ANDRÉ BRETON, MAD LOVE: SUZANNE, NADJA, LISE, SIMONE

par Éléonore Antzenberger

- What is woman?
- A star in the water (1)
Marcelle Ferry and André Breton

I am woman, what do you want of me (2)? This reply gives an idea of the tenor of André Breton, Mad Love. Georges Sebbag's intention is not, however, to answer. If he does honor to some of the women who shared Breton's life, he does not dwell on the number of those who might have shared his bed. At thirty, the latter counted thirty-five (3), to the great despair of his biographers (4) who, at best, count thirteen. But Sebbag has clearly understood that Breton is not one of those braggarts who joke, especially not when it comes to love.

The exaltation of love, woman, and sexuality is a reality common or almost common to all men of letters. In Breton's case, this truth is truer still. The erotic dimension of beauty is indeed the key to surrealist aesthetics and few things fascinated Breton like the miraculous conjunction of woman and writing: Love will be. We will reduce art to its simplest expression which is love (5). This ethic erecting absolute love as the sole principle of physical and moral selection (6). Witness to this passionate union, the cover of the double issue 9-10 of La Révolution surréaliste revealing a schoolgirl, woman-child with wide-open thighs, who writes without looking at her notebook. With the exception of Simone Kahn, who would have only one poem in Clair de terre (1922) (7), Breton's wives would be offered a book (8). To examine his loves is therefore also to take interest in the mysteries that continue to hover around surrealism.

Devoting a book to an author's love life remains perilous. The best intentions can lead to "soliciting" literature, especially in the case of surrealism which refuses, claimed a dogma posterior to the movement, to grant woman a place other than that of muse. Between 1920 and 1930, no feminine collaboration tainted the issues of Littérature and no woman was admitted, "even as a passing friend," to rue Fontaine (9). From there to later taxing the surrealist cenacle as "reactionary," there is only one step. Sebbag avoids this pitfall, positing as given that the daily reality of surrealism surpasses the sinister misogynistic dilemma. These women are indeed considered with the deference that the condition of "Breton's mistress" supposes, and, beyond this privilege, as individuals in their own right. Breton's story – beyond any literary pretension – is one of encounters (10), which acquire a premonitory value. To love and be loved by Breton supposes a certain number of difficulties that can be summarized thus: Jacqueline Lamba has against her a serious handicap, in her case, of being Breton's woman (11). None emerges unscathed.

The author relies on real facts, without seeking to establish at all costs a fiction-reality relationship, which ultimately happens by itself. One of the particularities of surrealism being that reality almost always ends up coming to the rescue of literature, particularly in Breton's case. This work thus indirectly rehabilitates these impenetrable equivalences in which surrealism found its source. One of the surprises of this book being to rediscover that this equivalence cancels contradictions which, for Breton, never were any. Love excluding here any problematic: One does not speak of love, one makes it. Any commentary is idle (12).

Sebbag essentially pays homage to Simone Kahn and Suzanne Muzard through this episode summarized thus by Henri Pastoureau "The imbroglio Simone, Lise and already some others (13)". This is not, moreover, to do injustice to Breton: the years that separate the meeting with Simone (June 1920) from the break with Suzanne (around March 1930) are to say the least eventful. Between these crossed destinies, the reader encounters more or less evanescent specters: women of letters and artists (Lise Meyer-Deharme, Nelly Kaplan, Adrienne Monnier, Clara Malraux, Marie Laurencin, Valentine Hugo), actresses (Musidora, Blanche Dorval), unknowns whose trace will be lost (Georgina Dubreuil), street girls via brothels (Nadja, Suzanne Muzard) and some passing criminals (Germaine Berton, Violette Nozières, the Papin sisters).

The mirror structure is significant of the deliberately feminine tenor of the work. In all twenty-three chapters — with significant titles (When the impossible will give its hand to the unexpected (XV), The Ghosts came to meet her (XIX), The Insubordinate Passenger (XXIII)) — which succeed each other without apparent concern for chronology, like a spontaneous suite of articles and notes. These are authentic existences that infuse this chaotic fragment of life (14), not their a posteriori commentary. Exit therefore any critical approach. No place of this itinerant amorous pilgrimage is concealed (15) as if to inscribe the story — for it is indeed a story that Sebbag tells us — in a spatio-temporal framework similar to that of a fiction. The novelesque stops there; love is here the novel of a life haunted by very real characters.

Sublime, desperate, platonic or consummated, the loves of the surrealists almost always mirror their artistic quarrels. It is up to the reader to be taken in by the game and to follow the trail of the mingled perfumes of a feminine wake.

Woman reflects divine light Flora Tristan (16)

For some years now, criticism has finally examined the existence of surrealist women (17) and no longer women in surrealism. Sebbag this time gives voice to surrealist women, not to Woman in surrealism, but to the women of a surrealist. For the first time, women write the one who wrote them; Breton is told by those who loved him with the same watchword: passionate love.

A word first about Nadja toward whom criticism has often shown itself arbitrary, as if to draw a definitive line over the polemics for which she is responsible. One would like to see in her something other than a poetic motif, very beautiful, very pretty (p.233) (18), a tangible woman, torn from a myth kneaded with absurd legends. One would like her to be, in short, as she is presented here: a woman in/of Breton's life. A woman like any other to whom however she does not resemble – Eluard says that she is tact, sincerity and taste itself. That she does not complain (p.85), a woman capable of making one say of a rival that she is endearing and extraordinary (p.233) (19). The insertion of the interested party's letters, annotated by Sebbag, is one of the major successes of this book. Isolated from any commentary, these letters are real slaps, underlining Nadja's unalterable lucidity, sometimes to Breton's detriment. These largely prophetic remarks attest to this: Besides you no longer feel and it is in others that you continue to reap (20). Faced with her, we discover a Breton all in restraint: [Nadja] is only capable, and you know how, of calling into question everything I love and the way I love. No less dangerous for that (21). Nadja's end coincides with Suzanne's arrival. This extraordinary conjunction is worth it for common traits on which Breton remains evasive: [...] Suzanne is perhaps completely mad. I think it much more of her than it ever happened to me to think of Nadja (22).

Ignoring all clandestinity, Breton is master in the art of feminine conjunction. This is also a point on which Sebbag insists, noting, for example, this anecdote: in Toulon, while he had left rue Fontaine for Suzanne's arms, Breton sends his wife a bouquet of tuberoses accompanied by this telegram: Suzanne told me marvelous stories that I was made to hear and that you would love [...] She has not ceased to be as I imagined her also, perhaps a thousand times better. The first time in eight days, I leave her it is to write to you. One dares to suppose that Simone did not fall to her knees before so much deference. As if to perfect the delicacy of the intention, Suzanne would then scribble a few words on this other letter from Breton: Simone, Left with your sweater... I think affectionately of you (23).

No less surprising is the portrait of Lise Meyer. A surrealist almost despite herself, she remains the "Lady with the sky blue glove" in the surrealist imagination. If Lise does not eclipse the other women in Breton's heart, she nevertheless remains THE woman who would have resisted him, despite a courtship as assiduous as it was fruitless from 1924 to 1927, the date at which, writes Sebbag, Breton "takes leave of his own passion" (p. 62) through two autumn letters which, besides testifying to the lady's coldness, reveal a singularly vulnerable Breton, author of "sublime love letters (24)" (p.79): The important thing is that with you I constantly walk on a rock so steep that I know well that one day or another I am going to fall. It is not like you who do not stay there and who know so well how to space everything out (25). Lise plays the untouchable to the end, as if to comfort herself in the role of forbidden fruit. Irony of fate, Emmanuel Berl would find himself mixed up in this break, this same Berl who would present, in November of this same year 1927, his mistress of the time, a certain Suzanne Muzard to the spurned lover.

It would be tedious to dwell on Simone Kahn because, during the period covered by Sebbag, she remains the First Lady of rue Fontaine: What you represent for me, if this word can have meaning, is everything that attaches me to life, you know it (26). The portrait of this lover so terribly lucid is sketched in fits and starts, but continuously: André loves me. That is all that matters to me. In whatever way it may be, it matters little. Provided that I am in his life this gleam that for me is everything; I consent to live and to bear the scaffolding and debris of fate (27). So much abnegation brings out the bad faith to which Breton, always convinced of his good right, did not hesitate to resort. During these testimonies, one notes a visible attachment of the author for Suzanne. Muzard, to dawdle, everything could have been said. And yet... This woman steeped in humor evokes, in all simplicity, her life with one of the greatest writers of her time, breaks with undisguised joy some icons while scratching certain beliefs: That's where surrealism is funny, she says almost with swagger, because it doesn't believe in God, it believes in unreal things (p. 233) (28). Surrealism... funny...?

Suzanne's "Unfinished Confidences," a long first-person narrative, set the tone. To that bastard Malraux who, after having praised her adventurous qualities, suggests she fuck off to Singapore, she retorts: "Yes, that's it, play the whore, that's it! (29)". One thinks one hears Arletty! Some twenty chapters later and ten years later follows an unpublished interview with her. This "Sunday at the Muzardière" — a title worthy of a Colette chapter! — shows a style more vibrant than ever in this eighty-six-year-old young girl: the same freedom of corrosive tone that is encumbered neither by literature nor by sentimentalism. This "I" thus closes the work on a renewed burst of ardor. As if to give more weight to the character, Sebbag intercalates the letters of various correspondents between this double first-person portrait. This panel construction multiplies the lighting on Suzanne, whose disconcerting ambivalence shines notably in her correspondence with Thirion, grouped under the title "Susana the perverse." Aragon, "that idiot Berl," Drieu, Morise, and some others lend their contribution to the evocation of the Aubervillienne with frank speech who remembers a man she loved: Look, I have always found André Breton's life dramatic. [...] He was a very good man, very upright. He loved and defended what he loved. For nothing in the world would he have declared that something was good in order to make money from it (p. 230) (30).

This fan structure is reminiscent of Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women. André Breton or The Man Who Loved Woman, the one in whom all the others were incarnated, this eternal power of woman, the only one, before whom I have ever bowed (31).

You who, for all those who listen to me, > must not be an entity but a woman, > you who are nothing so much as a woman (32) André Breton

André Breton, Mad Love is a condensed version of moments of life, whose iconographic richness suggests a tenacious impression of "living tableau." One leafs through André Breton, Mad Love as one leafs through a "novel in/of images." Neither Breton — "the man who thinks he knows how to change women into what they are not (33)" — nor his women are pretext for yet another chronicle on surrealist loves. Sebbag shows what, at first glance, may seem obvious: that these women participated, sometimes despite themselves, sometimes from very far away, in the edification of the movement's foundations. Love is not here a backdrop to surrealism and this book is a true story, whose reality is underlined by the appearances — recurrent or anecdotal — of those who lived it; Sebbag therefore does justice to the surrealists while emphasizing the principle according to which love cannot be distinguished from the idea of loving, especially for an ardent defender of sublime love: "To salute in woman the object of all veneration." It is only on this condition, according to him, that love will be called to incarnate in a single being. It seems to me that such an operation can only be fully accomplished if the veneration of which woman is the object suffers no sharing, which would be equivalent to that of a frustration (34).

Rightly, one frequently speaks of the "surrealist chessboard," a game not to be put in all hands. In ten years, Breton loved four women, which does not fail to generate a certain confusion: spectacular or muffled disputes and quarrels, ephemeral or definitive reconciliations, hasty little arrangements, alcove secrets and truths in broad daylight, secrecy and outbursts, succession of flights and returns, so many twists and turns that sometimes strike by their childish character. Despite his rigor, Sebbag sometimes seems to take pleasure in underlining more than explicating the complexity of these intrigues, fed by their actors (35). The reader sometimes gets lost there, but this fugitive experience is not displeasing. It remains however that beyond the almost vaudevillesque dimension of certain episodes emerges each time the same excessive passion (36). Neither the ridiculous nor the pathetic find their place in surrealist love because even repetition – it would be interesting to know the exact number of times Suzanne left Breton – does not diminish the force of these love-obsessions.

In love as elsewhere, Breton does not compromise. Neither exception, nor dissimulation, nor concession. Unique love, yes, in the name of a system that does without morality other than that dictated by passion. The remanence of words and images (p.119) makes reminiscence and renewal coincide: What I have loved, whether I have kept it or not, I will always love it (37). This principle endorses a certain simultaneity in succession: In Breton, the loved being does not disappear, even if his image fades. This is why identical words, analogous drawings can be used successively for two loved women (p. 120).

This cine-novel brings these women back to life. This is, in large part, due to the insertion of correspondences (38), which also prove that they are all endowed with a beautiful bit of pen (39) (p. 82). Pastoureau had moreover recognized in Jacqueline and Simone certain intellectual pretensions, moreover stifled by Breton. One recognizes however in Sebbag more indulgence than in Pastoureau. With the exception of Simone (40) indeed, none really finds favor in the latter's eyes: Nadja is a madwoman [...] quite quiet and schizoid (41). Jacqueline has a runaway temperament, calculating and cold (42) and Elisa's discretion borders on effacement to the point of provoking this icy comment: I don't know what she thinks of me. I think nothing of her (43). Pastoureau goes so far as to affirm that Suzanne played no role in surrealism except to fuck up the mess for a moment (44)... More moderate, Sebbag recognizes that Suzanne's entrance on stage did not calm the game (45) (p. 69).

This polyphonic work reaffirms – one cannot say it too often – that There is no solution outside of love (46). Ultimately therefore, one can only thank Sebbag for having kept his commitment when he assured, in the preface, that he wanted to give voice to those who had madly loved Breton.

Notes:

(1) — Documents 34, Surrealist Intervention, New Series n° 1, (June 1934), p. 25.

(2) — This reply by Musidora is taken from The Treasure of the Jesuits, a play published in the special surrealist issue of the Belgian review Variétés in 1929.

(3) — For more details, one should refer to the different surveys conducted during the Researches on Sexuality (January 1928-August 1932), edition presented and annotated by José Pierre, NRF Gallimard, 1990.

(4) — We refer the reader to the list of Breton's conquests between 1915 and 1930 established by Henri Pastoureau: an Underwood typist, Manon, Annie Padiou, Alice, Musidora, Georgina Dubreuil, Simone Kahn, Lise Meyer, Nadja, Blanche Derval, Suzanne Musard, Claire, Valentine Hugo. Which makes in all thirteen women, including two (Lise Meyer and Blanche Derval) with whom it appears highly improbable that he had sexual relations, in Henri Pastoureau, My Surrealist Life, Maurice Nadeau, 1992, p. 255.

(5) — A. Breton, Soluble Fish, 7, Poésie/Gallimard, 1988, p. 49.

(6) — A. Breton, Mad Love, Folio Gallimard, 1976, p. 173.

(7) — "The Morning Glory and I know the hypotenuse." This gift is however quite relative since almost all the poems include a dedication, starting with women (Simone and her sister Janine Kahn, the future Mme Queneau), Gala Eluard, Denise Kahn (Simone's cousin and future Mme Pierre Naville) etc.

(8) — Mad Love for Jacqueline and Arcanum 17 for Elisa.

(9) — Pastoureau, My Surrealist Life, p. 320. Notable fact, only Simone Kahn is granted the privilege of being among the permanent members of the Bureau of Surrealist Research.

(10) — Simone Kahn (June 1920) at the Luxembourg Garden, Lise Deharme (October 1924) at the Bureau of Surrealist Research, Nadja (October 1926) rue Lafayette, Suzanne Muzard (November 1927) at Café Cyrano.

(11) — Patrick Waldberg-Isabelle Waldberg, An Acephalous Love, Correspondence 1940-1949, edition presented by Michel Waldberg, Paris, Éditions de la Différence, 1992, p. 217.

(12) — Henri Pastoureau, My Surrealist Life, op. cit., p. 354.

(13) — See chapter VII in Henri Pastoureau, My Surrealist Life, op. cit., p. 323-338.

(14) — Sebbag pushes the concern for realism to the point of including the report of the doctor who examined Nadja on the evening of her arrest (p. 128), as if to evacuate this excess of poetry that distances from the real Nadja.

(15) — See notably chapter IX devoted to the manor of Ango.

(16) — Quoted by André Breton in "Flora Tristan," Cavalier Perspective, Gallimard, "L'Imaginaire," 1970, p. 165.

(17) — See notably the work of Georgiana Colville, Scandalously Theirs, Jean-Michel Place, Paris, 1999.

(18) — One also thinks of Isabelle Waldberg's comment about Jacqueline Lamba: [...] there is something pathetic [...] in her desire [...] to become something other than the main character of Night of the Sunflower, in Patrick and Isabelle Waldberg, Correspondence 1940-1949, op. cit., p. 192.

(19) — This judgment is that of Suzanne Muzard.

(20) — Georges Sebbag quotes a letter from Nadja (February 2 or 3, 1927) to Breton.

(21) — Georges Sebbag quotes André Breton, p. 85.

(22) — Georges Sebbag quotes a letter from André Breton (October 8, 1928), p. 152.

(23) — Georges Sebbag quotes a letter from André Breton to Simone Kahn, p. 114.

(24) — Sebbag joins in this Simone Kahn who evoked her husband's feelings for this rival in terms of "mad love."

(25) — Georges Sebbag quotes a letter from André Breton to Lise Meyer (October 26, 1927).

(26) — Letter from André Breton to Simone Kahn, p. 92.

(27) — Letter from Simone Kahn (January 16, 1923) to Denise Kahn, p. 83.

(28) — Since Anaïs Nin we had not heard a better definition: "A surrealist is a guy who pisses in your glass before serving it to you," Anaïs Nin, Journal, Stock, 1966, p. 134.

(29) — The anecdote is reported by Georges Sebbag, p. 70.

(30) — All references in parentheses refer to the work André Breton, Mad Love. Only the letter excerpts have been given an explanatory note here.

(31) — Mad Love, p.166.

(32) — These words are addressed to Suzanne Muzard in Nadja, p. 185.

(33) — We borrow the expression from Henri Pastoureau in My Surrealist Life, p. 349.

(34) — Cavalier Perspective, Folio Gallimard, pp.145-147.

(35) — See chapter XXI "Aragon's Gossip."

(36) — See chapter XIII "The Flight to Toulon."

(37) — Mad Love, p. 171.

(38) — One should refer notably to the study of crossed correspondences between Simone and Denise Kahn and André Breton (chapter VIII), pp.82-87.

(39) — Attesting to this, among others, a letter (chapter XIX, p. 174) from Simone Kahn to her ex-husband, a veritable monument of wit and well-felt irony or this letter (chapter XVII, p. 158) studded with sharp points all of accuracy and finesse from Nadja.

(40) — Simone participates, as scribe, in the hypnotic sleeps and even in the first issue of La Révolution surréaliste. She publishes there, as well as Renée Gautier, an automatic text of erotic inspiration.

(41) — In support, this declaration moreover truthful: Her discourse translates the confusion of ideas if not mental debility. It is studded with brilliant formulas that she finds spontaneously but also that she could have retained from her readings p. 387.

(42) — Ibid., p. 386.

(43) — Ibid., p. 407.

(44) — Ibid., p. 356.

(45) — This state of affairs does not however prevent him from devoting a whole chapter to the participation, certainly minor, of the latter in the collective activities of surrealism, which demonstrates that Suzanne had formidably well assimilated the surrealist vocabulary, to the point of turning it against those who are its authors.

(46) — A. Breton, "Exhibition X…, Y… (April 1929)," Break of Day, p.60.