Excerpts from Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay (Paris: Gallimard, 1943); tr. Y. Moyse and R. Senhouser (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1954); my revised translation.

Part I, Chapter 7 […]

Slowly, Paula’s arm came to life, the slumbering machine was beginning to operate. Little by little the rhythm accelerated, but Françoise saw neither the driving rod, nor the rotating wheels, nor any of the motions of steel. She saw only Paula. A woman of her own age, a woman who also had her history, her work, and a life of her own; a woman who was dancing without giving Françoise a thought; and when, a little later, she would smile at her, it would only be to one among many other spectators. To her, Françoise was no more than a piece of scenery.

If only it were possible to calmly prefer oneself to all others, thought Françoise with anguish.

At that moment, there were thousands of women all over the world listening breathlessly to the beating of their own hearts; each woman to her own heart, each woman for herself. How could she believe that she wasthe center of the world? There were Paula, and Xavière, and so many others. She could not even compare herself with them.

Françoise’s hands slowly fell to her side.

Just what am I? she wondered. She looked at Paula. She looked at Xavière whose face radiated shameless admiration. She knew what these women were. They had their own special memoires, tastes, and ideas which distinguished them, personalities that were expressed in their features. But in herself Françoise could not see any clear-cut shape. The light that had flashed through her a short while before had revealed nothing but emptiness. “She never looks at herself,” Xavière had said. It was true. She never gave her face a thought except to take care of it as something impersonal. She searched her past for landscapes and people, but not for herself; and it was not her ideas and her tastes that made her face what it was. That face only revealed the truths that had revealed themselves to her, and they no more belonged to her than the bunches of mistletoe and holly that hung from the flies.

I am no one, she thought. Often she had taken pride in not being circumscribed like other people in narrow individual boundaries, as on that night, not so very long ago, at the Prairie, with Elisabeth and Xavière. She thought of herself as a consciousness naked before the world. She touched her face: to her it was no more than a white mask. And yet all these people saw it; and, whether she liked it or not, she too was in the world, a part of this world. She was a woman among other women, and she had permitted this woman to grow at random without shaping her. She was utterly incapable of passing any judgment on this unknown entity. And yet Xavière had judged her, had compared her with Paula. Which of them did she prefer? And Pierre? When he looked at her what did he see? She turned her eyes toward Pierre, but Pierre was not looking at her (pp.183-84, French ed.; pp. 149-150, English ed.).

Part II, Chapter 2 […]

Françoise felt as if her heart were drowning in misery. Did Xavière always hate her? She had been amiable throughout the afternoon, but only in a superficial way, because the weather was heavenly and the flea-market enchanted her; it meant absolutely nothing. And what can I do if she does hate me? thought Françoise. She lifted her glass to her lips and noticed that her hands were trembling; she had drunk too much coffee during the day, and impatience was making her jittery. She could do nothing, she had no real hold on this stubborn little soul, not even on the beautiful body of flesh and blood protecting it; a warm, lithe body, accessible to masculine hands, but which confronted Françoise like a rigid suit of armor. She could only wait quietly for the verdict that would acquit or condemn her; and she had now been waiting ten hours.

It’s disgusting! she thought suddenly.

She had spent the day watching Xavière’s every frown, listening to every intonation; at this moment, she was still exclusively absorbed in this despicable anguish, separated from Pierre; and in these pleasant surroundings reflected by the mirror, separated from herself.

And if she hates me, what then? she thought defiantly. Was it possible to consider Xavière’s hatred exactly as she did those cheese cakes lying on a plate? They were a beautiful pale yellow, decorated with pink arabesques; she might have almost been tempted to eat one, had she not known their sourish, new-born-baby taste. Xavière’s small, round head did not occupy much more space in the world, one glance encompassed it; and if those fumes of hatred issuing from it could only be forced back into their container, then one could have them at ones mercy as well. One word, and the hatred would thunderously collapse, dissolving into a cloud of smoke that would exactly fill Xavière’s body, becoming as harmless as the familiar taste hidden under the yellow cream of the cakes; Xavière felt that she existed, but it didn’t matter. She was writhing in contortions of rage all in vain; one could just barely make out a few faint eddies, passing over her defenseless face, as unexpected and orderly as clouds in the sky. They’re simply thoughts in her head, Françoise thought. For a moment she thought the words had taken effect, for only the faintest vignettes were now flitting in disorder beneath that blond head; if she took her eyes off them, even for an instant, they were no longer to be seen (pp.300-301, French; pp.240-241, English).

Part II, Chapter 4 […]

Xavière was no longer watching the woman; she was staring into space. She was holding a lighted cigarette which had burned down to the point where the lighted end was almost touching her fingers, without her apparently being aware of it; she seemed to be in the grip of an hysterical ecstasy. Françoise passed her hand across her forehead, she was dripping with perspiration. The atmosphere was stifling, and her thoughts burned like fire. This hostile presence, which had betrayed itself earlier in a mad smile, was approaching closer and closer; there was now no way of escaping this terrifying disclosure. Day after day, minute after minute, Françoise had fled the danger; but the worst had happened, and she had at last come face to face with this insurmountable obstacle, which she had sensed, under vague forms since her earliest childhood. Behind Xavière’s maniacal pleasure, behind her hatred and jealousy, the abomination loomed, as monstrous and definite as death. Before Françoise’s very eyes, yet apart from her, existed something like a condemnation with no appeal: free, absolute, irreducible, an alien consciousness was rising. It was like death, a total negation, an eternal absence, and yet, by a staggering contradiction, this abyss of nothingness could make itself present to itself and make itself exist for itself with plenitude. The entire universe was engulfed in it, and Françoise, forever excluded from the world, was herself dissolved in this void, the infinity of which no word, no image could encompass.

“Look out!” said Pierre.

He bent over Xavière, and lifted the red-hot stub from her fingers. She stared at him as if having been awakened from a nightmare, then looked at Françoise, and abruptly took each of them by the hand. The palms of her hands were burning. Françoise shuddered when she came in contact with these feverish fingers which tightened on hers; she wanted to withdraw her hand, but she was now unable to move. Riveted to Xavière, she contemplated in amazement this body which allowed itself to be touched, and this beautiful face behind which an abominable presence was concealed. For a long time Xavière had been only a fragment of Françoise’s life, and suddenly she had become the only sovereign reality, and Françoise had no more consistency than a pale reflection.

Why should it be she rather than I? thought Françoise, with anger. She need only have said one word, she need only say, “It is I.” But she would have had to believe it; she would have had to choose herself. For many weeks Françoise had no longer been able to dissolve Xavière’s hatred, her affection, her thoughts to harmless vapors. She had let them bite into her; she had turned herself into a prey. Freely, through her moments of resistance and revolt, she had been busy destroying herself. She was witnessing the course of her own life like an indifferent spectator, without ever daring to assert herself, whereas Xavière, from head to foot, was nothing but a living assertion of herself. She made herself exist with so sure a force, that Françoise, spellbound, had let herself be charmed into preferring Xavière to herself, thus obliterating herself. She had begun to see everything through Xavière’s eyes—places, people and Pierre’s smiles. She had reached the point of no longer knowing herself, except through Xavière’s feelings for her, and now she was trying to merge with Xavière. But in this hopeless effort she was only succeeding in annihilating herself.

The guitars kept up their monotonous thrumming and the air felt like a fiery sirocco. Xavière’s hands had not let go their prey; her set face was expressionless. Pierre had not moved either. It was as if the same spell had transformed all three of them into marble. Pictures kept flashing through Françoise’s mind—an old jacket, a deserted glade, a corner of the Pôle Nord where Pierre and Xavière were carrying on a mysterious tête-à-tête far removed from her. She had felt before, as she did this night, her own being dissolving itself in favor of other inaccessible beings; but she never had realized with such perfect lucidity her own annihilation. If only there were nothing left in her; but there still remained, among an infinity of deceptive will-o’-the-wisps, a faint phosphorescence hovering over the surface of things. The tension that had held her in its grip all evening suddenly snapped and she burst into silent sobs (pp. 363-365, French; pp. 290-292, English).

Part II. Chapter 4 […]

“You’ll laugh at me,” [Françoise] said, with a weak smile. There was a glimmer of hope; perhaps if she managed to enclose her anguish in words she might be rid of it. “It’s because I discovered that she has a consciousness like mine. Has it already happened to you to feel the consciousness of the other as though from inside?” Again she was trembling. The words were not releasing her. “It’s intolerable, you know.”

Pierre was looking at her a little incredulously.

“You think I’m drunk,” she said. “In a way I am, but it makes no difference. Why are you so astounded?” She rose suddenly. “If I were to tell you that I’m afraid of death, you would understand. Well, this thing is just as real and just as terrifying. Of course, we all know we’re not alone in the world; we say these things, just as we say that we’ll die some day. But when we begin to believe it …” (p.369, French; 295, English).

Part II. Chapter 5 […]

“You’re amazing. You’re the only living being I know who’s capable of shedding tears on discovering in someone else a consciousness similar to your own.”

“Do you consider that stupid?”

“Of course not,” said Pierre. “It’s quite true that everyone experiences his own consciousness as an absolute. How can several absolutes be compatible? The problem is as great a mystery as birth or death, in fact, it’s such a problem that philosophers break their heads over it.”

“Well, then, why are you amazed?”

“What surprises me, is that you should be affected in such a concrete manner by a metaphysical situation.”

“But it is something concrete,” Françoise said. “The whole meaning of my life is at stake.”

“I don’t say it isn’t,” said Pierre. He surveyed her with curiosity. “Nevertheless, this power you have to live an idea, body and soul, is exceptional.”

“But to me, an idea is not theoretical. It can be experienced or, if it remains theoretical, it doesn’t count.” She smiled. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have waited for Xavière’s arrival to suddenly realize that my consciousness is not unique in the world.”

Pierre ran his finger thoughtfully over his lower lip. “I can readily understand your making this discovery apropos of Xavière,” he said.

“Yes,” said Françoise. “With you I’ve never been troubled, because I barely distinguish you from myself.”

“And besides, between us there is reciprocity,” said Pierre.

“How do you mean?”

“The moment you recognize a consciousness in me, you know that I recognize one in you as well. That changes everything.”

“Perhaps,” said Françoise. She stared in momentary perplexity at the bottom of her glass. “In short, that is friendship. Each renounces his pre-eminence. But what if either one refuses to renounce it?”

“In that case, friendship is impossible,” said Pierre.

“Well, then, what can be done about it?”

“I don’t know,” said Pierre.

Xavière never renounced herself. No matter how high she placed you, even when she cherished you, one remained an object for her (375-76, French; 301-2, English).