SOURCE: "Sartre's 'Chambre': The Story of Eve," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. XVI, No. 1, Spring, 1970, pp. 77-84.

[In the following essay, Greenlee studies Eve's perceptions of herself in relation to, and subsequent alienation from, her parents and her husband.]

Composed when Sartre was elaborating his theory of being, "La Chambre" has been considered a continuation of the metaphysical drama of La Nausée.¹ Its representation of Pierre's insanity appeared as a sequel to the hallucinatory visions in the journal of Antoine Roquentin. But Pierre's experience is registered differently from that of Roquentin or those in other tales of Le Mur, all of which are distorted by the particular vision of the main character. His dementia has progressed so far that he can no longer recount his own experiences. For the author, scrupulously writing from the viewpoint of his characters, Pierre's story must be told by his wife, who has observed the progress of the illness in the isolation of their darkened bedroom.

Eve's provocative account of Pierre's withdrawal before the absurd might have received less credit had it been read in the light of the narrative principles announced by Sartre's early essay, "M. François Mauriac et la liberté."² In the year of the publication of Le Mur, Sartre criticized Mauriac's failure to respect his character's limitations in La fin de la nuit, blaming the novelist for repeatedly supplying information that the distraught Thérèse Desqueyroux could not have given.³ The theory underlying this criticism was expanded first in the Esquisse d'une théorie des émotions⁴ and shortly afterwards in L'imaginaire,⁵ where Sartre indicates how the "magic" of the emotions transforms the world. Judged by these principles, Eve's account loses all objectivity. It acquires a different value, however, as it becomes the record of her own distorted perceptions. As her selection and interpretation of the events in the bedroom receive the attention that has been given to the events themselves, they will be seen to present the personality of the character reporting Pierre's drama far more accurately than the drama itself.

Read with respect for Eve's point of view, the story loses none of its philosophical impact. It may even gain substantially by overcoming the problem of Pierre's disease. In his study of the Sartrian theme of sequestration, Profesor Simon suggests that Pierre may be syphilitic.⁶ Although neither Eve nor her parents confirm it, the impending aphasia and the diagnosis attributed to Doctor Franchot⁷ point to an organic cause of the dementia. His retreat from the world, then, would not be a voluntary response to the absurd. But, whether they are brought on by disease or fear, the ramblings of a lunatic can hardly be as fecund as the psychology of the wife who chooses to share her husband's torments rather than accept the comforts offered by her parents.

To appreciate this personality, the reader must reconstruct it from the bits of information provided by her and her parents as they report their views of the events of the Thursday afternoon. Realizing how the characters' emotions can affect their perceptions, the reader must approach "La Chambre" as he would a work of the "new novelists," whose techniques Sartre appears to anticipate, or Gide's composition "en abyme," that he continues.⁸ The solitary mediations that introduce Mme. and M. Darbédat expose the sensitivities which color their responses to their daughter's revolt, the theme which unifies the two episodes of part one.

Alone in the tranquility of her own bedroom, the hypochondriac mother relives the past which her rahat-loukoum evokes in a manner recalling Proust's madeleine.⁹ As the moment of his intrusion into her bedroom approaches, Mme. Darbédat's musings are arrested by her anticipation of the conversation with her vigorous but obtuse husband. Consistent with her retreat from the coarseness of the world is the impulse to share her daughter's onerous admission. With the characteristic refinement so irritating to her impatient husband, Mme. Darbédat succeeds in communicating that Eve continues to have sexual intercourse with Pierre. Although Eve's lie does not become apparent until much later in the story (p. 67), the consternation it immediately provokes suggests the importance Eve's sexuality should assume. Consideration of her motives leads to the assumption that she must have realized the shock her admission would produce. As subsequent incidents confirm (pp. 52 and 59), she did intend it as a repudiation of her mother's Victorian standards and as an action which would isolate her from her mother.

The themes of sexuality and revolt are further developed in the second episode through the observations of M. Darbédat, who takes the reader to the apartment Eve occupies with her husband. The brisk climb up to the apartment above rue du Bac flatters the father's vanity and reveals the type of sensitivities which will color his observations. The boredom he reads on Eve's face during the rehearsal of a banal real estate transaction, the coldness of her abrupt responses to his questions and her rejection of the compliment on the comfort of her salon indicate his awareness of Eve's estrangement. He signifies his disapproval by refusing the luxury of a cigar. Finally, he ventures a criticism of Eve's make-up, undoubtedly observed upon entering, but until now a disagreeable thing he chose to put out of his mind. If Eve understood his preference for the "natural" as well as the normally imperceptive father suggests (p. 52), the make-up she put on to receive her regular Thursday afternoon caller becomes a repudiation of the father's standards. Because it also confirms her intention to alienate her mother, this incident presents Eve in a posture of revolt against her parents and the middle-class propriety they represent.

When his final attempt to have Pierre committed to the asylum fails, M. Darbédat again raises the question of his daughter's sexuality. In the reflection which terminates his visit, the "old naturist" concedes his daughter's "unnatural perversity": "C'est vrai, pensa M. Darbédat, furieux, ils ne font pas que ça; ils couchent ensemble" (p. 55).

Expressed immediately before his departure for the healthy atmosphere where people live contentedly on the surface of events, the father's scorn serves as an introduction to part two, in which the events are interpreted by Eve. While her observations can offer no explanation for Pierre's calling her "Agathe," nor for any of his fabrications, they will explain the more significant drama of a wife who capitulates to her insane husband's whims.

The visit of her father still fresh in her mind, Eve's irritation provokes her imprecation that he die (p. 57). When a final glimpse revives her resentment, it is associated with a possessiveness, a refusal to share Pierre with anyone. "Pourtant la colère la reprit quand elle le vit tourner au coin du boulevard Saint-Germain et disparaître. 'Il pense à Pierre.' Un peu de leur vie s'était échappée de la chambre close et traînait dans les rues, au soleil, parmi les gens. 'Est-ce qu'on ne pourra donc jamais nous oublier?'" (pp. 57-58). Eve's rejection of other people is punctuated by her sneer as she turns away from the spectacle on the street below. But the fear which then prevents her from returning to her husband's side raises doubts about the sincerity of her devotion. With counterfeit conviction, she tries to overcome the repugnance of Pierre's den and the attraction to the comforts of the salon that, moments earlier, she had denied entering: ". . . comme chaque fois qu'elle avait quitté la chambre, elle était prise de panique à l'idée qu'il lui fallait y rentrer. Pourtant elle savait bien qu'elle n'aurait pas pu vivre ailleurs: elle aimait la chambre. Elle parcourut du regard avec une curiosité froide, comme pour gagner un peu de temps, cette pièce sans ombres et sans odeur où elle attendait que son courage revînt" (p. 58). Failing, she grasps another pretext, renewing her efforts to delude herself: "Il faudrait qu'Eve triomphât de cette résistance et qu'elle s'enfonçât jusqu'au coeur de la pièce. Elle eut soudain une envie violente de voir Pierre; elle eût aimé se moquer avec lui de M. Darbédat" (p. 59).

Anxiety over the reception she would receive dispels the desire, and she lapses into memories of the more pleasant autumns of her childhood. Then, self-consciously admonishing herself to distrust her memory, she hears Pierre's call and, without hesitating, enters the bedroom.

During these moments of solitude, the elements of Eve's drama are presented. It involves first her self-conscious resistance to the world of "normal people," repugnant for its falseness but attractive for its familiar comforts. For the rejection of its artificiality, she appears to confront the human condition with existential authenticity. The second aspect of her drama, however, betrays a cowardly retreat from life as she attempts to adapt herself to Pierre's world. Her account will contain other inconsistencies when what she wishes to believe conflicts with what her reason shows her. This opposition can be explained by her curious sexuality which motivates her response to the world, a response scarcely more authentic than her mother's, but one that permits the heroine of "La Chambre" to take her place among the other deviates represented in the stories of Le Mur.

Eve's portrait of Pierre, more vividly detailed than the one sketched by her father, registers at once her physical attachment to her husband. But her passivity before his ridicule of M. Darbédat indicates, first, her inability to participate in his fantasies. Beyond that, it exposes both the facticity of her earlier desire to ridicule her father and the self-deception which distorts her view of events in the room. Delusion is her mechanism for overcoming her sentiments of exclusion from Pierre's experiences, but the mechanism is not always effective. The moments of lucidity following her entry into the bedroom register its failures: she blames herself for feeling superior (p. 61); reports a self-consciousness about her gestures (p. 62); and, perhaps most significantly, admits her inability to see objects as Pierre does: "A Pierre seul les choses montraient leur vrai visage. Eve pouvait les regarder pendant des heures: elles mettaient un entêtment inlasable et mauvais à la décevoir, à ne lui offrir jamais que leur apparence—comme au docteur Franchot et à M. Darbédat" (p. 63).

Her admissions here also convey her longing to share her husband's experiences and to believe in the superiority of his vision. She registers her longing again when, anticipating the arrival of the terrifying statues, she appears to blame Pierre for not using his "ziuthre" for protection (p. 65). A moment later, she becomes skeptical about the existence of the statues: "'Il souffre. Mais jusqu'à quel point croit-il [Sartre's italics] aux statues et au nègre? Les statues, en tout cas, je sais qu'il ne les voit pas, il les entend seulement: quand elles passent, il détourne la tête; il dit tout de même qu'il les voit; il les décrit'" (p. 66).

Her doubts recede before her desire to share Pierre's hallucination and she readies herself for the visitation of the statues (pp. 66-67). Her attention is drawn to her husband's lips, the only part of his body that appears alive to Eve. Since a nightmare left him afraid of the touch of another body, his words constitute his contact with his wife. With some regret, she observes how the lips have lost their sensuality. But her perception seems to restore it. The vivid description of their movement shows her response to their sensuality:

Elles s'écartaient l'une de l'autre en frémissant un peu et se rejoignaient sans cesse, s'écrasaient l'une contre l'autre pour se séparer de nouveau. Seules, dans ce visage muré, elles vivaient; elles avaient l'air de deux bêtes peureuses. Pierre pouvait marmotter ainsi pendant des heures sans qu'un son sortît de sa bouche et, souvent, Eve se laissait fasciner par ce petit mouvement obstiné. "J'aime sa bouche." (p. 67).

Pierre's command not to stare at his lips is followed by an obedient shift of Eve's glance. Seeing the tension transmitted to his hands, she feels the impulse to seize him in her arms. Her restraint, the subsequent refusal to join in his fanciful reconstruction of their first meeting and her seemingly superfluous recollection that she is not—or not yet—Agathe indicate the lucidity that still checks her desire to share in Pierre's world.

Her husband's ramblings again draw Eve's gaze to his mouth. The painfully articulated sounds seem to acquire a palpable solidity as her aroused imagination transforms the perception: "Il parlait péniblement, d'une voix aiguë et pressée. Il y avait des mots qu'il ne pouvait prononcer et qui sortaient de sa bouche comme une substance molle et informe" (p. 68).

This evocation announces Eve's concentration on her husband's hallucination. His recitation of the "Coronation of the Republic" is uninterrupted as Eve resolutely projects herself more deeply into her husband's frenzy: she "feels" the statues enter the bedroom; the maid arrives, but she refuses to leave Pierre's side to give her the gas money. She "feels" the flight of the statues about the bedroom and observes Pierre cringe before them. Then, seeing the pallor of his face and the ugly contraction of his mouth, she shuts her eyes to prevent the sight from interfering with her emotion. But the creak of the floor cannot be shut out and her determination to prolong the drama appears with all its artificiality: "Il lui suffirait d'un tout petit effort et, pour la première fois, elle entrerait dans ce monde tragique. J'ai peur des statues, pensa-t-elle. C'était une affirmation violente et aveugle, une incantation: de toutes ses forces elle voulait croire à leur présence . . ." (p. 70).

Pierre's chilling cry destroys the illusion which had finally communicated its excitation to Eve's body. Trembling and unfulfilled by her efforts, she blames herself for trying to participate in an experience which her reason prevents her from sharing with her husband: "'Un jeu, pensa-t-elle avec remords; ce n'était qu'un jeu, pas un instant je n'y ai cru sincèrement. Et pendant ce temps-là, il souffrait pour de vrai'" (pp. 70-71).

Pierre's experience has left him exhausted, but his calmness and the coherence of his speech show he has experienced some release from his torments. During the brief conversation that follows the climax of his hallucination, he speaks of Eve's beauty and ventures a cautious caress before accidentally pronouncing récapitulation. His halting explanation of the lapsus divests the world of any meaning or context. The characters' reaction to the word and its subsequent association with an earlier representation of Pierre's speech indicate that it is more than a portent of aphasia. It is seen, rather than heard, by the wife who has been captivated by her husband's sensuous mouth. After he dozes off, the now calm Eve reflects on the release she read in his expression as he articulated the syllables: "Pierre avait pris soudain l'air bête et le mot avait coulé hors de sa bouche, long et blanchâtre. Pierre avait regardé devant lui avec étonnement comme s'il voyait le mot et ne le reconnaissait pas; a bouche était ouverte, molle; quelque chose semblait s'être cassé en lui" (p. 72).

Clarified by Sartre's theory on the distortions affected by the emotions,¹⁰ the orgasm Eve attributes to Pierre can be seen to represent her own sexual climax. Evidence she has presented earlier suggests that her husband's release came at the moment of his chilling cry, the moment Eve realized her exclusion from the hallucination (pp. 70-71). The previous reference to Pierre's babbling (p. 68) indicates that she had expected some viscous emission from his mouth. When récapitulation acquires the viscosity and color of semen, Eve is associating it with the sexual release accompanying an ejaculation. The orgasm is her own, but it is the one she desires Pierre to experience with her. Through the distortions effected by her emotions, she is able to satisfy the desire which elicits the sensuous description of her husband's mouth and which is announced at the beginning of the story by her father and mother.

Continuing her reflections, Eve diagnoses Pierre's slip of the tongue as a sympton of the aphasia predicted by the psychiatrist for a year later. Her concern about the progress of the disease communicates her anticipation of that time when neither his speech nor countenance will solicit her response. Then she will kill him, she resolves, to deprive other people of any satisfaction from his last moments of existence.

Consideration of the narrative techniques employed by Sartre confirms Eve's importance in "La Chambre," an importance which his contemporary essays have already suggested. The two initial episodes raise the question of Eve's sexuality, which the conclusion of the story resolves: the structure, then, points to her importance. And stylistically, the distortions in her account obscure Pierre's story, but they permit the reader to understand her own withdrawal from the world.

Her revolt against her parents is a defense against the seizure of Pierre: the parents alone appear to oppose their daughter's determination to remain at his side, sequestered from the society of "normal" people. Her devotion to Pierre can be explained in existential terms as a retreat from the responsibility of freedom. She has sought the comfort of the circumscribed universe dominated by Pierre, who had been able to offer her the satisfaction she desired. When the impotence of the demented husband forces her to refine her sexual responses, her adjustment elicits the acts of ritual, delusion and bad faith by which Sartrian characters often mask the reality of their existence.

Having effected this adaptation, Eve ceases at the end of the story to consider the authenticity of her acts. She has succeeded in participating in Pierre's drama and her concern is then to continue. Confronted by her husband's impotence, she had approached the wall of the absurd, but she manipulated her perception of the world to avoid the liberation of the existential experience. "La Chambre" is her own account of the subordination of her freedom and reason to the satisfaction of her sexual desires. During that afternoon after her father's departure, when she describes the development of this singular perversion, what she lets us see about herself is far richer than anything we learn about her demented husband.

Notes

¹ See Claude-Edmonde Magny, Les Sandales d'Empédocle(Neuchâtel: Editions de la Baconnière, 1945), pp. 120-131 and passim; Marie-Denise Boros, Un séquestré: l'homme sartrien (Paris: Nizet, 1968), pp. 23-25 and passim;John K. Simon, "Madness in Sartre: Sequestration and the Room," Yale French Studies, XXX (1964), 63-67; and John K. Simon, "Sartre's Room," Modern Language Notes, LXXIX (Dec. 1964), 526-538. The last contains a good bibliography of earlier studies which reflect this view.

² Reprinted in Situations I (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), 36-57.

³ "Mauriac," p.44.

⁴ Paris: Hermann, 1939.

⁵ Paris:Gallimard, 1940.

⁶ Simon, "Madness," p. 65.

⁷ "La Chambre," Le Mur (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), pp. 54 and 72. Further references to the text of the short story will follow in parentheses.

⁸ André Gide, Journal 1889-1939 Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1941), pp. 40-41.

⁹ Simon, "Sartre's Room," pp. 526-527, and Robert Greer Cohn, "Sartre vs. Proust," Partisan Review, XXVIII, No. 5-6 (1961), 633-645. This refinement is also sketched by Sartre in Esquisse, p. 54.

¹⁰Esquisse, pp.40-43, 51-53.