Simone went to school early, at the age of 5. Although the family's financial conditions were not particularly wealthy, but the aristocracy was still there, George and François decided not to let Simone go to the public school attended by ordinary children, but to send her to a private girls' school.
Usually, when they take Simone to the Jardin du Luxembourg, they also take care not to let her get close to girls they don't know, because they may be from the lower classes. These all show their aristocratic prejudices.
But their prejudices seemed to have little effect on Simone, for the actual living conditions of their families were no longer particularly aristocratic, almost the same as those of those considered to be of lower classes.
Little Simona loves school and has a great time in school. For children, things that are of interest can be done well. She was a good student and always finished first in her class. The teacher certainly likes students with good grades and treats her specially. At Christmas, the teacher dressed her in a white robe decorated with gold trim, dressed her as a holy child, and asked the whole class to kneel in front of her and pray. At this time Simone, that triumphant needless to say.
World War I broke out, and little Simone became a fanatical patriot. She played the president of France herself, with her sister playing the Russian tsar and a cousin playing the King of England, and the three giants discussed how to crusade against the Prussians.
George was serving in the military, and Simone followed her mother to see him. The father wore a beanie hat, a beard, and a serious look, which impressed his daughter. To show her support for her father, for France, Simone soon stepped on a German-made plastic doll that belonged to her sister Popetti. She also threw out the window a knife and fork marked German. She also wrote on paper with a colored pencil: "Long live France!" "People praised her as a little patriot.
Françova was given a piece of blue military velvet cloth, and she asked the tailor to make a coat that imitated military uniforms for each of her two daughters. Simone wears a replica blue military uniform and carries a flower basket to collect donations for the refugees. The adults thought that the little girl looked very cute, and the military uniform was more energetic, so they were willing to throw a coin into her basket, and her fundraising campaign was very smooth, and the total amount of money raised on this day was 24 francs.
In fact, the money she collected did not really go to the refugees, and the female director who asked her to collect the donation withheld half of the money and prepared to pay for the coal with 12 francs, Simone protested when she heard about it, but it was useless. This was probably the first time she felt that her lofty feelings and actions were being taken advantage of.
The adults told Simone that her piety and obedience would save France, so she decided to be an obedient child and converted to God religiously. A young priest taught her religious teachings, taught her how to repent, and made her kneel before him to answer his questions reverently. She also accompanied her mother to receive Communion three times a week.
Now Simona's temperament has changed a lot, and it can be said that she is very obedient. She later recalls this period and says that she began to abandon the independence she had previously tried to maintain in relation to adults, and she did whatever the adults said.
Another change for Simone at this time was that she began to practice writing. The first story she wrote was "The Misfortune of Margaret", about a heroic orphan daughter of Alsace who crossed the Rhine with a group of siblings to France. The story was written entirely in imitation of what she had read. Later, she wrote a story, "The Family of Canitous," which was also written in imitation of another thing she had seen, The Adventures of the Fenoyds. Different from the previous one, this time she added some of her own things, put some things in her own family into the story, and it should be said that she has a little creativity. She read the story to her parents, and they all laughed and thought it was funny. The attitude of her parents clearly gave encouragement to the beginner writer, and around this time Simone began to have ambitions as a writer.
Her interest and ambition in writing has a lot to do with her family environment. Because of her parents' discipline, she could not associate with the children of the lower classes, which her family could not enter, and she was not accustomed to associating with her classmates who paid attention to luxury. In this way, she had few friends to actually associate with. Her parents' education also made her feel that the most important thing for a person is to gain knowledge and upbringing, not money. Naturally, immersing herself in mental activity became Simone's only possible option.
At this time, Simona also developed a habit: if she was stimulated by anything, she would cry about it in the evening, and after crying, people would be comfortable. For her, it was a necessary emotional catharsis, a purification of the soul, a spiritual liberation, an indispensable content in her life. Until her old age, she maintained this habit. We can see many descriptions of this crying in her memoirs. There is a Chinese saying: "Boys have tears and do not flick." "Didn't say how the daughter was. Perhaps women's crying is not necessarily a sign of weakness relative to men. Reading her relevant memories, my impression is that it is precisely because of this emotional catharsis channel that Simone has been able to survive many mental crises and maintain her own mental health.
After going to school, every summer, Simona vacationed to Limousin, the birthplace of her father, and also went to the nearby countryside where her grandfather lived and played with Elena's aunt's house. These places are beautifully landscaped, with ponds, hills, woods, gardens, and a variety of exotic animals and plants that you can't see in Paris. Every time she went on vacation, Simone lingered. She loves nature and can't help but revel in it. This preference is also an important reason why she is able to maintain her physical and mental health.
[This article is excerpted from the book Beyond the Second Nature: A Hundred Years of Beauvoir (by Huang Zhongjing, Central Party School Press, 2007 edition)]
His close friend Zaza was trapped by love and died of insanity ("One Hundred Years of Beauvoir")