“During her stay in Bourges, Simone also made a few attempts –– most of them disastrous –– to get in touch with the peasant classes. Once, when she was taking a walk in the country, she talked a farmer into letting her use his plow; to the man’s fury, she quickly overturned it. Some weeks later a lycee colleague introduced her to a couple, the Bellevilles, who had a small farm in the environs. They agreed to have her come for a few hours a day and do basic tasks –– dig up beetroots, prepare the cows’ fodder, pile up manure, draw water for the trough. But how many questions Simone asked them as she helped them prepare the noon meal! ‘How much do you make? How do you make ends meet? Do you consider yourself happy?’ The Bellevilles were perplexed by such queries, and never more embarrassed than when she asked them to ‘sum up their desires.’ When she asked them if she could live with them full-time, pay them rent, and ‘mingle with the peasants,’ that was the last straw. ‘Life would have become impossible for us,’ they told their daughter, pleading that Mlle Weil desist from visiting them again. Not only did she never change her clothes, they complained, but she failed to wash her hands before milking the cows, and when they offered her a fine cream cheese she pushed it away, saying that the Indochinese were too hungry. ‘The poor young girl,’ they commented. ‘Too much study has driven her out of her wits.'”
Simone Weil, Francine du Plessix Gray
Itinerantdaughter's Blog 
Leave a comment