Hello? I'm connecting for Sartre...

Author: (French) Germaine Salles
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: This is a heartfelt memoir by Germaine Salles, the female secretary of the Modern magazine who worked with many famous French modern intellectuals like Merleau-Ponty for years. She does not repeat the countless legends already told; instead, she recalls the interesting, candid, amusing, and touching daily anecdotes she witnessed and heard, filled with nostalgia. Madam Salles' small book, Hello? I'm Answering Sartre for You, is truly delightful, with stories of joys and sorrows told in a captivating manner. In her description, figures like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty are no longer so inaccessible; they are flesh-and-blood human beings. Merleau-Ponty was moody, and it wasn't easy to get along with him. However, Salles had a trick: whenever he was about to lose his temper, his right eye would slightly squint. Judging his mood from this detail always worked. de Beauvoir was reluctant to shake hands with Salles when she smelled the smell of children's urine on her as a grandmother, but seventeen years later, both were nearly sixty. Salles introduced her tall and handsome grandson to de Beauvoir, and while she chatted warmly with the boy, she coldly said to Salles, "Now you should be happy!"
Cleaning up Sartre's mess was even harder. Salles sometimes had to pay "" (breakup money) for women, and when she grew tired of it, she told Sartre, "Don't bother with them—they won't really commit suicide." Sartre replied, "I think so too, but what if just one of them really does?" When Sartre, de Beauvoir, and many intellectuals called on French soldiers fighting in the Algerian War to defy orders, many young men actually deserted and came to the Modern magazine for help. Sartre told Salles on the phone, "They're really foolish! They should have thought of an escape plan before acting!"
"This is Sartre: he cries out from the depths of his heart—‘Rise up, comrades, rebel against tyranny, children must have courage!’ But when reality suddenly confronts him, he is dumbfounded." Salles wrote. Sometimes, being a scapegoat was unavoidable. Sartre asked Salles to drive away some annoying visitors who came to see him, so she told some of them that Mr. Sartre had gone on a trip. When a writer encountered Sartre in a restaurant and was furious, Sartre had to appease the hurt soul by saying, "Madam Salles sometimes has poor eyesight and lacks discernment." Salles often called herself a "sheep," which had a hint of being a scapegoat. However, she wasn't particularly unhappy because there was an unspoken understanding among everyone. But after working for thirty years, when her request for a raise was rejected, she was truly upset. Fortunately, the "sheep" left us this small book, or it would have been a great pity.