Free Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir Page A

flattered most by praise from my father; but if he complained because I had made a mess in his study, or if he cried: ‘How stupid these children are!’ I took such censure lightly, because he obviously attached little importance to the way it was expressed. On the other hand, any reproach made by my mother, and even her slightest frown was a threat to my security: without her approval, I no longer felt I had any right to live.
    If her disapproval touched me so deeply, it was because I set so much store by her good opinion. When I was seven or eight years old, I kept no secrets from her, and spoke to her with complete freedom. I have one very vivid memory which illustrates this lack of sophistication. My attack of measles had left me with a slight lateral curvature of the spine; a doctor drew a line down my vertebral column, as if my back had been a blackboard, and he prescribed Swedish exercises. I took some lessons with a tall, blond gymnastic instructor. As I was waiting for him one afternoon I did a little practice on the horizontal bar; when I sat astride the bar, I felt a curious itching sensation between my thighs; it was agreeableand yet somehow disappointing; I tried again; the phenomenon was repeated. ‘It’s funny,’ I told Mama, and then described my sensations to her. With a look of complete indifference on her face she began talking of something else, and I realized that I had asked one of those tiresome questions to which I never received any answer.
    After that, my attitude seemed to change. Whenever I wondered about the ‘ties of blood’ which are often mentioned in books, or about the ‘fruit of thy womb’ in the Hail, Mary, I did not turn to my mother for confirmation of my suspicions. It may be that in the meanwhile she had countered some of my questions with evasions I have now forgotten. But my silence on these subjects arose from a more general inhibition: I was keeping a watch on my tongue and on my behaviour as a whole. My mother rarely punished me, and if ever she was free with her hands her slaps did not hurt very much. However, without loving her any less than before, I had begun to fight shy of her. There was one word which she was fond of using and which used to paralyse my sister and me: ‘It’s ridiculous !’ she would cry. We often heard her making use of this word whenever she was discussing with Papa the conduct of a third person; when it was applied to us, it used to dash us from the cosy heights of our family empyrean into the lowest depths where the scum of humanity lay grovelling. Unable to foresee what gesture or remark might unleash this terrible word upon us, we learnt to look upon any kind of initiative as dangerous; prudence counselled us to hold our tongues and stay our hands. I recall the surprise we felt when, after asking Mama if we might take our dolls on holiday with us, she answered simply: ‘Why not?’ We had repressed this wish for years. Certainly the main reason for my timidity was a desire to avoid her derision. But at the same time, whenever her eyes had that stormy look or even when she just compressed her lips, I believe that I feared the disturbance I was causing in her heart more than my own discomfiture. If she had found me out telling a lie, I should have felt the scandal it created even more keenly than any personal shame: but the idea was so unbearable, I always told the truth. I obviously did not realize that my mother’s promptness to condemn anything peculiar or new was a forestalling of the confusion that any dispute aroused in her: but I sensed that careless words and sudden changes of plan easily troubled her serenity. My responsibility towards her made my dependence even greater.
    And that is how we lived, the two of us, in a kind of symbiosis. Without striving to imitate her, I was conditioned by her. She inculcated in me a sense of duty as well as teaching me unselfishness and austerity. My