed not to have children who would limit their freedom and interfere with intellectual pursuits, not to have a common home, and to be each other’s first critics and comrades-in-arms. Their relationship was a strange mixture of physical attraction, spiritual intimacy and intellectual rivalry. In 1929, at the agregation, Simone - the youngest participant in the test in history and only the tenth woman who was able to withstand it - was second, while Sartre showed the first result. The commission, which for a long time could not decide who to put in first place, noted that Sartre, without a doubt, has outstanding intellectual abilities, but Simone has an undeniable gift as a philosopher. Sartre, who had barely received his diploma, was called up for military service, but due to poor health and poor eyesight, he served at a meteorological station for a year and a half. Simone continued her studies by attending lectures at the Ecole Normale Superieure. They corresponded every day - as they did in all subsequent years, as soon as they separated. Sartre returned in 1931. He wanted to get a position somewhere in Japan, which he had long been interested in, but in March he was appointed to the post of teacher of philosophy at the Lyceum of Le Havre. Sartre was disappointed: he always hated the provinces and considered life there full of boredom, bourgeois melancholy and intellectual degradation. However, in Le Havre he suddenly began to enjoy enormous success, especially among female students: the new professor, although very ugly, spoke beautifully, captivating the audience with the flight of his thoughts and the boundless breadth of erudition and, to hide it, showed a clear interest in young beauties. Simone was calm. Although she, judging by her memoirs, was truly in love with Sartre (and retained this feeling throughout her life), she sincerely considered marital fidelity (and non-marital fidelity too) a ridiculous relic of the bourgeois morality that she had discarded. She knew for sure that only her was Sartre’s equal in spirit, and only she trusted her with the editing of his undeniably brilliant works. She herself received an appointment to Marseille. At first, Simone did not want to go so far from both Paris and Sartre - he even suggested marriage to her in order to demand an appointment to one city on this basis, but Simone resolutely - and even somewhat frightened - refused: official marriage filled her with real horror. Only a year later she managed to move closer to Sartre, to the Lyceum of Rouen, where Simone became friends with the teacher of the same Lyceum, Colette Audry, and students Bianca Lamblen and Olga Kozakevich. Quite soon, she told Sartre that she had a relationship with them that was much more than friendly. He only asked to describe to him what she felt when she kissed them - either he wanted to compare sensations, or he was collecting material for another article... In October 1937, Sartre was transferred to the Lyceum Pastor in the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a fashionable suburb of Paris, and two years later Simone also received an appointment to Paris - she became a teacher at Lycee Camille See. She again shared with Sartre all the joy of creativity, the work of life and freedom without any obligations. Simone brought Olga Kozakevich with her, and very soon Olga became Sartre’s mistress: she, alien to any prejudices, slept with each of them in turn, then with both of them at the same time. “She claimed to break out of the captivity of the human lot, to which we too submitted not without shame,” Simone wrote about her. They say that Sartre was seriously carried away: he went with Olga - without Simone - on the summer holidays, and even allegedly proposed his hand in marriage to her. However, Olga was Simone's faithful student and refused the marriage. Sartre eventually moved on to her sister Wanda, and Olga married Sartre's student and Simone's former lover Jacques-Laurent Bost. A little later, another participant joined the company - the red-haired Jew Bianca Bienenfeld. This polygon with intricate connections, which participants often called simply “family,” existed for many decades and disintegrated only with the death of its members. Sartre, who seemed to be in love with all women at once, found inspiration, food for thought and new strength in such relationships. Many years later, Simone wrote: “Sartre loved female company, he found that women were not as funny as men; he had no intention of... forever abandoning their enchanting diversity. If the love between us was a natural phenomenon, then why shouldn’t we also have random connections?

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at the Balzac memorial

Although Simone verbally advocated for freedom of relationships - largely imposed on her by Sartre - the appearance of Olga in their life, who was not only allowed into bed, but also took an active part in philosophical debates and even in editing Sartre’s works, greatly hurt her. She no longer felt that she and Sartre were “halves of a whole” - now there were three of them, and she could not come to terms with this. To understand herself, she began to write: in her first novel, “The Invited,” Simone quite openly and impartially set out the story of a girl invited to visit and breaking up the marriage of an intellectual couple: the characters included the Kozakevich sisters, Sartre and Simone herself, and the novel ended with a symbolic joint murder by spouses of their common mistress.

On the eve of the war, Sartre diligently created a constant holiday around himself - incessant practical jokes, parodies, tomfoolery and disguises. “We lived in idleness then,” Simone recalled. According to stories, Simone could begin to pretend to be a capricious aristocrat or an American millionaire, and Sartre sometimes imagined that he was possessed by the spirit of an elephant seal, after which he tried to depict his suffering with grimaces and screams. These escapades, according to Beauvoir, “protected us from the spirit of seriousness, which we refused to recognize as resolutely as Nietzsche did, and for the same reasons: fiction helped to deprive the world of its oppressive heaviness, moving it into the realm of fantasy...” In 1938 Sartre published his most famous novel, Nausea. Sartre wrote this book - half autobiography, half philosophical treatise - while still in Le Havre, but it could not be published then. Now the story of the existential torment of the historian Antoine Roquentin has produced the effect of a bomb exploding. It sold out in huge numbers, won the title of “book of the year” and almost won the Prix Goncourt. Following “Nausea,” a collection of short stories “The Wall” and philosophical works “Imagination,” “Imaginary” and “Sketch for a Theory of Emotions” were published, which finally cemented Sartre’s great reputation as an original philosopher and brave writer.

Simone de Beauvoir with Bianca Lambpin

When World War II began, Sartre was again called up for military service - he was sent to the Vosges department, still to the meteorological station. All worries about the “family” fell on the shoulders of Simone, who was torn between the Kozakiewicz sisters, Sartre in the Vosges and Bost in the trenches. Finding himself far from her, Sartre seemed to rethink her place in his life. He wrote to her: “Darling, ten years of knowing you were the happiest years of my life. You are the most beautiful, the most intelligent and the most passionate. You are not only my whole life, you are my pride.” During the “Phantom War” - a period when there was practically no military action - Sartre had a lot of free time, which he spent manically writing notebook after notebook: soon in these notebooks one could find the outlines of his future philosophy - existentialism, " philosophy of existence." Simone strongly advised him to take up his own philosophical system - and he had long been accustomed to following her advice. In May 1940, the French defense line was broken; just a month and a half later, France capitulated. At the end of June, Sartre was captured; He was first held in Nancy, and then he - along with twenty-five thousand prisoners - was transported to a prisoner of war camp in Trier, Germany, from where he was released in March 1941. Already in April, he returned to Paris and immediately founded the “Socialism and Freedom” movement, which, in addition to Sartre, included Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s friend, the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the Kozakiewicz sisters, Bost and several other teachers and students of the Ecole Normale and the university Sorbonne - after a few months the group numbered about fifty people. The group intended to fight the Vichys, collaborationists and Nazis to the best of their ability: members of Socialism and Freedom met regularly in cafes or apartments, discussed plans for the development of post-war France and even drew up, under the leadership of Sartre, a draft of a future constitution, a copy of which was sent to General de Gaulle in England . They printed and distributed leaflets with anti-fascist appeals, and it was especially daring to hand a leaflet to a German soldier - after making sure that he did not understand French. Many members of the Resistance consider Sartre's group naive and "amateur", saying that they only ranted when others were putting their lives in danger - an opinion even some members of the group themselves agreed with. However, Sartre, who was never prone to violence even to save his own life, sincerely believed that he did everything he could. And his opinion, as always, was completely shared by Simone. By the end of 1941, the group - after the arrest of two members - ceased to exist: just at the time that an organized Resistance movement began to operate in France.

At the same time, Simone began to have troubles at the lyceum: the mother of one of her students accused her of immoral behavior - as if Simone had seduced underage girls: a monstrous accusation even by today's standards, but at that time it was simply unthinkable. And although all the teachers and students of the lyceum unanimously rushed to Simone’s defense, she was still forced to leave teaching in 1943. Simone got a job on the radio, where she hosted programs on the history of music, and finally decided to publish her novel “The Invited”: this novel, which told about self-determination, about the complex search for love and freedom in such confusing conditions as a “marriage for three”, is very personal and at the same time deeply philosophical, did not receive the attention it deserved. Indeed, at the same time, Sartre’s most important work, “Being and Nothingness,” was published, where he outlined the foundations of his teaching - existentialism. “By existentialism we understand a doctrine that makes human life possible, and which, in addition, asserts that every truth and every action presupposes a certain environment and human subjectivity,” wrote Sartre, the only reality of being is man, who himself must fill your world with content. There is nothing predetermined or inherent in this person, since, as Sartre believed, “existence precedes essence.”

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

The essence of a person is made up of his actions, it is the result of his choice, or rather, several choices throughout his life. “For the existentialist, man cannot be defined because he initially represents nothing. He becomes a man only later, and the kind of man he makes himself,” wrote Sartre. People are responsible for their actions and deeds only to themselves, because every action has a certain value - regardless of whether people are aware of it or not. Sartre considered the motivators of actions to be the will and the desire for freedom, and these motivators are stronger than social laws and “all kinds of prejudices”; Sartre’s work became a real bible for French intellectuals, and he himself became the spiritual leader of the country. Existentialism, a philosophy of action, associated in the minds of an entire generation with the Resistance movement, which attached great importance to freedom in all its manifestations, instilled hope that this generation could build a new world from the ruins of war, devoid of previous shortcomings and worthy of their expectations. Following Sartre, Simone also published her work: in a philosophical essay entitled “Pyrrhus and Cineas,” she discussed existentialist ethics - in many ways more accurately, more collectedly and much more clearly than Sartre did. Although many critics found that Simone had much more literary talent, and her philosophical system was more thoughtful and harmonious, she always denied her importance as a philosopher, deliberately emphasizing the role of Sartre: according to her, he was the real thinker, the generator of ideas. Simone considered herself only a writer, capable of conveying his ideas to people in an accessible form. Although existentialism in her understanding differed from Sartre’s, she did not want to split the ranks of their followers or offend Sartre himself: after all, she loved him, and love justified a lot for her. From the very beginning, she chose for herself the role of his follower and was not going to give it up, even for her own sake. Together with the greatest intellectuals of the time - Boris Vian, Raymond Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others - Simone and Sartre in 1945 founded the literary, philosophical and political magazine Les Temps modernes (that is, “Modern Times” - the name was borrowed from the Charlie Chaplin film ). That same year, Sartre went to the USA to give lectures - but, in violation of all their agreements, he did not take Simone with him. In New York, he immediately began an affair with former actress Dolores Vanetti and was so fascinated by her that for two years he did not return to Paris, where his faithful Simone was waiting for him. Finally, in 1947, she, at the invitation of several universities, also came to America, but instead of returning Sartre, she fell in love: her chosen one was the journalist and writer Nelson Algren, a year younger than her.

Simone de Beauvoir at Cafe de Flore, 1944

According to her memoirs, it was with him that Simone first truly learned the joys of carnal love - unfortunately, Sartre himself was not up to par in this matter: according to Bianca Bienenfeld, Sartre “brings little pleasure in making love. He doesn’t want your body—he just wants to win women.” Nelson immediately proposed marriage to her, but Simone again refused: she was truly in love with Nelson, but did not want to leave Sartre, to whom she felt obliged - this Nelson could neither understand nor forgive. Her relationship with Nelson, whom Simone called her “beloved husband,” lasted almost 15 years and resulted in more than three hundred letters published after her death. Surprisingly, in them Simone, who always tried to appear independent and free from all obligations, calls herself “an obedient eastern wife.” “I’ll be smart, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, buy eggs and cookies, I won’t touch your hair, cheeks, shoulders unless you let me,” she wrote. She sincerely loved Algren and wore the simple wedding ring he gave her all her life, but she never settled under the same roof with him. Some believe that her marriage to Nelson was not allowed by Sartre himself, who was afraid that the public disintegration of the “great union of two philosophers” could greatly harm both him personally and existentialism in general. “People expected me to be faithful to Sartre,” Simone wrote. “So I pretended that it was so.” She already understood what trap she had driven herself into by once agreeing to “mutually free love,” but she could no longer do anything: she was ready to defend her convictions to the end, and her love for Sartre was the main one of them.

Returning to Paris, Simone threw herself headlong into working on her main book. A two-volume book entitled “The Second Sex” was published in 1949 and produced the effect of a bomb exploding: in her work, Beauvoir explored in great detail the history of exploitation by one sex - male - of the other sex, that is, women, and called on women to finally throw off the yoke of centuries-old slavery. The book opened with a statement from the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “To be born a woman is such a misfortune! But the misfortune is seventy times greater when a woman does not realize this.”

For this work, Simone de Beauvoir was declared the founder of feminism and anathematized by almost all men in the world: even Albert Camus, who was her close friend, argued that de Beauvoir turned the French man into an object of contempt and ridicule. Simone's discussions about women's right to abortion, lesbian sex and a woman's right to intellectual life caused a storm of controversy. Sartre was proud that it was he who suggested the idea of ​​this book to Beauvoir, and supported his friend in every possible way, demonstrating their free union as the first proof that Simone was right and the establishment of new relationships between a man and a woman. Since 1952, the romance between Simone and Nelson almost faded away - she replaced the American writer with a young one - he was only 27 years old - a journalist for the Temps modernes magazine, Claude Lanzmann, charming, talented and cynical. Simone wrote: “His closeness freed me from the burden of my age. Thanks to him, I regained the ability to rejoice, be surprised, be scared, laugh, and perceive the world around me.” Claude gave her the courage and strength to write a new novel, “Tangerines,” which was based on her correspondence with Nelson. Algren was furious - he was not going to expose his personal life to the whole world: “Damn it,” he said in an interview. – Love letters are too personal. I have been to brothels more than once, but even there the women keep the doors closed.” Simone justified herself, explaining to him in another letter: “The novel does not reflect the history of our relationship. I tried to extract the quintessence from them, describing the love of a woman like me and a man like you.” However, their relationship ended there.

Nelson Algren

For the novel, Simone received the Goncourt Prize, which once surpassed Sartre, and with the fee she bought herself an apartment near the Montparnasse cemetery. There, for the first time in her life, she invited a man to live: Lanzmann, much to Sartre’s displeasure, lived with Simone for almost seven years. For Sartre at this time, politics became his main lover - his unprecedented political activity became legendary. He was called the most politically active philosopher and the most philosophizing political figure. However, politics was rather intended to create a buzz around his literary works, the most famous of which are the plays “Dirty Hands” and “The Devil and the Lord God,” the “Roads of Freedom” series, as well as the first volume of “Critique of Dialectical Reason.” Simone de Beauvoir recalled that Sartre worked so hard on the Critique that he was forced to constantly resort to artificial stimulants - not only coffee, whiskey and tobacco, but also drugs. According to him, with tranquilizers he “thought three times faster than without them,” but the pills greatly undermined his already poor health. The second volume of the Critique was never completed; The “Roads of Freedom” cycle also remained unfinished.

Claude Lanzmann, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir

But even absorbed in politics, Sartre remained true to himself. When he was already over fifty, he fell in love with a seventeen-year-old student, a Jew from Algeria, Arlette el-Kaim. One day she called him to discuss some aspects of Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness.” He invited her to visit, and from then on she began to appear in his house more and more often, and eventually settled there as Sartre’s mistress. Simone was furious: Arlette did not just sleep with Sartre - she did not let him see Simone, as well as Simone, arrogating to herself the right not only to his time, but also to his work. Now she, and not Simone, began to edit Sartre's articles, help him with correspondence and select books in the library. When Arlette was about to be deported, he even decided to marry her, but eventually changed his mind and adopted her instead in 1965.

This was a blow for Simone: they once agreed to share the world only with each other, not have children and be together, and now Sartre has a daughter who not only took him away from Simone, but will also inherit his money and ideas in the future and rights to his works. Beauvoir could not forgive this. In response, she adopted her student (and, as some believe, her mistress) Sylvia Le Bon, in whose name she made a will. But although this quarrel almost separated them in Paris, in front of the whole world they were still together. Sartre and Simone traveled constantly: they traveled halfway around the world, from Canada to China, from Tunisia to Norway, meeting a wide variety of people - from Fidel Castro and Algerian peasants to Mao Zedong and Soviet schoolchildren. Simone continued to write: in the late 50s she began writing an autobiography (eventually amounting to four volumes), and in 1964 she published the novel A Very Easy Death, based on the diaries that Simone kept at the bedside of her dying mother. Although criticism mainly focused on how unethical and heartless it was to distract oneself from suffering for the sake of a book, Sartre himself called this work Simone's best book. Since the late sixties, de Beauvoir devoted herself to the fight for women's rights: she demanded freedoms for them, seemingly obvious, but still inaccessible: to control their body, their soul, their property. In 1971, France was literally blown up by the so-called “Manifesto of 343,” published in the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, in which 343 famous women admitted that they had had an abortion—at that time it was considered a criminal offense in France. The text of the manifesto was written by Simone de Beauvoir, her signature was among others. And although many still believe that half of those who signed never had an abortion, including Simone, this petition still did its job: three years later, abortions were allowed in France.

However, love again called her to serve: from the beginning of the seventies, Sartre’s health deteriorated sharply. He was almost blind due to advanced glaucoma, and had heart and breathing problems due to years of alcohol and drug abuse. Simone, having abandoned all her affairs, was almost constantly by his side, caring for and helping him in his work. Sartre could no longer write, but continued to give numerous interviews and dictate to his secretary Bernard-Henri Lévy. In recent years, he has revised many of his previous beliefs - even, to Simone's fury, renounced atheism. He even questioned existentialism, his own creation. On his seventieth birthday, he was asked how he felt about being called an existentialist, and Sartre replied: “The word is idiotic. As you know, I didn’t choose it: they stuck it on me, and I accepted it. Now I don’t take it anymore.” Simone was horrified: the man to whom she had devoted herself entirely was abandoning his thoughts, his entire past life, of which she deservedly considered herself an important part. She even tried to declare him crazy, who didn’t know what he was saying, but she didn’t have time. Sartre died on April 15, 1980. Simone was with him until the last and even then: she lay next to the dead body for several hours, forgiving and saying goodbye. As she said, Sartre’s last words were addressed to her: “Simone, my love, I love you so much, my Beaver...” Sartre found his last refuge in the Montparnasse cemetery - ironically, that’s where the windows of Simone’s apartment looked...

After Sartre's death she felt empty. Coming from the funeral, she got so drunk that she fell asleep on the floor and caught a severe cold. In memory of Jean-Paul Sartre, she wrote one of her most powerful books, “Farewell,” an accurate and merciless account of the last years of Sartre’s life and her love. In her own words, the only Kinga that Sartre did not read before publication. “His death separates us,” she wrote. – Mine will not connect us again. It’s just wonderful that we were given the opportunity to live so much in complete harmony.” She outlived him by exactly six years, spending these years alone, almost never leaving the house. Simone de Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986 in a Paris hospital, where she lay completely alone: ​​no one visited her, no one asked about her. She didn’t need it - the only person whose opinion she was interested in was waiting for her at the Montparnasse cemetery...

This text is an introductory fragment.

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Simone de Beauvoir- a famous Frenchwoman, a brilliant graduate of the Sorbonne, who became one of the first female teachers of philosophy in history, was born on January 9, 1908 in Paris. She came up with feminism, spoken and understood by a woman. In science, Simone immediately positioned herself as a desperate fighter against conventions at all levels of human existence. She fought against chauvinism, against fear of God, against poverty, against the bourgeoisie and capitalism.

Until the 20th century, discussions about women's rights were conducted primarily by men. It is believed that the very concept of “feminism” was invented by Charles Fourier in 1837, although feminists have tried to dispute this statement.

Why did a pious girl, raised in a respectable religious family, suddenly renounce marriage and children, declare herself absolutely free from all existing prejudices, begin to write provocative novels, preach the ideas of female independence, and openly talk about atheism, rebellion and revolution?

It is impossible to say with certainty. Simone de Beauvoir became a prominent figure of her time, the time when existentialism with all its aversion to the automatic bourgeois lifestyle was born in France.

Became the essence

In Paris, at the Sorbonne University (French: la Sorbonne), Simone meets a then unknown Jean-Paul Sartre, an ideologist and the most precise guide of all existential ideas of that time. Sympathy quickly develops into strong affection for each other.

Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Source: Public Domain

Instead of marriage, Jean-Paul invites Simone to conclude a “Manifesto of Love”: to be together, but at the same time remain free. Simone, who valued her reputation as a free thinker more than anything in the world, was quite happy with this formulation of the question; she put forward only one counter-condition: mutual frankness always and in everything - both in creativity and in intimate life.

Sartre never hid that in life he was afraid of only one thing: losing Simone, whom he called his essence. But at the same time, after two years of dating, it seemed to him that their relationship was too strong, “safe,” controlled, and therefore not free.

Free will

Sartre was exactly what she had dreamed of since childhood: a man next to whom she could grow all the time. Nothing, he was a walking portrait of Quasimodo: sparse hair on a large skull, one eye squinting, the other with a cataract, and the most unprepossessing physique: frail, small, but already with a belly, although he was only 23 years old. But Sartre was a preacher of stunning views. It was not for nothing that he received first place at the final exams of the Sorbonne Faculty of Philosophy as a person of outstanding intellectual ability. And she, Simone, secondly, is like a born philosopher.

The union that Jean-Paul proposed to Simone was an ideal marriage of two intellectual personalities. No stamp or jointly acquired property, no restrictions on sexual freedom, complete trust and obligation to tell each other your most secret thoughts. This is love - the free choice of the individual. They broke up many times, they had lovers and mistresses, but the manifesto of love, invented by Sartre, did not let them go throughout almost their entire lives.

Keys to understanding feminism according to Simone de Beauvoir

“One is not born a woman, one becomes a woman,” this provocative and somewhat mysterious saying was first heard in 1949 in Beauvoir’s book “The Second Sex.”

There is no homogeneous movement called “feminism”: there are many feminisms, and they often conflict with each other. There is cultural, liberal, anarchist feminism. What almost all of these movements have in common is a fairly small number of statements: for example, that a woman is the same person as a man, with all the ensuing rights, that any social role should be the result of the free choice of the individual.

In her seminal work for the entire feminist movement, The Second Sex, translated into more than 50 languages, Simone mainly subverts the conventions that weigh on women from the cradle. They are taught that they must be liked, position themselves as an “object,” and fulfill their destiny without mental vacillation through marriage, “which practically subordinates them to a man to an even greater extent,” she is indignant, and also through motherhood.

Analyzing a thousand reasons that attribute superiority “not to the sex that gives birth, but to the one that kills,” Simone de Beauvoir encourages a woman not to allow herself to be locked into the “role of a female,” but to live as a conscious person.

Death will unite

Many believe that Simone hid well behind a thick screen of feminist and emancipation. However, over the years spent side by side with Sartre, Simone did not cease to feel the need for ordinary, uncomplicated love between a man and a woman. In the second half of her life, she begins an affair with an American writer Nelson Algren. Simone called the correspondence, where they often addressed each other “My husband”, “My wife”, a “transatlantic romance”. And Simone, the standard of feminism, crossed the ocean for short meetings.

But Paris, Sartre and their existential union turned out to be stronger than simple human joys. Simone never became Nelson's wife and broke off the relationship after a 15-year relationship.

Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Che Guevara. Cuba, 1960.