Say goodbye to Sartre

On February 4, Sater underwent a new examination at the Brussel Hospital, which showed that his health was no better or worse. He enjoyed many activities and the association of young women helped him forget his troubles. In spite of all his disappointments, life was a joy to him. I remember one morning when the winter light invaded the study and soaked Sartre's face, and he exulted, "O sun!" He, me, and Silvie, the three of us planned to go to "Belle Isle" for Easter vacation, and he often talked about it with a happy face. He is so conscious of his health that he still smokes smoking. As far as I know, he drinks very little, too. At lunch, he ordered half a bottle of "dry Chablis" wine, drank it slowly, and left half.

One Sunday morning in early March, however, Arlette found him lying on the carpet in his bedroom, drunk and unconscious. We later learned that his girlfriend had brought him bottles of whiskey and vodka. He hid it in a cupboard or behind a book. Saturday night, the only time he had spent a night alone since Vanda had left, he was very drunk. Arlette and I took the bottles that were hiding everywhere. I called his girlfriends and asked them not to bring any more drinks, and I lambasted Sartre. In fact, there were no immediate consequences and no apparent health risks. But I'm worried about the future. More importantly, I don't understand why he has relapsed into alcohol. It doesn't fit with his recent stable mental health. He dodged my question and smiled. "You like to drink, too," he said. Perhaps he is not as able to bear his present situation as he used to be. The phrase "Time is natural" (Lock-in) : "I think time is natural." Galsing), does not necessarily make it right. Not only does time not heal wounds, on the contrary, it may make the pain worse. I thought later, though I didn't like to admit it, that Sartre was actually unhappy with his conversation with Victor, which was about to be published in L 'Obs.

The talk was signed by Sartre and Benny Levy (Victor's real name), and I only learned about it a week before it was published. I was astounded -- this was not at all what Sartre called "the idea of plural numbers" in Slash. Victor does not express any of his opinions directly, but instead attributes all of them to Sartre, who himself acts as an agent in the name of revealing the facts. His tone and condescension to Sartre angered all his friends who had read the conversation before publication. They were as shocked as I was by the conversation that led Sartre to "beat him into confessing." In fact, Victor is a different man from the man Sartre first knew. He, like many other former Maoists, turned to God, the God of Israel, because he was a Jew. His worldview became spiritualist and even religious. Sartre was not pleased with his conversion. I remember Sartre spitting bitter words one night as he and Silvie and I talked together: "Victor wanted all morality to originate in the Torah of Judaism! I don't agree at all!" As I have said, it took him and Victor several days of weary argument before he gave in. Instead of helping Sartre enrich his mind, Victor pressured him to abandon his original intention. How dare he say that anxiety was a fashion for Sartre (who had a lifelong disdain for fashion)? How can he denigrate the idea of universal love, which is so distinct and solid in The Critique of Dialectical Reason? I didn't hide my disappointment from Sutter. Sartre was surprised: he had expected me to be more critical of Vic, but instead he heard overwhelming opposition. I told him that everyone at Modern felt the same way I did. But that only made him more determined to deliver the talk as soon as possible.

What explains Olivier Todd's practice of "abducting the elderly" (Todd himself did not even shrink from abducting the dead)?

Sartre has always chosen to constantly oppose himself in thought, but he has never done so to avoid the important point; The vague, limp philosophy that Victor ascribed to Sartre is not Sartre at all (this is what Raymond Aron said with him in a televised defense after Sartre's death. He speaks very well. . Why did Sartre approve? Having never accepted any influence, he could bear Victor so much -- Sartre explains why. The reason for this, however, remains to be explored. Sartre had always lived with an eye to the future, or he would not survive. Now, having to live in the present, he considers himself to be as close to the dead as possible (as we have seen, in his depression, he calls himself "the living dead"). . Old age, threatened health and semi-blindness made him feel uncertain about his future. So he turns to a stand-in, Victor, a fighter, a philosopher, a "new intellectual" whom Sartre dreams of and tries to help to exist. To doubt Victor is to give up the living continuity of one's life, which is more important than the praise of posterity. So, though not without resistance, he chose to trust Victor. Sartre is still thinking, still thinking, but very slowly. Victor, on the other hand, confounded Sartre and did not allow him to settle down and come to a conclusion. Finally, and I think most importantly, Sartre could no longer read. I cannot judge the value of an article without decoding it with my eyes. Sutter is just like me. Now, he can only process text by ear. "He said to Konta in a conversation (Self-Portrait at Seventy). "The problem is that there is a constant element of reflexive criticism generated by looking at a book; If someone reads it aloud to you, that element is almost absent." Moreover, Victor was supported by Arlette, who knew nothing of Sartre's philosophical writings but liked his new inclinations -- they studied Hebrew together. In front of such an alliance, Sartre had no choice but to distance himself from them through solitary and deliberate reading. In this case, he complied. After the talk was published, he was surprised and saddened to learn that all Sartre's supporters -- or, more broadly, all his friends -- were as shocked as I was.

We spent a pleasant evening with Bost on Wednesday, March 19, and no one mentioned it. Only before going to bed Sartre asked me, "Did anyone mention this conversation in Modern Times this morning?" I said no -- and that was the truth. He looked a little disappointed. He had hoped to find some Allies! The next morning I went to wake him up at nine o 'clock, when I usually find him asleep when I come into the room. That day I sat on the edge of the bed, panting and hardly able to speak. When Arlette was here earlier, he had a very brief episode of what he called "breathingestion." This time it had been five o 'clock in the morning, and he had not the strength to touch my door and knock. Terrified, I tried to call, only to find that the line had been cut off - Puig had not paid the bill. I threw on my clothes and went to the concierge to telephone a doctor who lived nearby. The doctor arrived quickly, took a look at Sutter and immediately went to the next room to call the emergency services. They arrived five minutes later and bled and injected Sater for nearly an hour. He was then placed on a wheeled stretcher and wheeled down a long corridor. A doctor held an oxygen bag above him for oxygen. They pushed him into an elevator and carried him to an ambulance waiting at the door. Not knowing which hospital to take him to, we had to call the concierge again, and I took the opportunity to go back to his room to freshen up. I thought, now that someone else was in charge, his symptoms would soon stop. I didn't cancel my lunch date with Dean and Jean Puyong. I set out to meet them, little thinking as I closed the door that it would never be opened for me again.

After dinner, I took a taxi to the Brussel Hospital -- where I knew Sartre was staying -- and asked Puyong to come with me and wait for me there. "I'm a little scared," I said to him. Sutter was in intensive care, breathing normally, and told me he felt fine. I didn't stay long because Sutter was sleepy and I didn't want to keep Puyong waiting.

The next afternoon, the doctor told me that Sutter had a high fever caused by pulmonary edema and that it would soon subside. His room was so spacious and bright that Sutter thought he lived in the suburbs. He rambled when he was feverish. That morning he said to Arlette, "You're dead too, little one. How did you feel when you were cremated? And now we're both dead. (Arlette is Jewish. Landsman often tells us about his films on the extermination of Jews by the Nazis, and hence about the incinerator. We also talked about Forrest, who denies the existence of genocide. Besides, Sartre wanted to be cremated.) "He told me about the secretary (which secretary?) who had just been near Paris. The family had lunch. In fact, he had never before called either Victor or Puig "secretary," but always by their first names. Seeing my surprise, he explained that the doctor had been very kind and had provided him with a car to pick him up. The suburbs he passed through were wonderful and pleasant. Did you see it in a dream? I asked. He said no, with an angry look on his face, and I stopped asking.

In the days that followed, his fever subsided and he stopped talking nonsense. The doctor told me that the lack of blood supply to the lungs was causing the arteries to run badly, which was why the attack happened. Now, the pulmonary circulation has been restored. We planned to go to Belle Isle right away. Sutter was very happy and said, "Yes, it's nice to be there. You can forget everything." (He was referring to his conversation with Victor and the continuing ferment that followed.) Hospital policy says Sutter can only see one person at a time, Arlette in the morning, me in the afternoon. I used to call him at ten o 'clock to ask him how he had slept last night, and the answer was always "very well". He sleeps like a log at night and takes a nap after lunch. Let's talk about little things that don't matter. When I visit him, he usually eats in an armchair, and the rest of the time he lies down. He had lost weight and looked weak, but he was in good spirits. He looked forward to being discharged from hospital, but his body was very tired and he put up with the situation willingly. Arlette came back about six o 'clock and watched him eat dinner. Sometimes she would leave for a while so Victor could come in.

Soon I went to ask Dr. Usai when Sater would be discharged. And he began to reply: "I'm not really sure... He is weak, very weak." After two or three days, he said that Sater had to go back to the intensive care unit: it was the only place where the patient could be examined and cared for around the clock, without any danger of accident. Sartre was not pleased. When Silvie came to see him, he said to her, as if talking about a resort hotel, "This isn't good. Good thing we're leaving soon. The thought of going to that island makes me happy."

There was no chance of going to the "Beautiful Island", so I returned the room I had booked. Doctors wanted to keep Sater in sight to avoid a recurrence. But Mr. Sater replaced the room with a brighter, more spacious one. "This is good," Sater told me. "Now I'm close to home." He was still under the delusion that he was in hospital near Paris. He seemed increasingly fatigued, had begun to develop bedsores and had a bad bladder. He was catheterized and got out of bed -- very rarely, actually -- with a small plastic bag full of urine behind him. I left his room from time to time to let in other guests -- Bost or Landsman. Then I went and sat in the waiting room. There I overheard Usai saying the word "uremia" while talking to another doctor. I see -- there is no hope for Sartre. I know that uremia often brings terrible pain. I sobbed and thrust myself into Usai's arms. "Please promise me that he will not know he is dying, that he will not be anxious, that he will not suffer!" The doctor said heavily, "Madam, I promise you." After a while, I went back to Sartre's room and he called me back. In the hallway, he said to me, "I want you to know that I didn't just say what I promised. I mean it."

Later the doctor told me that his kidneys were not working because they had no blood supply. Sutter was still able to urinate, but he couldn't get rid of the toxins. An operation to save the kidney could have been done, but Sater could not have endured it, and it would have affected blood circulation to the brain, causing incontinence. There was nothing left to do but let him die in peace.

He did not suffer much for the next few days. He said to me, "I felt a little sick this morning when the nurse was dealing with the bedsore. Everything else is fine." Bedsores look terrible: patches of red and purple (fortunately, he can't see them). In fact, gangrene had eaten away at his body due to lack of circulation.

He slept a lot, but he was still lucid when he spoke to me. Sometimes, one gets the impression that he still wants to heal. In his last days, Puyong came to see him; Sutter asked him for a glass of water and said cheerfully, "Next time we'll have a drink together, at my house, whisky! (George Mischel's statement was broadly accurate, but he was mistaken in thinking it was Sartre's last.) "But the next day he asked me," What about the funeral costs?" I objected strenuously, of course, changing the subject to hospital expenses, assuring him that Social Security would pay for them. However, I knew he knew his time was up and wasn't rattled by it. His only worry was what had bothered him for the last few years: no money. He didn't insist, and he didn't ask me questions about his health. The next day he took my wrist with his eyes closed and said, "I love you very much, my dear Beaver." On the fourteenth of April, when I came, he was still asleep. When he woke up, he did not open his eyes, but said a few words to me. Then he gave me his lips. I kissed him on the mouth, on his cheek. He went to sleep again. Such words and actions were rare in him -- it was evident that he had seen death coming.

A few months later, Dr. Usai, whom I had been waiting for day and night, told me that Sater would ask him the questions: "What happens at the end? What will happen to me?" But it wasn't death that worried him. It was his brain. He had a premonition of death, of course, but he was not terribly anxious. Usai said he "put up with it"; Or, as Usai himself put it, he "confessed". The euphoric drugs the doctor had given him may have had a calming effect, but more importantly, apart from the first moments of his half-blindness, he had always taken what had happened in his stride. He doesn't like to bother others with his troubles. Fate has nothing to offer, and any struggle seems pointless. He told Konta: "That's it. There's nothing I can do. So, there's nothing to feel bad about. (" Self-Portrait at Seventy. ") "He still loved life, but death was no stranger to him, even when he lived to be eighty. He met his death calmly, without a fuss; He is grateful for the friendships and affection around him and satisfied with his past: "I did what I had to do."

Usse made it clear to me that Sartre's suffering could not have affected his condition, but that intense emotional stimulation could have had a catastrophic effect at any time; But thoughtfulness and unhappiness, if diluted in time, cause little problem in the vasculature of the source of all evil. In the near future, he said, the vasculosity was bound to get worse. In two years at most, the brain would be so eroded that Sartre would no longer be Sartre.

On the morning of Tuesday, April 15, I asked Sutter, as usual, if he had slept well, and the nurse replied, "Yes. But..." I went there at once. He seemed to be asleep, but he was breathing so hard that he was clearly unconscious. He had been like this since the night before. I was there for hours, watching him. Around six o 'clock, I gave way to Arlette and asked her to call me if anything changed. At nine o 'clock the telephone rang. "It's over," she said. I'm here with Silvie. He looked the same, but he was no longer breathing.

Silvie alerted Landsman, Bost, Puyong, and Houst. They came at once. The hospital allowed us to stay in our rooms until five the next morning. I sent Silvie to get some whiskey and drank it while we talked about Sartre's last days, past events, and unfinished business. Sutter often told me that he didn't want to be buried between his mother and stepfather in Father Laschez cemetery. He wanted to be cremated.

We decided to bury him temporarily in Montparnasse Cemetery, and then send him to Father La Chez Cemetery for cremation. His ashes will be placed in a permanent grave in Montparnasse Cemetery. While we were at his side, the press had surrounded the hospital building. Bost and Landsman went out and asked them to leave. The reporter hid himself. But they never made it in. They also tried to photograph him while he was in the hospital. Two reporters disguised themselves as nurses and tried to get into the room, but were thrown out. The nurse was careful to draw the curtains and lower the curtain to protect our privacy. There was, however, a photograph of Sartre in his sleep, probably surreptitiously taken from an adjacent roof; This photo was published in Match.

At one point, I asked to stay and be alone with Sartre; I wanted to get under the sheets and lie down next to him. A nurse stopped me. "No. Be careful... It's gangrene." Then I understood the true nature of the bedsores. I lay down on the sheet and took a nap. At five o 'clock the nurses came in. They spread another sheet and a cover over Sartre's body and took him away.

I spent the last half of the night at the Landsman's, and Wednesday at his house. For the next few days, I stayed at Silvie's house, which protected me from phone calls and reporters. That day I saw my sister, who had come from Alsace, and some friends. I looked through the papers, and the telegrams came pouring in. Luntzman, Bost and Sylvie did everything. The funeral was first scheduled for Friday, then moved to Saturday so that more people could attend. Giscard d 'Estaing sent word that he understood Sartre did not want a state funeral, but that he was willing to pay for it. We said no. He insisted on saying goodbye to Sartre's body.

On Friday, I had lunch with Bost to catch one more glimpse of Sartre before the burial. We went to the lobby of the hospital. Sartre was in his coffin, wearing the opera clothes that Sylvie had bought him, the only outfit he had in my house. Silvie didn't want to go to his house and look for other clothes. He looked as serene as any dead man; His face was expressionless, like most dead people.

On Saturday morning, we were reunited in the hospital lobby. Sartre lay naked, his face uncovered, dapper, stiff and cold. At my request, Hiraka took a few pictures of him. After a long time, someone covered Sartre's face with a sheet, closed the coffin, and took it away.

I got into the hearse with Silvie, my sister, and Arlette. A car loaded with colorful bouquets and wreaths led the way, and a mini-bus filled with friends who were elderly and unable to walk long distances. A huge stream of people followed, about fifty thousand, mostly young people. There were people knocking on the window of the carriage -- mostly photographers, pushing their objects against the window, hoping to catch me. Friends of Modern formed a barrier around the hearse, and strangers spontaneously joined hands to build a wall. On the whole, the journey was orderly and exciting. "It was the last march of the 1968 movement," Landsman said. And I can't see anything. I was on the valium, more or less numb, trying not to collapse. I thought to myself, this is the funeral Sartre longed for, but he no longer knows. When I got out of the carriage, the coffin was already at the bottom of the grave. I asked for a chair and sat by the grave, thinking nothing. I saw some people perched on the wall, some people perched on the grave, a faint expanse. I stood up to get back into the car, only ten metres away, but the crowd was so dense that I felt suffocated. I revisited Landsman's house with friends who had returned in twos and threes from the cemetery. I took a break. Later, not wanting to be separated from each other, we went to dinner together in the Zeyers' separate living room. I don't even remember what happened. I seemed to have drunk so much that I almost had to be carried down the stairs. George Mitchell took me back to my quarters.

For the next three days, I stayed at Silvie's. On Wednesday morning, Sutter was cremated at Father Laschez Cemetery, and I was too distraught to go. I fell asleep, and -- I can't put my finger on how -- fell out of bed and sat on the carpet for a long time. Silvie and Landsman came back from the cremation ground, found me full of shit. They took me to the hospital. I caught pneumonia and recovered in two weeks.

Sartre's ashes were transferred to Montparnasse Cemetery. Every day, some unknown hand places several bouquets of flowers on his grave.

Here's a question I've never actually asked myself, but readers may be asking: Should Sartre be warned of impending death? During his stay in hospital, he was extremely weak and listless, and all I could think of was hiding the seriousness of his illness from him. But before that? He used to tell me that if he had cancer or any other incurable disease, he wanted to be "in the know." His case, however, is ambiguous. He is "in danger", but will he survive a decade, as he hopes, or will it all be over in a year or two? No one knows. There was no presupposition, no way he could have taken better care of himself. He loves life. It was too much for him to live with blindness and extreme weakness. The certainty that the threat was imminent only cast a needless shadow over his final years. After all, I, like him, oscillated between fear and hope. My silence did not separate us.

His death has torn us apart. If I die, we'll never be together again. That's what happened. We had a good life together for a long time, and that was wonderful.