THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 .y
 
 COLETTE 
 
 
 BY 
 
 JEANNE SCHULTZ 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH V. FLANDERS 
 
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 NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH Street 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMl'ANY 
 
 BOSTON: 100 Puhchase SruiiET
 
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 Copyright, 1898, 
 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO, 
 
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 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
 
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 1 3 J 3 » ■> 
 
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 I. 
 
 5 March i, i8- 
 
 1^ From dying of despair and ennui preserve me, O 
 
 g Lord ! and do not forget me in this snow which piles 
 ^ every day a little higher around me ! 
 
 I have formulated this ejaculatory prayer so many 
 
 ^ times without ever receiving any response that, at 
 
 ^ last, fairly wearied, I Avrite it. Written things have 
 
 5 more weight, it seems to me ; and besides, it takes 
 
 O more time to write them. And I am in the habit of 
 
 speaking aloud instead of quietly thinking; for, to 
 
 ■^_ pronounce a word loudly and make it resound against 
 
 _ the great wainscoting of my room occupies me longer, 
 
 [2 and for this reason I begin to write to-day. But alas! 
 
 ■^ what shall I find for to-morrow ? . . . 
 
 O My writing-materials are not elegant, not even 
 
 ]^ sufficient indeed, and there is not the smallest secret 
 
 O drawer in which to conceal my note-book! The ink 
 
 was dry in the bottle that I found ; all my pens are 
 
 lost, and I have never had a sheet of paper here. 
 
 Why should I have any, since I write to no one? 
 
 It is impossible to go down to the village. There 
 
 431G51
 
 2 COLE TTE. 
 
 are six (e^t of s,no>v. i;i ,tlie ;roads, to say nothing ot 
 tlie drifts. 'and .hofes;w,here. the wind has heaped up 
 the snewjgke^ -to-such .heights-, that a coach might 
 be' mguifed frOm' tlie'' axle-tffie.up to the tilt. ... I 
 have indeed read in many books how prisoners prick 
 a vein in order to write with their blood upon a pocket- 
 handl-cerchief ; but I no longer believe it, for the linen 
 absorbs it all, and it is not legible. I know, for I 
 have tried it ! 
 
 With a little water, however, my ink is restored ; I 
 have borrowed two feathers from the tail of a goose, 
 which has very patiently allowed them to be taken, 
 poor creature ; and, after overturning the contents of 
 the chests and cupboards, I have found this great 
 parchment note-book, yellow as saffron, and thick as 
 a board, of which, fortunately, only one side of the 
 pages has been used. The other side remains for 
 me ; and then I also have the advantage of reading 
 as I go on, what has been written already. These 
 writings are the quarrels and law-suits of a M. Jean 
 Nicolas with a lady of Haiit-Pignon, about some war- 
 rens, the rabbits of which were destroying the clover, 
 and about boundary changes injurious to his fields. . . . 
 
 Mon Dieu ! give me a neighbor like Jean Nicolas, 
 a quarreller and a fault-finder; and boundaries that 
 afford scope for disputes to occupy my solitude ! 
 
 Are there many people, I wonder, who exactly 
 understand the signification of that word, "solitude,'" 
 and who think sometimes of all that it means ? " SoH^
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 tude.'' explains the dictionary, '■'■ solitude, the state of 
 a person who is alone." And above, for the word 
 " alone," it adds very judiciously in order to complete 
 its meaning : " Alone, one who is without company, 
 who is not with others." 
 
 And that is all, — no comment, — no explanation, — 
 no distinction, — nothing to indicate that it expresses 
 one of the most detestable torments of existence ; 
 nothing suggestive of degrees, nothing to show that 
 there is solitude, and solitude, and that the most 
 cruel is not that of the Carthusian monks in their 
 cells of five feet square, in whose silence and gloom 
 they have chosen to live ; not even that of tlie Trap- 
 pists in the little garden where they dig their graves 
 from one years end to another while exchanging en- 
 couraging words ; but mine, that of Colette d'Erlange. 
 who has not chosen her life, and who is almost desir- 
 ous of no longer enduring it ! . . . 
 
 Alone at eighteen years of age, with a brain full of 
 ideas, and not a possibility of making them known to 
 a single living ear; alone to laugh, alone to weep, 
 and alone to fall into a passion ; — it is enough to make 
 one lose one's mind. . . . 
 
 Durinjr the .summer, and even tlie autumn indeed, it 
 was supportable : the trees and the flowers say and 
 know much more than many people suppose. Lying 
 in the woods upon a bed of moss I heard a hundred 
 voices that talked with me every day, and the little 
 insects that ran over my cheeks made mc laugh all
 
 A COLE TTE. 
 
 by myself. Or again, I mounted (as long as she had 
 any strength ) the old Fran9oise, the mare which 
 turns the wheel of the well, and my great dog took 
 me upon his back to finish the ride when she 
 could do no more, my good " Un, " with his beauti- 
 ful shaggy, black hair, in which, at this moment, my 
 feet bury themselves up to the ankles while he watches 
 me write. Then, in the evening, I had the stars. I 
 confided in all those that can be seen in our corner 
 of the world, and when I was relating to them my 
 weariness, more than one made a pitying sign which 
 replied to me from above like the glance of a friendly 
 eye. 
 
 But this wind which has blown for six weeks, this 
 snow which prevents my going out, and this voice of 
 my aunt which sounds like the north-east wind, and 
 which bites a little stronger every day, all this nearly 
 drives me to des^Dair. 
 
 There is no imagination that could resist this ; I 
 am at the end of the tales which I relate to myself, 
 and I am afraid that there is no longer anything left 
 in my brain, and that, when the time comes to knock 
 at its door and demand aid from it in some extraordi- 
 nary adventure, I shall find only a great cavity ! For 
 I shall have my adventure some day and I could even 
 say that I know it already. 
 
 My hero is tall, somber, with black hair, heavy eye- 
 brows, and severe eyes. His complexion is dark, 
 his speech is imperious, and there is in his glance a
 
 COLE TTE. 5 
 
 singular light, oriental in its sweetness, but oriental 
 also in a severity cold as the blue steel of cimeters or 
 like the memory of some terrible past ; for my hero, 
 in order to come to me, will be obliged to traverse 
 some strange roads, perhaps. 
 
 His mustache will be silky, a simple black line 
 slightly bristling ; — and all this will lighten for me 
 alone, with a gentle and unexpected smile. 
 
 Will he come to me in tlie midst of the fields, in 
 the gayety of the morning, or in the peace of evening ? 
 Naturally, or in some e.xtraordinary way ? I do not 
 know ; but I know assuredly that he will come. 
 
 It seemed to me more likely, and certainly more 
 agreeable, that I should meet him during the days of 
 May or June ; and in those months I never passed 
 near a hedge without observing it closely lest my hero 
 should be concealed behind it ; but I still hope for 
 him, and each morning, while raising my curtain, I 
 look carefully for the imprints of two feet in the snow 
 under my window. 
 
 When I find that no one has come, I excuse him to 
 myself. The weather is so severe ! The paths are 
 in such a bad condition ! I intend that he shall come 
 to me with his four limbs intact ; so I praise him for 
 not risking a sprain in order to present himself to me 
 a day sooner, and resign myself, sighing, to await a 
 to-morrow that has not yet come. 
 
 Then, if my faith in the future becomes too greatly 
 shaken, I go and hunt out one of those great volumes
 
 6 COLE TTE. 
 
 which fill the library, and with which I amuse myself 
 on rainy days, and read in what diverse and always 
 marvellous ways the princesses in times past who 
 found themselves shut up in ruined towers con- 
 trived to escape. Between them and myself I find 
 a striking analogy, and since we resemble each other 
 so much in the first instance, I only ask that my 
 imprisonment may have a like termination. In fact, 
 if the tower in which I dwell does not tumble down 
 of itself to set me free, as the one upon the east and 
 the one near by have already done, — and my own 
 may follow them at any moment, — there is in the 
 wainscoting of my room a door that opens upon 
 a secret staircase, and I am the owner of two large, 
 well-formed eyes, very brilliant, and quite as suitable 
 to recompense a hero as any that have ever shone. 
 
 This is said without arrogance and without con- 
 ceit, for I have never understood the distinction 
 which allows one to exclaim very loudly : What a 
 fine horse! What a beautiful rose! But which pro- 
 hibits severely the same observation when made 
 upon a face in the formation of which one has had 
 nothing whatever to do, simply because it is his own. 
 
 It is permitted, and even approved, when one 
 speaks evil of his own nose, or declares that his 
 eyes are squinting ; but if he foolishly asserts that 
 the good God has placed them straight, . . . hor- 
 rible! it is a thing touching which each one should 
 preserve the most perfect ignorance ; as if the small-
 
 COLE TTE. « 
 
 est corner of a mirror, or the tiniest stream could 
 not reveal it to you without the help of any one! . . . 
 
 If a girl bends down, and looks, she cannot help 
 seeing that she is pretty ; is that a crime ? and must 
 she stir up the water in order that the waves may 
 distort her face? . . . The stags and the hinds 
 that came down this summer to drink while I lay 
 dreaming in my concealment close by. used the water 
 for a mirror. Having quenched their thirst they re- 
 mained there awhile without stirring, with bent heads, 
 and their gentle eyes fixed upon their reflections ; 
 then they went away with a bound, very innocently 
 happy to know that their coats were of so charming a 
 brown and their great horns so well formed. After 
 they left, I leaned over and saw all that they had 
 seen upon the same blue back-ground, with the same 
 masses of clouds which passed quickly by in white 
 and gray spots, and when like them I went skipping 
 away, it was not less pleasing for me to think of my 
 reflection. 
 
 My portrait however can be painted in two words, 
 and recalls that of the Gypsies of all countries ; for 
 my eyes are black and my cheeks tanned, only I be- 
 lieve them white underneath, and there yet remains 
 a trace of it. My nose, which is a little short, gives 
 me the appearance of a person so desirous of seeing 
 the world that he has not taken the time to finish 
 iiimself before entering it ; and yet, God knows, 
 there has been time enough for that in the life which
 
 8 COLE TTE. 
 
 I lead here ; and my mouth is Hke all mouths . . . 
 which are not too ugly. My only grief is the color 
 of my hair, a blond so red that it is more red than 
 blond, and with some unequal locks which end in the 
 middle like the stripes on a country-woman's skirt. 
 
 If one must believe my aunfs words, I shall never 
 be tall ; and she has a way of murmuring when I find 
 myself near her, '■' petite fciiuiie I ''"' which gives me a 
 painful feeling of littleness. The truth is I come just 
 up to her elbow, and as I do not know a single man 
 in the country who goes beyond her shoulder, the 
 disproportion quite satisfies me. . . . And it is acting 
 and thinking thus, that I await in my ivy-wreathed 
 tower, the base of which is lost in the snow, my 
 liberator and my hero.
 
 II. 
 
 March ad. 
 
 One thing of which I often think, though I have 
 never dared to ask my aunt about it. is the nature of 
 the connection that binds us together. Does she 
 Hve with me, or do I live witli lier ? Is it she who 
 has received me into her manor-house, or I who 
 shelter her in my ruins ? And the two towers and the 
 four walls which remain standing, and which have 
 still strength to bear their name " Erlange de Fond- 
 de-Vieux," do they belong to Mile. d"Epine, or to 
 Mile. d'Erlange ? . . . 
 
 As far back as my memory can go, we have always 
 been together, she and I, as we are to-day. She, so 
 cold, so dry, and so tall, eternally shut up in the largest 
 room in the castle, on the side where the sun shines, 
 and the wind does not blow ; and I, left to grow up 
 as I like, either out-doors or in-doors, in the cold or 
 in the rain, without her taking the least notice of it. 
 Besides us two, only Benoite, who is cook, farmwoman, 
 butler, and gardener combined, and who is also my 
 only friend, except Fran^oise at the well wheel, 
 turning at the same pace, though perhaps a little more 
 agile formerly than now. 
 
 Then came my two years at the convent, those 
 
 9
 
 I O COLE TTE. 
 
 two adorable years, when people talked wiih me and 
 called me by my name ; when my bed lay between 
 a dozen other little white beds, all alike, beneath 
 whose coverlets I enjoyed such happy whisperings 
 which required only a sign to arouse ; — years during 
 which I learned so many things, if not all they taught 
 us in the hours of class. My convent, where I swore 
 eternal friendships, where I was shown how to twist 
 up my hair, and how to open a fan ; where I knew 
 for the tirst time what one calls an ideal, and how 
 necessary it is that a man, in order to be a hero, should 
 be dark, pale, a little old, gloomy, and sarcastic ! . . . 
 Who will give me back the charming hours of my 
 convent ? . . . 
 
 However high the walls might be, not all the noise 
 of Paris died outside of them, and on reception days 
 there entered some profane puflfs which made their 
 way to us, and were food for conversation during 
 the entire week. Oh ! those mysterious colloquies 
 in the woods of the park, which protected us like 
 the most impenetrable of jungles, but where the 
 rustling of the dry leaves caused us to leap to our 
 feet and scamper away in a moment ; and those games 
 of hide-and-seek about the pedestals of the statues 
 to escape those nuns who had the reputation of being so 
 severe and yet had such gentle voices ; and those fool- 
 ish notes which went from desk to desk under the form 
 of geographical instruction, where shall I ever find any- 
 thing so charming ? . . . The Mediterranean signified
 
 COLETTE. II 
 
 one person, and the Baltic sea another, and we made 
 them do and say things which would have overturned 
 in one instant all the laws of nature. Besides the 
 notes, there were the gifts, great favor knots, blue or 
 scarlet, pinned upon white paper adorned with de- 
 vices and designs, which were the sign of a tender- 
 ness or a preference that made the heart beat. 
 
 Then one day my aunt suddenly appeared for the 
 first time since she had brought me there, and with- 
 out a word of warning carried me off again. 
 
 " Your education is finished," said she, without any 
 preamble, " and since you have not succeeded in 
 making a suitable provision for your future during 
 these two years, you must return to Erlange." 
 
 Return to Erlange ! I was stupefied. It seemed 
 to me that I was being suddenly pushed into a 
 tomb, and that a great stone was being laid upon 
 me while I was still breathing. ..." But, aunt," 
 said I, distractedly, "do not think, do not think 
 that I know everything yet ; it is quite the contrary, 
 because spelling . . . calculus . . . history . . .■" 
 I stammered, I could find nothing more to say, I 
 should in truth have been glad not to know how to 
 talk that I might give her the idea of leaving me 
 there to learn again b-a ba in my alphabet. . . . 
 But she was not disturbed by such a trifle, and, cutting 
 my words short in her habitual manner, "If you 
 know nothing, niece," said she, dryly, " tlien you have 
 spent a very unprofitable two years here, and I sliould
 
 12 COLETTE. 
 
 consider it wrong to leave you an hour longer ! 
 It is your own fault, and the result will be that to your 
 position of a girl without a dowry you will add the 
 charm and attraction of an uneducated girl, and that 
 will not make your way in life any easier. But, thank 
 God, I shall not have these things upon my con- 
 science, for I have done my duty in giving you the 
 opportunity of acquiring a good education." 
 
 She rose at the same time with a decision which 
 put an end to the conversation, and threw me into a 
 despair so deep that I remember crying out, almost 
 against my will : 
 
 " And if I had a religious vocation, aunt ? " 
 
 " In that case," she replied, turning quickly around 
 with a singular smile, " I would leave you here in- 
 deed." She hesitated a little, then, walking toward 
 the door without looking at me, " You have twenty- 
 four hours to reflect upon that ! " added she, and 
 vanished like a bad dream. 
 
 Twenty-four hours gained ! It seemed to me that 
 I had peace forever, and the head-dress and veil of 
 our nuns seemed to me almost pretty when I thought 
 that those were the things perhaps, which were going 
 to snatch me from exile ! 
 
 Although the prohibition was clear in this respect, 
 I hastened to the dormitories in the first moment of 
 leisure, and in a turn of the hand, with two white 
 handkerchiefs and my black woollen apron, I arranged 
 upon my head the above-mentioned head-dress.
 
 COLETTE. J 2 
 
 Without doubt I looked better in my ordinary cos- 
 tume, but there was nothing repulsive in my appear- 
 ance, and the white band above my eyebrows and 
 eyes made them appear longer and blacker, I thought. 
 That was the first point, the most important in any 
 case, and my resolution was taken irrevocably. 
 During the rest of the day I gave myself up entirely 
 to the austerities to which my new life condemned 
 me, and, charged with a commission for the Infirmary, 
 which was situated at the other end of the park, I 
 managed, without being seen, to make the journeys 
 there and back with bare feet. I suffered from no 
 other injury than some insignificant bruises ; and 
 more and more certain of my vocation, I passed a 
 part of that night. I remember, kneeling at the foot 
 of my bed, pressing against my breast a bunch of 
 little keys, a closed knife, and an ivory paper-cutter, 
 which I had attached to my neck in the way of dis- 
 cipline, and whose sharp points pricked my skin. 
 
 Twice, as the inspector passed, I was obliged to 
 jump quickly into my bed, and the clinking of the 
 keys drew her near me and caused her to bend over 
 me a long time ; but she heard so even a respira- 
 tion, and saw my eyes so tightly closed, that she 
 thought she had imagined the noise and so went 
 away. 
 
 When I awoke the following day the convent was 
 in confusion. An Archbishop, who was shortly ex- 
 pected and who was to invest five novices with the
 
 14 COLETTE. 
 
 veil, had suddenly announced himself that morning, 
 having been obliged to take an unexpected journey, and 
 hasty preparations were being made for the ceremony. 
 
 " It is delightful," said I to myself, earnestly 
 striving to smooth my hair which kept curling in 
 spite of all the water that I employed, " heaven 
 is giving me all manner of proofs, and I shall be 
 able to reply positively to my aunt this evening 
 and with a full knowledge of what I am doing." 
 It was not possible however to speak in private with 
 the Superior that morning, and that I was quickly 
 sent back to the dormitory was due to my attempts at 
 simplicity. '' You have dressed your hair in drops of 
 water, it is adorable!" said one of my companions to 
 me at the moment when we were putting ourselves in 
 line, and almost at the same instant I heard the voice 
 of sister Agatha but in a tone much less encouraging : 
 
 " Mademoiselle d'Erlange ! " she cried imperiously, 
 "have you soaked your head in the fountain? Go 
 dry your hair and dress it again, I beg you !" Once 
 up stairs, I took an account of the effect. My hair 
 fell in the most beautiful corkscrew ringlets, and the 
 water had collected in drops at the ends of the curls 
 and a little everywhere. This was not ugly certainly, 
 but it was a little odd, and I quickly dried this unsea- 
 sonable decoration, which might almost be mistaken 
 for diamonds. 
 
 My exaltation increased until the middle of the 
 ceremony ; the flowers, the lights, the five young
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 15 
 
 girls clothed in white, their great satin skirts sweep- 
 ing the floor of the chancel, excited my fervor until I 
 was impatient to be among them. At a distance, I 
 saw the congregation ; and in the first row I noticed a 
 tall young man, an officer in uniform, who appeared 
 to me to be red about the eyes. Was this a lover who 
 had come to look for the last time upon his dear one ? 
 Some report of this kind had circulated among us, 
 and this seemed to me the height of romance. . . . 
 
 But when they brought in five open coffins, and 
 when the brides of the moment, dressed this time as 
 nuns and hidden under great black veils, stretched 
 themselves in them to hear the office of the dead 
 sung, my resolution quickly changed ; I drew my 
 keys hastily from my bosom and went away without 
 listening to anything more, in order to prepare my- 
 self and my baggage in all haste. 
 
 At the stated hour I was in the parlor, my travel- 
 ling bag in my hand, my eyes swimming from my 
 good-bys, and my hands encumbered with a profu- 
 sion of portraits and gifts ; but so resolute tliat Kr- 
 lange appeared to me in the distance in a lialo of 
 glory, and I hastened towards the door as soon as 
 my aunt entered. 
 
 "Well!" said she, with a gesture of surprise, 
 " what does this mean ? " 
 
 " I am ready to go," I replied briefly, without paying 
 any attention to a well-marked shade of disappointment 
 on her face, which came back to my mind later on.
 
 1 6 COLETTE. 
 
 I burst again into tears while embracing the Supe- 
 rior, and seeing everything as in a humid mist, I 
 passed out of the door. " For the East station," said 
 my aunt as she got into the carriage, and two hours 
 afterward we were whizzing along the railroad, in a 
 silence worthy of the five new nuns who had, so un- 
 consciously, just driven me from the house pf the Lord. 
 
 At the station at which we stopped, the yellow 
 wagon which carried passengers to the village v^as 
 waiting only for us ; my aunt pushed me toward it 
 with a gesture, and as if involuntarily conquered by 
 her silence, I indicated to her, by a movement also, 
 my preference for the seat on top. " No, no !■" said 
 she, in a dry tone, " henceforth you will never leave 
 me." Fran9oise and the cabriolet were waiting for us 
 at the village, and that same evening, still dazed by 
 the sudden change, I found myself once more within 
 the four walls of my room, from which, I noticed 
 with lively astonishment, all the furniture had been 
 removed. 
 
 In that darkness my candle looked like a funereal 
 taper ; my footsteps resounded as in a church ; and, 
 finding myself suddenly so abandoned and so lost, I 
 did the only reasonable thing in my power, and, 
 seated upon the floor, with my two arms about my 
 valise, began to shed afresh the tears which I had be- 
 lieved exhausted in the morning, but whose generous 
 source reopened itself just in time. When this was 
 done, I arose in order to open my window to a ray of
 
 COLE TTE. I 7 
 
 moonlight which was knoclcing upon the panes, and 
 noticing for the first time how exceedingly black 
 and deep the valley was which isolated us from the 
 surrounding country : " Man Dieii I " I could not 
 prevent myself from crying aloud, " Who will ever 
 come to take me away from here ? "' And a kind little 
 voice, which I still hear from time to time, replied in 
 my ear, " He ; be calm ! " And thus it is that I wait 
 for him each day, that I excuse him each morning, 
 and that I hope for him without ceasing. 
 c
 
 III. 
 
 March 3. 
 
 Decidedly there is some enjoyment in writing, 
 and I take more pleasure than I could have believed 
 possible in the note-book of Jean Nicolas. 
 
 When I am before it, pen in hand, I forget every- 
 thing else, and it seems to me that I am relating my 
 sorrows to some compassionate soul. I imagine that 
 I have near me a deaf mute, and that the slate and 
 pencil are the necessary adjuncts of our intimacy, and 
 I scribble, I scribble ! . . . 
 
 Far from Jean Nicolas, I store up all the ideas 
 that come to me, and when on my return to my 
 room I begin to speak to him, I find that one thing 
 brings in its train another, and that after having said 
 to him this, I am obliged to add that, lest he no 
 longer understand my affairs ! 
 
 Then I am compelled to relate to him more and 
 more of my past life, turn the pages, water the ink, 
 and the sacrificial goose must prepare new offerings 
 in case the present weather lasts some days ! . . . 
 
 I had yielded myself up to despair for the first few 
 days and. thinking of the words with which my aunt 
 had received me in the reception-room. I was struck 
 particularly by a certain phrase : '' Since you have 
 
 18
 
 COLETTE. ^^ 
 
 not succeeded in making a suitable provision for 
 your future during tliese two years," she had said to 
 me. . . . Had She then sent me to the convent to 
 find a husband, and did she imagine that over there 
 they pushed their care of us so far as to favor our 
 matrimonial designs by bringing us in contact on 
 Thursday and on Sunday with young men of good 
 family and proper age, wlio talked with us while we 
 played at battledore and shuttlecock? 
 
 The simplicity would have been great, and I could 
 not imagine this sentiment finding shelter and nour- 
 ishment in the brain of such a woman ; but the affair 
 was worth clearing up, and, notwithstanding the time 
 it had taken for this idea to make its way into my 
 mind, and above all, in spite of the strong and per- 
 haps cowardly fear of my aunt which I had felt ever 
 since I was in swaddling clothes, I decided to ques- 
 tion her about the matter. 
 
 From the very short explanation which we had 
 upon this subject dates my complete knowledge of 
 her cliaracter, as well as some slight glimpses of her 
 past life which I gathered, and of which she never 
 speaks, apparently not finding any pleasing reminis- 
 cences to evoke. This slight accident has, moreover, 
 allowed me to discover several things concerning the 
 future that she reserves for me and which she pre- 
 jjares in her own way, and in a manner quite contrary 
 to my personal plans. I trouble myself little about 
 it, however, and leave her to her arrangements, feeling
 
 20 COLETTE. 
 
 myself quite able to overthrow them when the time 
 comes. 
 
 Aurore-Raymonde-Edmee-d'Epine has never known 
 herself to be anything but ugly, whatever period of 
 her existence she may please to call up ; and while 
 looking at her, I have in vain tried to imagine her 
 without wrinkles, without mustaches, without pimples, 
 without all that which age has given to her ; indeed, 
 there are some traits which time has been able 
 neither to increase nor to diminish in spite of all its 
 power. 
 
 Benoite, moreover, is a witness to it, and she certi- 
 fies to this ugliness, fabulous as legendary, from the 
 cradle ; even then this doll in swaddling clothes and 
 a frilled bonnet had already found a way of resembling 
 no one else ! . . . 
 
 The saddest thing is that the misfortune did not 
 end there, and that the character and the disposition 
 which govern this face exceeded in disagreeableness 
 all that one could conjecture or believe. 
 
 Did this gloomy moroseness arise from the con- 
 sciousness of being so ugly, or, on the contrary, did 
 this ugliness chiefly consist in an habitually bitter 
 expression ? . . . No one would have been able to 
 answer the question positively, any more than that 
 of a bad stomach and bad teeth. "Which has 
 spoiled the other ? " one involuntarily wondered on 
 seeing her. It is certain that both were equally 
 spoiled. But whatever reason you advance in excuse
 
 COLE TTE. 2 1 
 
 for this misfortune, — there is no fixed law about the 
 matter, — one has often seen ugly people who were 
 very amiable. " Beauty and the Beast" confirm it, 
 and the contemporaries of my aunt declare, — Benoite 
 assures me, — that they were more often repelled by 
 the disagreeable things which she said to them than 
 by the very ugly mouth from which they came ; for 
 relatives, friends, and strangers suffered without dis- 
 tinction, and one can easily imagine her symbolical 
 name of Epine {Thorn) being made the subject of 
 jokes and comparisons by the youth of her day. 
 
 One can readily understand from this that a 
 creature who unites in herself to such an extreme 
 degree so many diverse faults, had a spring-time 
 quite without charm. She repelled instinctively ; 
 and my mother, some years younger than she, had 
 been married for a long time while my aunt was still 
 waiting for the being who would prove sufficiently 
 courageous to snatch her from celibacy. From this 
 unrealized hope, which she had tenaciously held as 
 long as possible, a bitterness and an intolerable 
 humiliation have always dwelt with her. And an 
 intense rancor is all that finds a place in her heart. 
 
 Changes have been wrought by death and time, 
 but her spite remains unchanged ; and I ought to 
 add that she cherishes and cultivates her harshness 
 with a care such as she has never bestowed upon any- 
 thing else. It is her cat, her parrot, her lap-dog, the 
 favorite animal of lier solitary life, and I would never
 
 22 COLETTE. 
 
 say anything against this occupation, although it 
 may be slightly unchristian perhaps, if the little tiger 
 which she thus nourishes had not nails and teeth 
 and did not make use of them on every occasion. 
 
 What is most curious is that this resentment, so 
 profoundly bitter, instead of turning, as it naturally 
 ought, against the authors of the evil, is directed 
 entirely against women happier than herself who 
 have been able to obtain all that she has desired, 
 and upon those she thinks capable of procuring it 
 in their turn ! 
 
 Has she thought that in sin it is necessary to look 
 at the cause more than the effect, and does she 
 find the thief who takes the fruit less culpable than 
 the apple or the peach which tempts him by its 
 insolent beauty ? Or, is this partiality the last vestige 
 of a weakness ill-recompensed in former years ? I do 
 not know, having done nothing else but suffer the 
 effects of this bizarre system of compensation. In 
 this respect her rancor would of course be compli- 
 mentary, but there is a kind of compliment the 
 constant repetition and form of which is not desir- 
 able ; and I think that my mother, from all that I 
 can learn of her life, would have willingly bought a 
 little peace at the sacrifice of many of her charms. 
 
 This mighty anger of my aunt's extended itself, 
 moreover, to all classes of society, as well as to all 
 ages. The report of a wedding coming up to us 
 from the village would put her beside herself, and
 
 COLETTE. 2Z 
 
 in her rare walks if chance placed in her way a 
 betrothed couple or some young husbands and wives 
 perhaps a little too absorbed in each other, you may 
 believe that they would never forget the look which 
 followed them. 
 
 To sum it all up, that which she desired above all 
 else was that her fate and her ennui might be the 
 fate of all, and very logical in that, she had a tender- 
 ness and characteristic care for the ugly, the un- 
 fortunate, the overlooked ones, all those who seemed 
 to her self-love to be companions in misfortune. 
 
 But let one of them marry, and the charm was 
 immediately broken ! . . . Such is my aunt and such 
 are the singular causes of the life which I lead with her. 
 
 What catastrophe gave me up as a child to this hard 
 heart, I only half know ; but I believe that the death 
 of my father, which was very sudden, was the cause 
 from which my poor mother herself died very soon after. 
 
 My Aunt Aurore was the only member of the family 
 left (I say Aurore, for by a bitter irony, it is the only 
 one of the three names which has survived) and the 
 care of the orphan fell to her ; but from the manner 
 in which she bore her charge, the weight of it must 
 have been very light, for she seemed to simply ignore 
 me up to the time when, I do not know by what 
 awakening, it .suddenly came into her head that the 
 traditional enemy had entered her home in my person, 
 and that, by a sufficiently natural transformation, the 
 little girl would one day be a woman. If it was not
 
 24 COLE TTE. 
 
 exclusively this idea which determined our departure 
 for Erlange, at least the true reason and this one 
 were very closely allied to each other, for I vv^as 
 scarcely ten years old when she transplanted me 
 suddenly into this isolated place, where, however, 
 everything charmed me. 
 
 Here passed the nebulous change from my chrys- 
 alis state, a change followed by my aunt with an 
 eye which I should like to style friendly but in which 
 I fear rather an anxious curiosity dominated. What 
 would come forth, indeed, from this tanned skin, from 
 these brown eyes, from these feet and hands which 
 did not cease growing? . . . The doubt was per- 
 missible! . . . 
 
 Unfortunately there came forth from it what I have 
 already said, and the day on which I finally freed 
 myself from the chrysalis state my aunt conducted 
 me straight to the convent. 
 
 My poor mother, who undoubtedly foresaw my 
 future, had exacted from her sister the promise that 
 during at least two years of my life as a young girl, 
 I should live at Paris. And this was the ingenious 
 fashion which the latter found of executing this 
 command from the tomb without crossing her own 
 wishes. Not for anything in the world would she 
 have failed in her word, I am certain of that, but she 
 clothed it in this garb without the slightest scruple, 
 and remained satisfied that I had seen of Paris all 
 that was proper for me to see.
 
 COLETTE. 25 
 
 Time passed; slie came to take me from m}' worldli- 
 ness, and slie brought back to Erlange this niece 
 whom no one desired and who, by the grace of God, 
 will walk perhaps in her steps. 
 
 Understanding this, one can judge if my proposi- 
 tion of never leaving the convent was agreeable to 
 her ! . . . A nun ! — it was the conciliatory solution 
 wliich would not offend any of the sharp points of 
 her sensitive self-love ! 
 
 The veil is not a husband ! and an old maid and a 
 nun are very near each other, when one strips the 
 petals from the daisies. Less exacting than men, the 
 con\'ent does not look at the quality of the pretty faces 
 which it inters, and I had certainly disturbed the lieart 
 of my aunt, during these twenty-four hours, more than 
 I had ever before succeeded in doing since my birth. 
 
 But during tlie interval my too fragile vocation had 
 perished, as we know, and necessity had decreed that 
 iMlle. d"Epine should keep me at her side. This en- 
 forced association seemed to weigh upon her so heavily 
 that I could not prevent myself from imagining that 
 by some diabolical reflection of the past there were 
 brought back to her memory, by the contrast between 
 us two, the coxcombs of former times, those great 
 lovers of witticisms, and that she pictured to herself 
 what sport they would have found for themselves in 
 the comparison, and the way they would have talked 
 about fresh buds blooming upon thorny branches; 
 for this was their way of expressing it formerly.
 
 2 5 COLETTE. 
 
 If these are not the exact words she used about 
 herself while talking with me, — for few people would 
 scourge themselves quite so freely, — still I have scru- 
 pulously given the sense of them, and I am certain 
 that, together with my own recollections and those 
 of Benoite, and with the help of what my aunt has 
 told me, I have pictured her character in the past, 
 the present, and even, alas ! in the future ! . . . 
 
 Since then, life has taken up its course again, or 
 lather its habitual stagnation, and my aunt has given 
 herself the duty of throwing regularly upon my head 
 words which sound like little shovelfuls of earth, with 
 which she hopes to succeed in proving to me that 
 Colette is dead, and can claim nothing in this world 
 but the grace of a '• De profutidis.''^ 
 
 I allow her to go on ! . . . But " Vive Dieii ! " 
 as said the most charming of our kings, " let her take 
 care, for I am not yet dead, and I intend to prove it 
 to her some day^
 
 IV. 
 
 March 4. 
 
 My good Jean Nicolas, it snows faster than ever, 
 and my thermometer is still falling ! Does it speak 
 tlie truth, or is it because in taking it from the win- 
 dow tliis morning after breakfast it brushed my 
 aunt's shoulder ? I do not know, but I am thinking 
 of burning my chairs to increase the fire in my fire- 
 place ! 
 
 To add still more to my misfortunes, the recollec- 
 tions of the past months which I have evoked for 
 the last three days, must have escaped from my room 
 like a flock of bats or of crows of ill-omen, for my 
 aunt's increased bad temper can be explained in no 
 other way, and never have her prophecies of the 
 future taken a more amiable turn. 
 
 Isolated and poverty stricken, for it appears that I 
 am poor, — walls of stone and walls of forgetfulness, — 
 thus she sums up all that separates me from the rest 
 of humanity with a joy which she does not succeed 
 in concealing ; and when she uncovers, in her par- 
 oxysms of gayety, her long lozenge-shaped teeth, 
 black and repulsive from decay, the picture (jf an 
 ogress rises before me, and a shiver which I cannot 
 control passes between my shoulders. 
 
 27
 
 28 COLETTE. 
 
 All is not dark, however, in her anticipations, for 
 she uses pleasant words when she traces for me the 
 picture of our two lives indefinitely prolonged, and 
 always ending together, and in these cases, in order 
 not to cry, I have to look at the window and assure 
 myself that they have not yet put up the bars which 
 prevent little birds from flying away when they have 
 no longer courage or fortitude, and when, if left at 
 liberty, they would die of hunger in the woods. 
 
 She has drunk at the bitter stream of deception ; 
 and whether I will or not, she intends that I shall 
 drink of it in my turn! And if fate does not itself 
 take charge of the execution, she waits to mix for me 
 with her own hands the quassia cup in which every 
 drink becomes bitter. 
 
 Undoubtedly the planets which have traced my 
 horoscope seem to her too indulgent, for she promises 
 herself in petto to efface from it all the golden lines, 
 in order to reduce my destiny exactly to a level with 
 her own. 
 
 Moil Dieu ! the good people of the Revolution did 
 not ask more, after all. What they wished was 
 simply that their misery might become the common 
 misery ; and, that they might be more certain that 
 no one would dine on the days when they were 
 hungry, they took away the roast. . . . But to think 
 from this that a Mile. d'Epine has ever put on a 
 Phrygian cap would be a great mistake. 
 
 Meanwhile, I refurnished my room. A happy
 
 COLETTE. ' 2Q 
 
 chance revealed to me, what for a long time I had 
 suspected, that my softest arm-chairs and my ward- 
 robes which were the least dilapidated, adorned my 
 aunt's room. 
 
 However tightly closed the sanctuary might be, 
 the door was once left partly open, and one of those 
 gusts of wind which toss the branches of our trees 
 like straw under the thrasher, opened it at the time I 
 was passing. 
 
 It was a little palace ! 
 
 My aunt must have consecrated the two years of 
 my absence to feathering her nest, it appeared so 
 soft, only, like a thievish bird, she had done it with 
 the wool belonging to others, and I no longer seek 
 for tlie tapestries of the dining-room, nor for the 
 rare cushions of the salon ; 1 know that she has 
 given them a new destination ! 
 
 Under these conditions, delicacy appeared to me to 
 be out of place ; so I began to carry to my room all 
 that did not exceed the strength of my two arms 
 aided by those of Benoite ; four arms which were 
 worth six ! And my walls were refurnished. 
 
 As a consequence of this, the intermediate rooms 
 were empty ; and from the left to the right wing it 
 was one vast desert, where one made one's way 
 guided by the fires of our encampments at the two 
 extremities. 
 
 The dining-room remained the only common land, 
 as I had respected the silver plate and all tiie chairs !
 
 ^O COLE TTE. 
 
 Moreover, chairs were not lacking to me ; I had a 
 great number of tliem, if not a great variety. My 
 three sofas, for example, are all alike, of sculptured 
 oak, carved as if by the nibblings of the mice, so 
 many details are brought out in relief upon them, 
 and they are covered with green tapestry, upon which 
 beautiful ladies, and cavaliers in armor, utter their 
 insipidities in a garden with walks very steep. 
 The pointed bonnets of the chatelaines often reach 
 to the tops of the trees, and all the figures are seen 
 in profile, as the faces doubtless required a work too 
 ditificult for the embroiderer ; but the whole effect is 
 none the less gay. 
 
 I have arranged them each against a panel of the 
 wall, and my room is of such great length that in 
 approaching one, I have forgotten how the other 
 looked. From the first I can see the sun rise, from 
 the second I am opposite to it as it sets, and from 
 the third I could see the moon if the moon could be 
 seen yet, but to-day from all three I have only seen 
 the falling snow, and I have wished that I Jiad a 
 fourth that I might go and cry upon it. 
 
 My tables cannot be counted, because my aunt 
 likes them the least, so my choice was unlimited. 
 Some are round, some square, in all shapes and 
 colors, and '• Un," who partakes a little, I am afraid, 
 of my wandering fancies, seeks his corner under 
 each of them successively. Between the legs of the 
 smallest ones his solid form gets stuck, and when he
 
 COLETTE. 2 J 
 
 feels himself caught, he drags them about with great 
 angry leaps, making the little drawers fly and barking 
 like mad. But he soon returns to me, and I find 
 again the carpet of which my feet have never had 
 more need ; unless he did, would my dog merit the 
 name which I have given him since my return, and 
 which signifies so many things in a single syllable? 
 
 Formerly, while he was a puppy, I called him 
 " Pataud " : a name without pretension, which I 
 chose for him on account of his slightly awkward 
 grace and his immense head ; but I understand 
 people better now, and when I found myself here 
 once more, and when at the end of a few days I took 
 account of the friends who remained to me, and 
 who still thought of me, and who proved to me that 
 they did so — in all and for all, there was one, one 
 alone, and it was he! . . . Hence his name. 
 
 To return to my furniture, I have completed it 
 with six praying-stools found in a bunch : they 
 have twisted legs of black oak, and cushions of 
 crimson velvet with tassels of gold where the knees 
 have left their mark. 1 lose myself in reflections 
 before those two little round hollows, seeking the 
 history and the thoughts of those who made them, 
 but I only smell a frightful odor of dust, from whence 
 some moths come forth and fly about with a terrified 
 air, still sluggish with their endless feasting ! 
 
 One of these praying-stools, devoted to its original 
 purpose, is placed one side ; and with the others.
 
 32 
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 ma foi, I must suppl}- all that is lacking to me ; — 
 low chairs, easy chairs, lounging chairs, which 
 can be distinguished only by the names which I 
 have given to them ; but they furnish me with the 
 illusion that I might seat a dozen people at a time 
 if they should come. 
 
 My poor Benoite is at her wit's end trying to 
 amuse me. When she sees me at the verge of 
 melancholy, she makes use of her great resource ; 
 she says to me very low with an eye on the door in 
 order to prevent surprises: ''Would you like to 
 make some pan-cakes, my Colette?"' But I soon 
 weary of sprinkling the fire with the dough and 
 greasing my fingers with the butter, and I seat 
 myself upon the hearth while she takes my place. 
 
 Sometimes also she attempts to put her knitting 
 into my hands, an interminable stocking, the stitches 
 of which I count without trouble, but I do not like to 
 work any better than to cook, and the good woman 
 has just commenced again her nursery tales in order 
 to make me laugh. "Once upon a time there was a 
 king and a queen — " But, merciful heavens ! where 
 are they, this king and this queen, and since they 
 had no children, why have they not adopted me as a 
 daughter? . . .
 
 "1 SOON WJOAUV Ol' .SI'HI.NKI-INti TlIK I'llii; Willi I II K 
 
 UoLGH."
 
 V. 
 
 March 5. 
 
 This morning a diversion has been brought about, 
 and I still laugh at it all by myself. The store of 
 salted provisions had given out, it seems, and my 
 aunt, who is very fond of these things, had sent an 
 order to the village for more. Accordingly, about 
 nine o'clock, a cloth-covered wagon with the snow up 
 to the hubs, and all its bells shaking, entered the court- 
 yard ; it was Bidouillet who had arrived with his pro- 
 visions. 
 
 A new face, a new voice, a noise at the door ; it 
 seemed to me that some one had drawn away a cur- 
 tain from before me, and I flew down the stairs like 
 a whirlwind. 
 
 " Ah ! M. Bidouillet, it is you ! and do you bring 
 some sausages ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you please, Mademoiselle ! " 
 
 And the good man turned towards me confused 
 and stupefied, with his mouth and eyes wide open, 
 with astonishment, his provisions in his arms, and his 
 furred bonnet drawn down over his eyebrows, while 
 his son, occupied witli rubbing down the legs of the 
 horse with a bunch of straw, stopped short, like a toy 
 with a broken spring. 
 
 ^ 33
 
 24 COLETTE. 
 
 Evidently they both thought me extremely pecul- 
 iar, the warmth of my reception surprised them, and 
 I am certain that even to this hour they believe me 
 to have a positive passion for pork, a taste which I 
 have never known : but one does not wait three 
 months for an interlocutor to be so quickly discour- 
 aged when one has been found, and while Bidouillet, 
 who is not a great talker, followed Benoite, I devoted 
 myself to the boy, whom I brought in to warm him- 
 self. 
 
 " What are they doing in the village, how do they 
 pass their time, and do they think down there that 
 the snow will last for a long time to come ? " 
 
 But the more questions I asked, the more obsti- 
 nately silent the little fellow became, opening his 
 mouth at last in an inextinguishable laugh, and amus- 
 ing himself at my expense with so much good faith 
 that his gayety ended by overcoming me also, and 
 there we were laughing like two simpletons. 
 
 After that, confidence was established between us, 
 and he began to reply to my questions, and now I 
 know that down in the village the people prepare the 
 seed and put their tools and ploughs in good condi- 
 tion during the day, and in the evening they visit one 
 another without ceremony, and converse over some 
 nuts which they crack, and over apples which they 
 pare. When that is done, they draw chestnuts 
 from the fire, they drink white wine, and then they 
 go to bed very happily ! It seems to me that I can
 
 COLETTE. -- 
 
 taste the flavor of the wine even up here, and I sliall 
 open my window this evening that I may listen to 
 the laughter in the distance, like the poor wretch 
 who eats his crust of bread with the odor in his 
 nostrils of the roast which he covets. 
 
 " As for the snow, well, it may continue to fall, or it 
 may stop, for it is certain that at this time of the year 
 it will require only a single ray of sunlight to put an 
 end to it."' I believe I might have found out as 
 much as that myself, and I was imagining that there 
 were among the country people some clever old men 
 who would know yet more. 
 
 '• And in the evenings wlien you are alone, what do 
 you do, my good man ? " I asked at length. 
 
 "They tell their beads.'' 
 
 "And when they have finished ?" 
 
 '• When they have finished, ah ! good gracious ! 
 .Mamselle Colette, then I have been asleep for a long 
 time ! " 
 
 We burst into laughter, and from that we passed 
 on to the animals. 
 
 " Did the Bidouillets have many of them ? Of what 
 kind were they, and who cared for them ? " 
 
 He described to me the herds of cattle and the 
 flocks, like a skilful shepherd, — for he was the shep- 
 herd himself, — and when he added that the work 
 would be doubled this summer, as the flock had in- 
 creased so much : — 
 
 " Will you not need a shepherdess ? " I asked him.
 
 36 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 "In case you do, I know of one who would willingly 
 engage herself to you and without making any diffi- 
 culties about wages, too ! " 
 
 Immediately he put on the cunning air of the 
 countryman, who foresees a good thing, and, in an 
 indifferent tone : — 
 
 "One might consider it," he said ; "does she live 
 here, Mamselle Colette? " 
 
 " I should say she did," I replied, " for it is I, 
 myself ! " 
 
 That was our last word for the time being ! As- 
 tonishment had again seized liim, and I had drawn 
 from him nothing but a gesture, when his father cried 
 from below : — 
 
 " Eh ! boy, are you there ? " 
 
 I left him to find out if he was there, and if he had 
 w'it enough left to say so ! 
 
 "Think of me when you are in need of one," I called 
 at the moment when the wagon rolled away from the 
 door ; " I am quite in earnest, you know ! " And I 
 went running upstairs delighted with my morning. 
 
 Just at that moment I encountered Benoite in the 
 corridor, and in spite of the piles of plates which she 
 held, I tlirew my arms about her, exclaiming, — 
 " Rejoice, Benoite ! we will crack nuts this whole 
 evening ! " 
 
 " Nuts ! " she exclaimed ; " what for ? Do you wish 
 some to eat ? " 
 
 " Ohj no ! my poor nurse^ it is a way of amusing
 
 COLETTE. 27 
 
 ourselves ! It appears that that occupation can make 
 one laugh." 
 
 She went away, shaking her head, but she prom- 
 ised to bring down a sack from the garret, and to 
 find two hammers for us that we may crack the nuts 
 in the chimney-corner ! 
 
 43iG51
 
 VI. 
 
 March 6. 
 
 Our two cows have been dry for a week. This 
 circumstance did not seem funny to me, not even in- 
 teresting ; but it has procured for me the happiest day 
 that I have passed for a long time. 
 
 On the first day after they went dry we had tea, 
 on the second coffee, and Benoite spoke of soup for 
 the third morning; but Mile. d'Epine, who is not the 
 friend of privation, sent word to a milk-woman in 
 the village, and since that time she has brought up to 
 us the necessary ration on the back of her donkey 
 every day. 
 
 This morning, as she came late, I was up when 
 she arrived, and I was watching her measure her 
 milk, when my aunt rang her bell violently. Seldom 
 does the bell, which connects her room with the 
 kitchen, make itself heard outside of the regular 
 hours, so when the event happens, it is an extraor- 
 dinary sign, and Benoite, foreseeing the cause of 
 the summons, took her flask of balm, divining that 
 my aunt had awakened with a pain in her left shoul- 
 der, which would require repeated and vigorous rub- 
 bings. During this time, the good woman had 
 emptied her jar. all our pitchers were filled, and she- 
 was preparing to depart. 
 
 38
 
 COLETTE. -g 
 
 '* You have brought up too much, then ? " I asked 
 her, seeing in the second saddle-bag another full 
 jar. 
 
 "Excuse me, Mamselle Colette, there is just 
 enough." 
 
 " For us ? " 
 
 "Not for you, for the other people, whose cows no 
 longer give any milk." 
 
 " What ! You are going still higher up ? " 
 
 " To the Nid-du-FoI, yes, Mamselle." 
 
 She was warming her feet again while speaking to 
 me, and shivering as she thought of the cold outside ; 
 she took up her measuring cup and was about to 
 depart, when suddenly, irresistibly, the idea came to 
 me of seating m3-self upon her beast in her place, 
 and of going to deliver the milk in her name, and of 
 thus having a delightful journey among the great 
 snow-flakes which were falling. The tliought alone 
 made me tremble with delight ; all the impatience of 
 the past days of seclusion boiled in my veins, and I 
 imagined with glee the donkey trotting in the soft 
 snow, the wind beating upon me, and the astonishment 
 of the people above when they saw the change of faces. 
 
 As for the good woman, when I told her my plan in 
 two words, she talked, exxlaimed, protested, and 
 called to Benoite in vain ; I paid no attention to her, 
 but equipped myself in haste. Our walls, moreover, 
 are not the kind which allows the voice to be lieard 
 easily ; I was sure that my nurse would not hear
 
 40 COLE TTE. 
 
 me, and I knew that I could make her say 'yes^ eight 
 times where in mind and will she would have said 'no.' 
 
 At the same time I tempted my new patroness by 
 seating her near the fire ; I showed her that she had 
 a red nose, hands numb with cold, and blue lips, and 
 that an hour of rest and warmth would be just what 
 she needed to restore her. I assured her of my 
 care for her property, of my thoughtfulness for her 
 donkey, of my perfect knowledge of the way and of 
 the houses of her customers, and before she could 
 say another word, I had her shawl over my shoulders, 
 her hood drawn down to my eyes, and in my hand 
 her iTistic switch which I made use of very dexter- 
 ously, I assure you ! 
 
 During the first quarter of an hour it was enchant- 
 ing ; the donkey's gait was gentle, the snow which 
 swept my cheeks, soft and light as down, and I sang 
 in a loud voice like a professional muleteer. But 
 little by little the footpath grew steep, the stones 
 hidden under the snow began to make us stumble, and 
 in turning a bend in the road, the wind took me in 
 hand, and a couple of gusts sent my hood to the right, 
 my shawl to the left, and forced me to leap to the 
 earth and wrap myself up again as best I could, while 
 that villanous donkey continued his journey, and I 
 pursued him, uttering all the known exclamations : — ■ 
 
 ^'Whoa! . . . Whoa! . . . Whoa there! Whoa 
 — oa there ! . . . Whoa there, I say ! " 
 
 Even when I had overtaken him, it was another
 
 COLETTE. ^^ 
 
 thing to hoist myself up ; the saddle turned, supports 
 were lacking, I put my foot upon ten small hummocks 
 before finding one which was not all snow, and in which 
 I was not buried almost up to my knees ; and finally 
 seated upon this shaking chateau. I uttered a cry of 
 triumph only to find that the donkey was seized with 
 a contrary fancy, his four feet remained glued to the 
 earth, and I tried in vain with my hands, my voice, 
 and my switch to make him go ; he was like a rock 
 except when he leaped like a sheep, and made the 
 milk rise and splash out upon the mixture of snow and 
 earth, and up to my very ears. The character of my 
 exclamations changed. 
 
 " Go on ! whoop ! Gee ! Gee there ! P-r-r-r ! " 
 At last our two wills fell into accord and he went on 
 again. 
 
 At the Nid-du-Fol the snow is blinding and the wind 
 a tornado, and when I come to the first house, my nose 
 and my lips are like a milk-woman's. The people 
 cry out, they warm me up again, and as they say that 
 the wind is freshening and that there will be a tempest 
 before long, I start back almost immediately. But 
 this time we are facing the wind, and neither my 
 donkey nor myself like that. 'l"he slope is hard to 
 descend, the snow is freezing, the path grows worse 
 and worse ; we go slipping and sliding a good halfway 
 down the hill, where the final catastrophe takes place. 
 At this point our troubles increase; with a marvellous 
 sagacity, my donkey recognizes that safety, impossible
 
 42 COLETTE. 
 
 for both of us, is yet possible for him ; he lets his four 
 feet slip all together, rolls over, and deposits me in an 
 immense drift where the heaped-up snow receives me 
 as upon a mattress, but where I remain more en- 
 tangled than in a nest of feathers, while he goes off at 
 a gallop which makes the ground tremble. 
 
 It was certainly droll, and my first impulse was 
 one of gayety, so much the more as I imagined that 
 I could easily get upon my feet again, whenever I 
 wished. But the shock had stunned me probably, 
 for, in spite of all my efforts, it was a thing impossi- 
 ble for me to do. and I felt so clumsy that I com- 
 pared myself, I remember, to a beetle turned over on 
 its back and wildlv waving its feet in the air. 
 
 I no longer felt any strength in my limbs, and 
 little by little, it seemed to me that my heart was 
 turning into water like the snow which melted under 
 my fingers, and that something was taking away by 
 degrees all the sense that I had ; my head was 
 beginning to feel so empty. . . . 
 
 Apart from that, however, the situation was not 
 disagreeable ; the depth of my hole sheltered me from 
 the gusts of wind, and my bed, in spite of its fresh- 
 ness, was soft — so soft, indeed, that I sank yet farther 
 into it, and, like little powders, other flakes covered 
 me up as the white shroud enfolds the dead. 
 
 As time passed, I felt the cold less ; I liked this 
 sleep which was stealing so softly over me, and in 
 spite of the very clear sensation which I still re-
 
 COLETTE. ^, 
 
 tained, that no one could ever draw me forth from 
 there, I had no fear, and I would willingly have 
 smiled ; but my lips refused to move, and I experi- 
 enced what statues must feel, if statues think at all ; 
 that is to say, desires for motion in marble arms 
 incapable of motion, speech striving for utterance in 
 a lifeless throat, ideas seeking expression in a petrified 
 brain. * 
 
 Then . . . little by little . . . nothing more! and it 
 seemed to me that I was no longer a woman of flesh 
 and blood, but a mass of lead, the heaviness which 
 I felt was becoming so intense. 
 
 I cannot tell how long this suspension of life lasted. 
 . . . Had it been an hour or a day, it mattered little, 
 for I think that I should have suffered neither more 
 nor less if it had been more prolonged ; and when I 
 returned to consciousness, I was not far from being 
 angry that they had interrupted my comfortable 
 repose ! 
 
 Upon one side of my bed some one was weeping ; 
 it was my poor Benoite ; upon the other I felt a 
 moist muzzle which glided under the clothes, and it 
 was thus that I awoke between my two dearest 
 affections. Upon one of my sofas, regardless of 
 the dignity of my beautiful dames, the milk-woman 
 sobbed, and my first clear sensation was of remarking 
 that her hands were as red as ever. How was it that 
 she had not succeeded in warming them in all that 
 lime?
 
 44 COLETTE. 
 
 Moreover, I was still in doubt ; was my bed of 
 snow, or of wool? But, in stretching out my hands, 
 I encountered at the right and at the left, bottles of 
 warm water laid against me, then still others, and 
 the rosary of bottles continued down to my feet. It 
 is a cremation I It is useless to interpret it as the 
 effect of a reaction felt after a severe cold, for I should 
 not find that in my drift ; I am quite convinced that I 
 am at home ! Moreover, the only familiar figure that 
 is lacking to the picture comes out of the shadow, 
 and I liear my aunt's voice : " She is a fool, an 
 absolute fool, and I repeat to you that I can do 
 nothing for her ! But, really, she might have remem- 
 bered that we are not prepared to have frozen peop'-e 
 in the house ! " 
 
 So I am frozen ? This idea impresses me ; and 
 while the door shuts under the amiable hand that 
 I know so well, all the tales that I have heard come 
 back to my mind, and I have a vision of toes taken 
 off with the boots, and of hands falling off with the 
 gloves, which makes me tremble! Where have they 
 left mine, bon Dieiil It seems to me that I am like 
 spun glass, and seized with fear while thinking of 
 my fragility, I no longer dare to move, until a cry of 
 joy my poor old nurse utters on hearing me breathe, 
 makes me laugh in spite of myself. 
 
 My lips have not fallen off; I venture my arms out- 
 side the coverlets to extend them to her, and I dis- 
 cover with pleasure that I have all my fingers yet. It
 
 COLETTE. ^r 
 
 is a happy moment ! Then comes my story, Hke the 
 rescues at Mont Saint Bernard, in which the obhging 
 Newfoundland plays his role in the person of " Un," 
 and from which I learn that, after my dog. I owe my 
 safety to the resolute gallop of the donkey on his return. 
 
 A little less strength in his gait, a lighter blow of 
 the hoof, and the imprints which were already three- 
 quarters filled when they set out upon the search, 
 would have been entirely obliterated, and I sliould 
 have remained in my hole until the next spring! 
 
 After the tears and the pity, the scolding came : be 
 it well understood that Benoite declares that she will 
 never forgive me. 
 
 Her tone is so serious this time, that I believe that 
 it will be necessary to wait until the evening kiss, 
 before peace can be made and I see her dissolved 
 in tenderness. 
 
 In the meantime she stuffs me with hot ptisans, 
 which she brings to me without looking at me, and 
 which she extends while turning aside her head, and 
 in the interval - Un " serves me all alone. He it is 
 that brings me my note-book, my pen, and even my 
 bottle of ink, and all that without soiling the ends 
 of his teeth : and it is partly to him and partly to my 
 patient mute, Jean Nicolas, that I have related this 
 affair.
 
 VII. 
 
 March 7. 
 
 Had it not been for the jealous watch which Be- 
 noite kept over me, I should have gone back to my 
 drift ; for, upon my word, anything is preferable to 
 the life which I lead here ! 
 
 Nothing remains of my accident, not even a sneeze, 
 and all that I have gained is no longer to have the 
 right to pass the threshold of my door without my 
 dog pulling me back by my dress and barking until 
 Benoite comes running up and authoritatively orders 
 me back again. 
 
 Just now, I took up the book of the Princesses of 
 former times, but I discovered that I knew it by heart, 
 for without turning the first page, I continued the sen- 
 tence I was reading, and I think it will require sev- 
 eral weeks for me to forget it sufficiently. . . . The 
 calendar which I made for myself, that I might be able 
 to cross off a date every evening, becomes too slow ; 
 I have written another for every hour in the day, and 
 although the act is a dozen times more frequent, I 
 still catch myself pushing forward the hands of the 
 clock to hasten the joy of putting the stroke of the 
 pen through the hour that I inter! 
 
 Things cannot long remain like this ! . . . The roads 
 will not always be impassable, and then, indeed, I will 
 
 46
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 47 
 
 find a way of filling my time, even if I am obliged to go 
 about the country with a peddler's pack upon my back ! 
 
 I have dreamed of it ; I have even thought of what 
 I would carry. But all is gone to ruin here! With 
 difiiculty have I been able to collect ten old silk dresses 
 in the wardrobes, and in a chest some ends of old lace. 
 What would our mountaineer women do with those? 
 
 One trade of which I have often thought, is that of 
 the maids in the village inn ! To see people all of 
 the time, always to be moving about, always to be 
 talking ! A jug in the hand, and a smile upon the lips 
 from morning until evening ! that is a life worth the 
 living! But would they engage me down there? . . . 
 That is what I do not know ! 
 
 While waiting, melancholy enervates me. I begin 
 to make concessions, compromises ; I surprise myself 
 by sacrificing something in the appearance of my 
 ideal, — of this image so clearly defined in my mind 
 up to this time, — and I now commence to dream of a 
 blond head, with great blue eyes, a childlike air, and 
 a short mustache, even a somewhat inferior stature, 
 very inferior indeed will suffice, if only he can find 
 the means of taking me away from this place ! 
 
 The isolation is making me weak, and I begin to 
 understand those people who are made to deny their 
 most firmly established convictions by the torture. 
 . . . My torture at first appears liglit ! But in the long 
 run ! . . . In the leng run I truly believe that it would 
 make me go through a finger ring, if I could escape 
 from it in that way !
 
 VIII. 
 
 March 8. 
 
 My friend, the milk-woman, has just been up to my 
 room to inquire after my health, and to assure her- 
 self with her own eyes that I have come out of my 
 accident without harm. 
 
 She can hardly believe her eyes, and has confessed 
 to me frankly that for an entire hour she considered 
 me dead. 
 
 However, this is the way things generally go ; 
 here am I without a scratch, and that agreeable don- 
 key, who certainly thought he was doing the best 
 thing for himself, is obliged to stay in his stable 
 with a terrible cold, bunches of straw about him, and 
 warm drinks served to him in his stall. 
 
 The good woman did not trouble herself about him, 
 however. He is subject, it appears, to these little 
 misfortunes, and with his hoofs in slippers^ he will 
 soon be well again. 
 
 All is then going well ; I made my visitor sit down, 
 delighted that I had such a windfall, and bent 
 upon making her talk a long time. 
 
 Naturally, after a moment, my own prank came 
 again to the front, and as I was laughing at her ex- 
 clamations of fright and pity : — 
 
 48
 
 COLRTTE. ^g 
 
 " It is certain," said she, '• that for a young girl, 
 the life here is not very gay, and one can understand 
 that you would seek a change sometimes." . . . 
 
 She reflected a little, then very naively asked me 
 if I did not think the best way would be to marry 
 and go away, and if my aunt was not busying herself 
 with bringing this about ? 
 
 I replied 'no,' without laughing this time, and just 
 as she was going out of the door, I heard her mur- 
 mur between her teeth : •• The Mother Lancien might 
 perhaps give good advice." - 1 did not think then of 
 questioning her, but I can hardly wait for to-morrow 
 to come when I can ask her who this Mother Lancien 
 is, with her golden advice, which can perhaps take 
 me out of my troubles, if one may believe my milk- 
 woman. . . . 
 
 E
 
 IX. 
 
 March 9. 
 
 It is as if one had just taken away one of the 
 tiles from my roof, and that through this opening I 
 could see the sky for the first time ; and that I could 
 thrust out my arms to the elbow ; the revelation of 
 my friend has put so much hope into my heart ! 
 
 To-morrow I will have the opinion of this Mother 
 Lancien, or I will lose my name, and if the oracle of 
 this sibyl does not save me, it is because my case is 
 desperate, and it will only remain for me to give my- 
 self up to the current, with my hands crossed over 
 my eyes, and to say : Amen ! 
 
 How does it happen that the reputation of such a 
 woman has not come to me before ? I can only 
 explain it to myself by seeing how little the owls in 
 our ruins know of the ai^airs of the neighboring dove- 
 cote. 
 
 This veneration which surrounds, her ought to have 
 climbed even our little hill, so greatly is she cele- 
 brated ; and one sliould hear my milk-woman talk 
 about her ! When she spoke of her to me just now, 
 one would have said that it was a priest drawing the 
 veil from the altar before an attentive crowd : and 
 while listening to her, I surprised myself by rising to 
 make a reverential bow every time her name was 
 
 50
 
 COLETTE. ej 
 
 mentioned, just as we used to bow during vespers in 
 the Gloria Patri, when all our heads bent at the 
 same time, like the grain under a breeze. 
 
 And moreover, I never had the least desire to 
 laugh ! 1 shall always adore the magic wand ex- 
 tended towards me whether it is made from hazel- 
 wood, or cedar, and I already venerate the round cap 
 of my adviser. 
 
 Death, marriage, birth, — this woman takes part in 
 them all in the village ! She it is who blesses the 
 betrothals, and who puts the destiny of the little one 
 into each cradle, and if I had been born at Erlange, 
 I would go and complain to her of the lot which I 
 have received! 
 
 With all this being half a doctor, and having the 
 rude concurrence of the village doctor, she glues her 
 patients together, and cures and comforts them with 
 the skill of a fairy. Stiffened feet, deep cuts in the 
 flesh, malignant fevers, — she cures all ; and as her 
 plasters smell strongly of tallow, and her potions are 
 perfumed with mint and thyme, and her prescriptions 
 are given in a frank patois, all of which things they 
 are quite accustomed to, they have confidence in her 
 and take her medicines. Besides, she is not exclusive, 
 she receives all kinds of patients in a friendly way, 
 and more than one comes from the poultry-yard or 
 the stable. 
 
 She knows the kind of dough to use to make a 
 hen lay at once, the fodder which fattens, and that
 
 52 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 which is injurious, and no doubt if we had turned to 
 her at the right time, our cows would never have 
 known the humiliation of becoming dry. 
 
 Finally, the thing which completes her list of per- 
 fections, and which concerns me most directly, is 
 that her skill does not stop at material things, and 
 that there is no difficulty, however intricate it may 
 appear, which she is not able to straighten out. Like 
 the good " Percinet " in the fairy tale, who sorted out 
 ten tons of humming-birds' feathers with three blows 
 of his wand, she finds a remedy for troubles at 
 once, and the most refractory and those who only go 
 to her as a last resource and because they are worn 
 out with the struggle, return in delight. 
 
 Thus the procession never stops. Cattle that are 
 led by the halter, sick people whom they lead by the 
 arm, or those seeking advice who come to her in 
 the dusk of evening, each has to take his place in the 
 line at her door. 
 
 In addition to all this, she is a very holy woman, 
 with a very clean white magic ; one who does not put 
 the smallest imp in the bottom of her kettle, and 
 who has leisure to go and burn a few candles for 
 the troubles of her clients. 
 
 I will see her to-morrow, the thing is settled, and 
 Benoite lying across my threshold could not prevent 
 me from going to find her. Moreover, my poor old 
 nurse will know nothing about it until it is too late, 
 I hope, for I form my plans in the dark, and prepare my
 
 COLETTE. r^ 
 
 cape and pilgrim's staff without crying, " Take care," 
 — up to this time I hold even "Un" himself at a 
 distance. I am suspicious of his great zeal, and 
 there is a time when even a dog can speak too much, 
 in spite of his enforced reserve. 
 
 Behind the door, where I have tied him, he whines 
 to arouse my pity, and he scratches the wainscoting 
 so vigorously that I think he hopes, by means of 
 his claws, to make a hole to which he can put his 
 eye. But I watch him, and the better to keep my 
 secret, I will not speak even to myself until to- 
 morrow.
 
 X. 
 
 March io. 
 
 Certainly the snow has some secret influence over 
 me, and for a Httle while this morning I was again 
 under its spell. But I have something better to do 
 this time than to be lulled to sleep by the singing 
 of the wind ! The man who carries a treasure and 
 he who has empty hands do not walk in the same 
 way ! . . . So I struggled, and here I am ! 
 
 My departure was easy. As Benoite was plunged 
 in the joys of a great house-cleaning, and " Un " was 
 shut up in a wardrobe, access to the fields was no 
 longer difficult. 
 
 My dress raised high, my mountain shoes upon my 
 feet, a cloak of my grandmother's around my shoul- 
 ders, I was equipped to walk to Siberia, and never 
 would the journey have been more quickly made. 
 
 I had not gone five hundred steps, however, when 
 a black ball came down the road, and my poor dog 
 rejoined me. 
 
 Had he overturned the wardrobe, broken open 
 the door, or eaten the lock, to set himself free ? I 
 do not know yet ; but as soon as I was certain that 
 he had not noised abroad my departure and that no 
 one was following him, I confessed that I was de- 
 
 54
 
 "Kai'I'Inu on thk Dook wj] II TiiK Ends OK mv Fingeus."
 
 COLETTE. er 
 
 lighted to have him to lean upon on the long road, 
 and to be able to discuss with him all that I was 
 going to say and do. 
 
 The house of Mother Lancien stands a little apart 
 from the village, and is hidden in a group of pine 
 trees whose high branches spread themselves over the 
 roof like another covering. The snow has beaten 
 into the path which leads up to it, and I think that 
 in summer little grass grows there. For some reason, 
 I was at the head of the procession, and my being 
 alone seemed to promise me a long conference. . . . 
 
 While rapping on the door with the ends of my 
 fingers, I ventured to put an eye to the square pane 
 of the nearest window. The prophetess was there, 
 seated beside the hearth. On the fire five or six logs 
 were smoking, and above them was a great kettle, 
 the cover of which the good woman carefully raises 
 as she smells the contents. . . . Heavens! it smells 
 like fresh meat, it seems to me ! . . . I feel a slight 
 shiver between my shoulders, and without knocking 
 again, I draw back a little, — but, bah ! do not sor- 
 ceresses know everything! Through the walls she 
 divines my presence, she rises, opens her door, looks 
 at me a moment, skulking against the wall and as 
 ashamed as a little chimney-sweep crying with hun- 
 ger, and as little astonished as if I came to her for the 
 twentieth time : — 
 
 "Mamselle Colette! Come in and warm yourself 
 a little, for the wind is biting this morning ! "
 
 56 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 Then she installs me in an arm-chair of straw, and 
 seats herself opposite me, while " Un " lies down at 
 my feet contentedly stretching out his paws upon the 
 warm stones. At first, I must confess that I quite lost 
 countenance. I had thrown my cloak upon the back 
 of the chair, and the snow-flakes, which melted in the 
 warmth, fell one by one in cold drops down my 
 neck, without my having the least idea of drawing 
 back. 
 
 Meanwhile, she brightened up the fire, and scattered 
 the cinders, all without saying anything; then, at the 
 moment when not being able to keep silent any longer, 
 1 was going to utter some nonsense : — 
 
 '' Do you like them very warm ? " she asked me, 
 quietly uncovering her great kettle again, and taking 
 out some potatoes beautifully cooked. 
 
 Through the cracks in the skin, the mealy flesh, 
 almost like silver in its whiteness, came forth in tiny 
 flakes, and the steam which went up from them filled 
 the whole room with its perfume. 
 
 At the same time my tongue was loosened, and in 
 broken phrases, interrupting myself to breathe upon 
 my fingers, or to change my potato into the other 
 hand, I related my troubles and asked her advice. 
 
 Mother Lancien heard me to the end without a 
 sign, her arms crossed above her head, and with a 
 smile which became more and more kind ; then when 
 I had finished : — 
 
 " My good child," said she, gently, " your case is
 
 COLE TTE. 1 7 
 
 not serious, and moreo\er, I do not know any that is 
 incurable at twenty years of age : but I am afraid that 
 the good people here have greatly deceived you as to 
 what I am able to do. and that you believe me to 
 possess a power which I have not. My remedies are 
 very simple and you would find as many and perhaps 
 better ones than I have, if you sought for them. 
 
 •' During such cold weather as this, for example, I 
 keep those who have coughs in their rooms, and those 
 who have fevers in their beds, — all of whom would 
 have nothing to gain outside in such weather ; but I 
 send out into the air the healthy, those who like to 
 sleep in the chimney-corner and in the smoke of 
 their pipes. As both feel much better, and as no one 
 has thought of doing this before, they call it a mira- 
 cle done by Mother Lancien, and it is all like this. 
 . . . Between us two, we can say, can we not, that 
 the trick is innocent? 
 
 " Now you are disappointed, and you think to your- 
 self that if you had known all this, you would not 
 have come such a long way to see an old woman who 
 knows so little ! Perhaps, nevertheless, we can find 
 what you need. 
 
 " If the time of the fairies and witches is past, 
 there yet remain to us good spirits, always ready 
 to take away our troubles, and to them I di- 
 rect you. . . . May God guard me from speaking 
 lightly of them or comparing them to others that 
 have been imagined in former times ! But in this
 
 58 
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 affair where no one on earth can help you, what 
 about the saints in Paradise, my young lady ? " 
 
 " The saints in Paradise ! " I confess that I was 
 abashed, and if Mother Lancien had drawn from her 
 bread trough a young and beautiful cavalier with a 
 curled mustache and a plumed hat in his hand, in 
 order to present him to me, it would have scarcely 
 astonished me more. However, as she was waiting 
 for a reply : — 
 
 " Nothing at all ! " I said. 
 
 "There it is," said she ; "just as I thought ! " 
 
 And then she explained to me very clearly how one 
 can obtain all that one desires by praying well ; how 
 one ought to set about it ; of whom one should ask 
 this favor, and of whom that, so that it seemed as if 
 she must have lived very familiarly with these great 
 saints of whom she spoke, and that she could answer 
 for the sentiments of them all. 
 
 " When you were a child," said she, " whom did 
 you ask to give you the fruits placed too high for 
 your little hands upon the branches of the trees ? 
 Those taller than you, did you not ? By process of 
 growth you have now reached the stature of every one 
 else as respects earthly things, but for those that 
 are still beyond you, do as formerly, seek some one 
 taller than yourself, for there will always be things 
 that you cannot reach ! " 
 
 She spoke so simply, but yet so grandly — if this 
 word can be employed here — that without speaking
 
 COLETTE. CO 
 
 ill of our Cure, never had one of liis sermons been 
 worth as much to me, and her faith was so true and 
 so communicative, that my heart beat fast while lis- 
 tening to her, and it seemed to me that in the 
 clouds through the little window-panes, 1 saw all 
 the inhabitants of Paradise with half-opened hands 
 smiling at me in the distance, and ready to let fall 
 upon me, at my prayer, all the good fortune at their 
 disposal. 
 
 Why had I never thought of this resource ? I 
 could not understand it ! And when I see the place 
 that my nine days' devotions now hold in my life and 
 heart, I am tempted to weep over the lost time ! 
 
 But now there was no longer any trouble ! Nine 
 days are so soon passed, and they appear so short, 
 when one knows that happiness awaits one at the 
 end ! 
 
 " You must address yourself to St. Joseph," said 
 Mother Lancien to me, '-and I cannot remember that 
 he lias ever refused what I have asked of him. Only 
 your prayers must be fervent, your nine days fully 
 accomplished, and your faith absolute ! " . . . 
 
 Absolute ! Tis that already, even as if the saint 
 himself had given me his word, and I would not for 
 an empire prolong my nine days a half hour beyond 
 the time prescribed ! Moses paid too dearly for the 
 thoughtlessness of his second blow willi tlie rod upon 
 the rock of Horeb. I will confine myself to one ! 
 Only I will so strike upon my saint's conscience and
 
 go COLETTE. 
 
 find words so convincing that perhaps I shall not 
 have to wait even for the nine days to be completed 
 before the spring issues from the cleft. 
 
 Oh ! this Mother Lancien, I adore her ! And if 
 she wishes it, in the chariot that bears me away, 1 
 will make a place for her !
 
 XI. 
 
 March ii. 
 
 The altar which I have erected to my saint is su- 
 perb, and one entire corner of my room is transformed. 
 
 The greatest difficulty has been to find a statue of 
 him. ^nd in despair 1 was going to take a St. John 
 Baptist, entreating him to permit me to invoke him 
 under the name of St. Joseph, when 1 discovered in 
 the chapel, in a distant recess, what I desired. 
 
 The statue is small, but made entirely of silver, and 
 the little branch of lilies, which he holds in his hand, 
 has the grace of natural flowers. 
 
 Putting many supports under him, has raised him 
 above the candelabra, and, as he is now very high, he 
 appears smaller in the distance, and already half lost 
 in the sky. 
 
 Before him I have placed some holly with red 
 l;erries upon it, which grows in the snow in the park, 
 and all my praying-stools which I have not wished to 
 employ for profane uses. 
 
 March 12. 
 
 How will he come to my relief ? Under what form 
 will he send my liberator to me ? I do not dare to 
 think of that, and I dream of the manner in which a 
 
 61
 
 62 COLETTE. 
 
 saint might come from the sl<y to arrange the affairs 
 of a poor Colette lost in her mountain. 
 
 In what mysterious way is he going to persuade a 
 stranger to venture up here ? And how will this 
 gentleman finally present himself? Will he ring the 
 great bell at the door, and, in order to announce 
 himself, will it be necessary for him to say to Benoite : 
 " Mademoiselle, here I am ; I am the one whom St. 
 Joseph has sent '".''. . . 
 
 I think and I think, until I almost lose my mind ! 
 
 Then I become afraid lest my questionings and my 
 anxieties have not all the qualities of a most sincere 
 faith, and Mother Lancien has said : " Implicit faith ! " 
 Then I stop myself, I close my eyes and my ears, and 
 I no longer think of anything. 
 
 March 13. 
 
 My prayers are so often repeated, and so many times 
 during the day I am kneeling before my statue, that I 
 am afraid sometimes of wearying him with the monot- 
 ony, and I set my wits at work to vary the formula. 
 
 I turn my sentences about ; upon the same founda- 
 tion I put other words ; I select my expressions with 
 the painstaking of a careful writer, and I wish that 
 I knew several languages that I might be able to say 
 my prayers in the morning in French, at noon in 
 Italian, and in the evening in Spanish, just to make a 
 little more variety. 
 
 As the time passes, my hope grows stronger, and it 
 is now a certainty.
 
 COLETTE. (.^ 
 
 March 14. 
 More than five days ! . . . 
 
 In spite of myself, at times I am troubled. This 
 event which is coming so quickly, and which is going 
 to change the whole course of my life, impresses and 
 agitates me. 
 
 Moreover, it seems to me that I ouglit already to 
 prepare myself a little, and this morning I commenced 
 to arrange my affairs and the knick-knacks that I liked. 
 
 While thus occupied, Benoite came in, and as she 
 watched me folding up two summer dresses : — 
 
 " You are going away, my Colette ? " she said to me, 
 smiling. . . . 
 
 I did not reply, I did not think that I had the right 
 
 to announce anything yet ; but she does not know 
 
 how truly she spoke ! . . . 
 
 March 15. 
 
 Certainly between my saint and myself there is a 
 perfect understanding. To-day as with my finest linen 
 handkerchief, I brushed away the dust which had fal- 
 len upon his feet since last night, it seemed to me that 
 a smile passed into his eyes, and that his little branch 
 of lilies moved slightly as an encouraging sign. 
 
 March 16. 
 
 Is there something in my face or manner that be- 
 trays me ? I do not know ; but my aunt's eyes grow 
 larger and appear anxious as they follow me. 
 
 I have looked in a mirror to see what I could dis- 
 cover, but 1 only find that my cheeks are redder and
 
 64 COLETTE. 
 
 my eyes blacker than ever. It seems to me that all 
 the blood in my body has been settling there for sev- 
 eral days, and that there, as elsewhere, the approach of 
 an important event makes itself felt. 
 
 My poor "Un" too, no longer understands my 
 manner of acting. Formerly, when I kneeled upon 
 the floor, it was for the purpose of getting nearer to 
 him, and he very quickly rolled himself up into a ball 
 that he might serve me for a cushion or a plaything. 
 Now it is absolute silence that I impose upon him, 
 and my finger is invariably raised when he approaches 
 me. * 
 
 March 17. 
 
 My emotion continually increases, and now I do not 
 know what more to do in order to manifest my fervor 
 better. 
 
 For the rest, every moment my confidence also in- 
 creases, and indeed I am afraid that it may become 
 presumptuous, I feel so calm and strong ! Then I 
 begin to count upon my fingers the three theological 
 virtues, and when I come to faith, I stop. 
 
 It has removed mountains, they say, why should it 
 not make in my walls the slight breach necessary to 
 enable me to go forth ? 
 
 All is propitious for me, moreover, and about me 
 significant signs abound. . . . 
 
 Of all the months in the year, for example, this 
 providential advice was given me just in the month 
 of March, the month of St. Joseph, and these nine
 
 
 
 •r<^ 
 
 "My FlNGEtt IS INVAKIAUI.Y KAISKU WIIKN HE Al'- 
 
 I'ltcjAi iii;.s Mi;."

 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 65 
 
 days' devotions which commenced by chance, without 
 premeditation, almost without thinking, are going 
 to finish symbolically on the very feast day of the 
 saint ! . . . 
 
 Without losing my head, without undue exaltation, 
 I can truly say, that there is in it all a marked pur- 
 pose, a mute but prophetic warning, and a depth 
 which I understand wonderfully well. 
 
 March 18. 
 
 The wind blows madly, the snow falls ever faster 
 and faster, and I am afraid to see my poor traveller risk 
 himself in this white expanse which stretches out far- 
 ther than one can see. 
 
 At times, it seems to me that this aspect is the pict- 
 ure of my life ; all smooth and always the same, and 
 awaiting, like the fields, only one footprint ! . . . Then 
 I forget analogies in order to think at the present 
 moment only upon the practical side. 
 
 Will he see his road between the two slopes, and if, 
 like me tlie other day, his foot unfortunately slips at 
 the edge of some ditch, who will come to tell me of 
 it ? 
 
 If I had time I would find some other saint, and I 
 would pray him to illuminate my hero's journey with 
 a ray of sunlight that his coming might be less rough. 
 
 But this would be lack of faith, and my own saint 
 might be angry perhaps, and I will leave it all in his 
 hands, decidedly ! . . .
 
 XII. 
 
 March 19. 
 
 The day of my new life, the day of my destiny ! . . . 
 There is not a single fibre in my being that is not 
 agitated, and it seems to me that my blood flows at 
 twice its usual speed, and almosts bursts through my 
 skin from my head to my feet. 
 
 Even my prayers themselves no longer keep me 
 quiet. . . . Now I kneel near my window ; in this 
 way my voice goes up to my altar, but my eyes need 
 never leave the court-yard. 
 
 Every noise disturbs me, the slightest movement 
 makes me tremble. ... A footstep! ... "Is it 
 he ? " . . . A knock ! . . . " Are they coming for 
 me ? " Everything is like this ! 
 
 But I do not think that he will come before noon. 
 It is an important point, that hour ! It is the middle 
 of the day, and however little the sun shows itself 
 now, one knows that it is bringing nearer, moment 
 by moment, the desired event. 
 
 All this is quite in keeping, for my morning is finished, 
 and my noon is just going to strike, I believe ! 
 
 Everything is ready. I have laid out my most 
 becoming dress, and in my girdle and in my hair 1 
 have twined two green sprigs, the color of hope, 
 which the cold itself could not kill either in the park 
 
 66
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 67 
 
 or in my heart ! Without disclosing anything, I have 
 sounded Benoite upon the knicheon. Evidently we 
 can receive a guest without shame, and now I wait. 
 ******* 
 As in the song of the watch, which we used to sing 
 at the convent : 
 
 " Les midis sont bien passes," 
 
 and nothing has happened ! 
 
 Behind my window I am still waiting. 
 
 The falling night saddens me. . . . 
 
 However, in this twilight I can see to a greater 
 distance, and I look without wearying. . . . But 
 how long luncheon seemed to me ! In spite of my- 
 self my eyes would not leave the window, and yet 
 what was the use of so much haste since here I 
 am again still alone ? Without doubt, the shades of 
 evening seem better to my saint, and in order to 
 bring me my happiness, he waits until lie can con- 
 ceal his hand in the darkness. 
 
 Until midnight he has the right to delay, and I 
 prepare for my watch. Some sticks upon the fire, 
 my easy-chair near the window, and before my altar 
 a candle — the last that remains to me, a very small 
 one ! But to ascend to the heavens even the small- 
 est ray will suffice, I think, and as for my traveller, 
 however feeble the flame may be, its light will always 
 prick the night with its red point, and it will be little 
 trouble for the conductor, who leads him to me, to 
 make a star of it, if he wishes !
 
 XIII. 
 
 March 20. 
 
 I AM sad, I am cold, and the warmth of my bed 
 has not restored me from the effects of my freezing 
 watch. 
 
 It is late, midnight ! Never, until now, have I sat 
 up so long, and in these hours, in this oppressive 
 stillness, one feels one's self so small, so lost. . . . 
 
 Moreover, without, the moon, which has just risen, 
 is making great silvery streaks upon the white snow, 
 and the pine trees in the background look as if 
 their branches were hung in crystals, . . . but the 
 hours drag so ! As the time approached, my heart 
 beat louder, and it seemed to me that there was some- 
 thing else placed beside me which was making all 
 this throbbing. Then at the first of the twelve strokes 
 all stopped. " Now, or never ! " I thought, and I 
 counted up to the end with eyes tightly closed, and 
 hands pressed hard upon my eyelids in order not to 
 look until it was ended. . . . But, after as before, the 
 court-yard remained empty, the bell silent, the road 
 without a shadow of life ! . . . 
 
 At the same moment, my candle flickered and went 
 out with a little splutter. ... It was the end of it, I 
 believe ; but it was no matter, I could have said that 
 the statue itself blew it out to show me that all was 
 
 68
 
 WLE TTE. 
 
 69 
 
 finished ! It was melancholy. But the heart is so 
 formed that it does not easily despond, and I involun- 
 tarily censured my "never" of a moment earlier. If 
 it was not really now, still there was a to-morrow, and 
 one must not find fault with a saint like that, because 
 he does not keep strictly to the hour and the minute, 
 as if it was a question of a bargain of some kind. 
 
 Perhaps he intended that the nine days' devotions 
 should be fully accomplished and he wished to put 
 off the recompense until the following day. A credit 
 of twenty-four hours one might easily allow ! 
 
 Thereupon I slept, without joy, but soundly ; and 
 here I am again at my belfry. 
 
 And now, this day, how will it end ?
 
 XIV. 
 
 March 23. 
 
 What an ending ! . . . Oh ! inon Dieii ! tnoji 
 Dietil who would ever have foreseen such a thing, 
 and who would have said that by an act of imprudence 
 I should nearly cause the death of a man ! . . . 
 
 How it happened, I do not well remember ; but this 
 endless waiting wearied me, I believe. 
 
 Those hours which kept passing without bringing 
 me anything were long, and hope deferred made my 
 heart sick. 
 
 The more fervently I had believed, the more bitter 
 became the disillusion, and little by little a veritable 
 anger and a fooHsh resentment took possession of 
 me. 
 
 It was all a cheat ! 
 
 Had I not prayed with all my heart ? Why, then, 
 were the promises not at once realized ? 
 
 I made my demand in a loud voice, begging and 
 supplicating my statue, then indignantly and re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 But neither my prayers nor my anger had any 
 apparent effect. ... I had excited myself by talk- 
 ing, and became as much irritated as if the silence of 
 the metal had been voluntary. . . . 
 
 70
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 71 
 
 I wept with grief, I promised him all that my imagi- 
 nation or my heart could suggest to me ; — why did 
 he remain silent ? . . . 
 
 People who are all alone in the world and to whom 
 no one listens, who pray to those above and still no 
 one listens, what can they do ? 
 
 And between each word, I stopped. I waited, . . . 
 I gave him time, indeed ! . . . And still, always 
 nothing ! 
 
 Then suddenly, disgusted, and exasperated, and in 
 such rage as I had never before found myself, and 
 fully believing in my right of revenge, I caught up the 
 statue and with all my strength I hurled it through 
 the window which opened upon the country, crying 
 to it: — 
 
 " You have deceived me ! Leave me, then ! " 
 
 With the crash of broken glass upon the floor, 
 there came a cry from below. 
 
 It was a man, and his face was covered with blood. 
 •My St. Joseph had struck him upon the forehead 
 above the left t'\e, and as the unfortunate man was 
 falling backwards, stunned by the shock, his feet 
 were caught in the stones of our wall, and in his fall 
 his knee was broken. 
 
 It has now been three nights that Benoite and I 
 have watched with him, and it is near his bed that 
 I write and cry.
 
 XV. 
 
 March 24. 
 
 .The doctor has come again, the dressing of the 
 knee has been at last accomplished ; but the head is 
 not yet out of danger, it appears to have been very 
 badly injured. 
 
 They have covered his forehead with ice: — a 
 thing certainly not lacking here, — and as he went out 
 just now, the doctor said, tapping me upon the 
 shoulder : — 
 
 '• If he is not cured, it will not be your fault, little 
 nurse ; have good courage ! " 
 
 Good courage ! when I look at these bandages, 
 and when 1 listen to this delirium ! . . . Still I am 
 very happy to know that even that much depends 
 upon me, and I pass all my time trying to find 
 methods by means of which I may do better yet. 
 
 But what trouble with my aunt ! What scenes, 
 and what cries at the beginning ! At the moment 
 when Benoite and I came in, our united strength being 
 required to bring this great body from the road into 
 the kitchen, she entered by another door. 
 
 "What is that ?" she exclaimed, throwing up her 
 arms. . . . 
 
 " An injured man, aunt ! " 
 
 72
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 73 
 
 And while I spoke we laid him for the time being 
 upon a blanket spread before the hearth. 
 
 " An injured man ! What do you think that I can 
 do with an injured man ? Where did you find 
 him ? " 
 
 And as she went on multiplying her questions, 
 Benoite said to her without pausing in her occupa- 
 tion : — 
 
 " Mademoiselle hit him upon the head in throwing 
 something outside ! " 
 
 " But who is he ? . . . What has he said ? . . 
 What does he want, this individual ? " 
 
 " Peace," I could not prevent myself from saying to 
 her, "and something that will stop this blood ! " . . . 
 
 ■'■ I do not want him here, you know that I do not 
 want him ; " she replied, turning aside ; " I never re- 
 ceive men here ! " . . . 
 
 " I do not offer him to you," I said more loudly ; 
 '• this is my affair ! " 
 
 " And what will you do with him ? " 
 
 " I will nurse him, of course ! " 
 
 "Where, then, and with whom ? All alone, night 
 and day ? " 
 
 "With my nurse, and I will give him my room ! " 
 
 " You are a fool ! " said she, violently, turning her 
 back upon me, "and I will prevent that ! " 
 
 "In what way, by throwing him outside and let- 
 ting him die in the night ?" 
 
 " Pooh ! " pursing up her lips. " Those are fine
 
 74 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 words, those are ! Do you think that one dies from 
 such a little thing ? . . . In less than an hour, 
 the man himself will ask to go away and will not 
 understand what you mean by your complaints ! " 
 
 " You may be sure that I will not keep him by 
 force ! " 
 
 " And if he remains like that, what do you intend 
 to do ? " 
 
 " I have told you already," I replied, now at the 
 height of exasperation ; and raising my handkerchief, 
 which I was holding against the wound, " I intend first 
 to close up this hole which you see, then when that 
 is accomplished and this gentleman departs as you 
 say, I intend to beg him with clasped hands to 
 pardon me for having cut open his head. Do you 
 understand, aunt ? " 
 
 And without wishing to hear any more, and without 
 adding anything to this odious discussion, some word 
 of which I was afraid would come to the ears of tlie 
 poor wounded man, I sent Benoite to prepare all that 
 was necessary, while I remained upon my knees 
 beside him, moistening his forehead with fresh water 
 and eagerly waiting for some sign of life. 
 
 But his lips remained dry and bloodless, and the 
 tiny stream of blood which flowed gently without 
 ceasing, collected upon the white linen in a spot 
 that grew continually larger and larger. 
 
 Like a tiger in a cage, my aunt was walking in the 
 background, murmuring incessantly the same things.
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 75 
 
 and little by little a horrible fright came over me 
 that these eyes over which I was bending would 
 never unclose again, and that this was the forehead 
 of a dead man upon which the mark of my hand 
 would remain forever. . . . 
 
 Then suddenly I saw Benoite, who passed by me 
 running, and who from the threshold of the door, 
 called loudly to some one in order to stop him ; and 
 a second after, the doctor came in with her. Provi- 
 dence had made him return by this out-of-the-way 
 road, and my nurse, who had seen him from the 
 window, had been able to summon him just in time. 
 . . . An hour later they had installed the unfort- 
 unate man in his bed, dressed his wound, and 
 brought back, if not intelligence into his looks, at 
 least an easy and natural breathing. 
 
 With an authority which a stranger or a doctor 
 alone could exert with my aunt, the doctor, tor- 
 mented by her behavior, had sent her away at the 
 beginning, and on coming out he found her still in 
 the corridor complaining to me, and repeating her 
 refusal of help, exclaiming as soon as she saw him : — 
 
 " You know, doctor, I will not mix myself up in 
 this : I will do nothing! " 
 
 '•That is perfectly right, Madame," he replied 
 brusquely, "young hands are softer and gentler to 
 dress wounds, and it is quieting for a sick man to 
 have a pretty face to look at." 
 
 Since then, three days have passed, and if the
 
 76 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 fever has gone down a little, the mind is still 
 
 wandering. 
 
 The name that he pronounces most often, is that ot 
 a certain Jacques, to whom he makes some unheard-ot 
 speeches with such droll words that in spite of my- 
 self sometimes I laugh and cry in a breath! Then, 
 the only phrase that he uttered when he was falling 
 into the road comes back. When Benoite and I 
 came running up, he was already wpon the ground, 
 but not yet unconscious, and as I came near him crying 
 distractedly : " Oh ! inon Dieii ! Monsieur, what is the 
 matter?" he raised himself upon one knee and with 
 something like a smile, if one can believe that a man 
 in that condition could smile : — 
 
 " Ah! ha! " he said, '■ it is the Brahmin! " 
 
 Then he fell back, and we brought him in. Since 
 then his "Brahmin" comes back often, and I cannot 
 conceive what he means to say by that. 
 
 Who is this man? We know nothing about him. 
 The doctor has inquired at the inns in the village ; 
 nowhere has a traveller of this description been re- 
 ceived, and one is forced to believe that he sprang 
 from the ground on this villanous road. 
 
 His clothes are elegant ; his overcoat is short and 
 finely trimmed with a superb fur, his hands are white, 
 and all that the bandage allows one to see of his face 
 is distinguished. 
 
 In his pockets, nothing but a pocket-book without 
 an address ; and for a valise, a sort of travelling-bag
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 77 
 
 of leather which he carried upon his back, and the 
 lock of which is tightly closed. The idea of opening 
 it is repugnant to me and the doctor consents to wait 
 a few days longer, hoping that he will be able to 
 answer us himself. 
 
 Benoite also loses herself in conjectures. 
 
 " Perhaps he is a peddler," she has just said to me, 
 while gazing at his peculiar style of baggage, " or per- 
 haps a photographer! Some of them do not carry 
 much more baggage than that! " 
 
 But I do not think that ; with his hands, his eye- 
 brows, his beard, I take him for a Duke, or a Count at 
 least, for a gentleman in any case, and I put my wits 
 to work to discover his age and name. 
 
 Is he handsome? I should not say so, and I do not 
 think of it now. My remorse and my anxiety keep 
 me from everything, even from food and sleep, and 
 the doctor becomes red with anger at finding me still 
 up this morning. 
 
 With authority, he compels me to go down-stairs 
 and walk a little while in the court-yard. 
 
 But when out in the air, my head fails me, every- 
 thing turns dark, and I come up again to his bedside, 
 very determined not to leave him again until he re- 
 turns to consciousness. . . . 
 
 Oh, for a sensible word to show me that his mind is 
 not lost ! Compared with that all else is as nothing.
 
 XVI. 
 
 March 25. 
 
 He has spoken, it is over ! he is saved ! and I am 
 so foolishly happy that I would like to cry aloud. 
 
 Yesterday evening, in spite of my drowsiness, I 
 still wished to watch ; and to be more comfortable 
 I had put on, as a lounging-robe, the least faded of 
 the old silk dresses which I hunted out last month in 
 the chests, for the sleeves of my ordinary gown pre- 
 vented me from stretching out my arms, and the two 
 skirts caught up everything. 
 
 In this great plain, soft skirt, and in this waist 
 which seems made for me, I feel so comfortable that 
 I cannot tell how it happens, but in a moment I am 
 fast asleep in my chair, and so quickly has it come to 
 pass, that I have not been able to struggle against it, 
 and I remain thus, forgetting my sick man for more 
 than two hours perhaps. 
 
 Then the lamp which was going out, and the dying 
 fire, that feeling of gloom and sadness which comes 
 upon one in the middle of these solitary watches, 
 awoke me suddenly, and I ran to see what time it was. 
 It still lacked some minutes before the time to give 
 him his medicine, thank God ! and so I might be 
 able to warm up the room again, for it had become 
 freezing cold. 
 
 78 
 
 '&
 
 COLE TTE. «rt 
 
 On my knees before the fireplace, I was laj'ing 
 with my two hands a great log upon what remained 
 of the coals, blowing with my mouth in order to set 
 the little tendrils of moss on nre, when suddenly I 
 heard a voice speaking to me, and my surprise was so 
 great that I arose with a cry of fright, without at first 
 understanding anything. 
 
 Then immediately I thought of the wounded man, 
 and ran to his bedside ; it was indeed he who had 
 called me. He was leaning upon his elbow, his only 
 free eye widely open and looking at me with an intense 
 curiosity, with as astonished an air as if he had sud- 
 denly found himself transported into another world ; 
 and before renewing his question, he remained such 
 a long time thus, scanning me from my feet up to mv 
 eyes, that 1 was going to hazard a question myself, 
 when, at the movement of my lips, he hastened to 
 prevent me : — 
 
 "Madame," . . . said he, hesitatingly, as if to see 
 if I was going to protest, "where am I, I pray you?" 
 
 " At the chateau d'Erlange de Fond-de-Vieux, Mon- 
 sieur ! " I replied, trembling a little. 
 
 " Do not know it at all !" he murmured. . . . "And 
 are you then the chatelaine.''" he continued, raising 
 his head. 
 
 " Partly, Monsieur, yes." 
 
 " And, . . . pardon this frankness, Madame, but in 
 truth, I believe that I have lost my mind . . . what 
 can 1 be doing here, if you please?"
 
 8o COLE TTE. 
 
 "Waiting to be cured, Monsieur! . . . Follow- 
 ing your frightful accident, we brought you in here, 
 and" . . . 
 
 "Ah ! it was an accident?" said he. 
 
 And as I opened my mouth in order to exclaim : 
 " I beg you, do not believe that it was anything else! " ' 
 he went on, always with the same sang-froid : — 
 
 "Will you extend your kindness so far, Madame, 
 as to tell me in what year we really are ? " 
 
 If I had not seen the perfect calm on his face, 
 assuredly I should have thought that he was again 
 delirious, but he spoke with the perfect ease of a man 
 who is making conversation, and mechanically I 
 replied : — 
 
 "In 1885, Monsieur!" 
 
 " Is it possible! " said he, in a low voice, as if speak- 
 ing to himself. " I would not have believed that that 
 was the style ! " . . . then, without change of man- 
 ner : — 
 
 " Would it be possible for me to have a pen and 
 some paper, that I may write to a friend who must be 
 dying of anxiety ? " 
 
 " Monsieur Jacques? " I inquired, in spite of myself. 
 
 "Precisely!" said he. "Why, has he been here, 
 then, Madame?" 
 
 "Not at all. Monsieur, but in your delirium "... 
 
 "Ah! I have been delirious." said he. . . . "Hum! 
 have I said anything unsuitable for youthful ears to 
 listen to?"
 
 COLETTE. gj 
 
 And as I shook my head without thinking : — 
 
 '•'No? Ah ! so much the better! It is then certain 
 that madness has more good sense than reason ! . . . 
 And you will do me the favor to give them to me ? " 
 
 "All that you wish, Monsieur, but to-morrow. It 
 is night now, and you must not write in tlie night." 
 
 "Why?" asked he. >' if I had a lamp?" And W. 
 began to smile like a child at what he had said. 
 
 •• Because the doctor wishes you to have complete 
 rest and quiet, and he would never pardon me if I 
 allowed you to have them," I replied. . . . 
 
 He frowned like a person who is not accustomed 
 to be refused, and he put out his arm so quickly that 
 in spite of myself, I drew a step back. He smiled 
 again then, and bending his head : — 
 
 "Do not be frightened!" he said, "and pardon 
 me, Madame, I have kept you standing. In truth, 
 a sick man is a poor cavalier." — And with his finger, 
 he pointed out to me a chair. 
 
 As for me, I was confounded ! This man awaking 
 from delirium, among strangers, suffering greatly, and 
 yet who forced himself to talk tranquilly upon indif- 
 ferent matters in a half-mocking tone, and without 
 even asking what the accident was which had thrown 
 him upon this bed, seemed to me to resemble noth- 
 ing that I had ever imagined. 
 
 Without seating myself, I had leaned my arm upon 
 the back of an easy-chair, and I remained without a 
 word, without an idea, before tiiis strange individual. 
 
 G
 
 82 COLETTE. 
 
 Then the half hour was struck by the clock and the 
 remembrance of the medicine came back to me. 
 
 "You must drink this, Monsieur!" said I, taking 
 the prepared glass from the table. But he drew 
 back with an unequivocal gesture, and grieved, I 
 repeated in a supplicating tone : — 
 
 " I beg you. Monsieur, it is to make you sleep ! " 
 
 "I know that very' well!" he said between his 
 teeth; "it is in the play." He drank it without say- 
 ing another word ; then as Benoite, whom I had 
 forced to go and throw herself upon the bed, re- 
 entered softly : — 
 
 "And here is the old Fran^oise !" added he. 
 
 He laid his head back upon the pillow, murmur- 
 ing : " Thanks ! " and ten minutes later he slept, as 
 he has slept until the arrival of the doctor, who is 
 with him now. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The doctor is satisfied, up to a certain point at 
 least, and he considers the fear of congestion as 
 entirely removed. 
 
 He is as much surprised at the character of our 
 singular patient as I am, and just now, when leaving 
 him, he wiped his forehead : — 
 
 " What a lively fellow ! my poor child," said he to 
 me. "Why has he not remained in a lethargy a 
 month longer ! We shall no longer be able to do 
 anything with him ! He is actually talking about 
 getting up and running about in the fields ! "
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 83 
 
 It appears that this morning as soon as he saw the 
 doctor enter, he half rose up on his pillow, regard- 
 less of his bandages, and commenced to thank him 
 in terms brief but courteous for all the trouble he 
 had given him : — 
 
 " This is not the kind of weather in which to make 
 you travel over such roads," said he, " and I beg you to 
 excuse me, Monsieur." 
 
 Then he commenced a series of questions very 
 nearly the same as he had addressed to me the pre- 
 ceding night, which proves tliat my replies were not 
 very clear to him, and this so rapidly that the doctor 
 declared that he almost lost his breath in trying to 
 follow them. 
 
 Once reassured as to his geographical situation, 
 which evidently was not clearly defined in his mind, 
 he inquired with a good deal of animation about what 
 had happened to him : — 
 
 " I feel a great weight here I " said he, showing the 
 doctor his knee. '• What is it ? You have not cut off 
 my leg without informing me of it, I suppose ? And 
 here ? Have you trepanned me .'' My head is all 
 bound up." 
 
 The doctor reassured him as best he could, but he 
 is not one of those sick people that one can amuse 
 with words. He reiterated his questions as to the 
 why, and the how of each thing, and it was necessary 
 to give him the most minute details of all the bones 
 and all the injured parts. After that he demanded a
 
 84 COLE TTE. 
 
 mirror, and the doctor handed him one from his sur- 
 gical case. 
 
 ''What beautiful work!" he murmured. "A fine 
 thing indeed to cut up the b^st part of my face Hke 
 that ! But, bah ! the great Pyrrhus received a tile 
 upon his head, why should I not perish from a 
 broken bottle ? " 
 
 " It is no longer a question of perishing ! " the 
 doctor answered. 
 
 "I hope it is not, pai'dieu!^'' he replied. "I 
 still feel a little weak this morning, but in a few- 
 days I will rid my hostess from the disagreeable 
 charge of a sick stranger. Tell her so, doctor, I beg 
 you ! " And as the doctor bent his head with a 
 gesture which clearly signified : " Go on, my friend I 
 I do not wish to contradict you, but you are speaking 
 nonsense ! " the young man perceived that this pater- 
 nal yes, must be only a lure or an anodyne for a 
 feverish man, and that probably the doctor had an 
 entirely different idea behind those great white eye- 
 brows. 
 
 He began then to question the doctor and to demand 
 so imperiously to know the hour and the minute of his 
 cure, insisting that a series of fables ought not to be 
 invented for a man of his age, that the doctor was 
 obliged to fix upon a delay of a month, reserving to 
 himself the right to add a second month if the case 
 called for it. 
 
 You should have seen his fury then ! . . .
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 85 
 
 " A month, doctor ! A month ! You wish to keep 
 me here a month ! But ) ou do not seriously think 
 of such a thing ! . . . I have laid out for my spring 
 a very different work than that of lying here and 
 watching my bones grow together, I beg you to 
 believe ! The repairing can go on somewhere else 
 as well as here, I suppose ! A month ! But in a 
 month I shall sleep upon a mat of palm leaves, with 
 six slaves to fan me, and with the sky of the Indies 
 over my head/' 
 
 "Then you will have found some wonderful sail- 
 boat, my dear sir!" said the doctor, laughingly. 
 " But apart from that, let us reason a little. You do 
 not particularly desire to remain a cripple all your 
 life, I think, for want of a few days of carefulness ? " 
 
 " No, certainly ! for \ put my feet to a use of which 
 few people dream ; but in this box in w^hich I am 
 imprisoned, what does it matter whether I sleep in 
 my bed or in the train, the immobility is always 
 assured ! " 
 
 '• If you travel upon the clouds, perhaps, yes !" 
 
 " And even without that ! " he replied quickly. 
 " What do you think the sleeping-cars are for? How- 
 ever savage your mountain may be, I can easily find 
 a dozen men who will carry me to the nearest station 
 in their arms. And so on, from point to point, until 
 I come to the sea. And then without a movement 
 on my part, upon barges or upon inclined planks, as 
 great box-es are rolled, I shall find myself on board.
 
 86 COLETTE. 
 
 where I can spend without reckoning it, all the time 
 you consider necessary to the healing of my injuries." 
 
 "Is it a matter of hfe or death, Monsieur?" the 
 doctor asked. 
 
 " It is a matter of my will and pleasure simply." 
 
 Thereupon the doctor, without adding a word, took 
 his hat and rose from his chair where he had been, 
 drying his great fur coat in front of the fire ; but see- 
 ing him ready to go, the sick man became so greatly 
 agitated, that fearing a return of the fever, the doctor 
 approached the bed. 
 
 "And I should like to know who it is that will pre- 
 vent me ! " the stranger exclaimed, becoming more 
 and more excited. 
 
 '•'■ Mon Dieiil Monsieur, I will be the one," the 
 doctor replied, laying down his hat, and reseating 
 himself tranquilly. " Let us talk frankly, and since 
 you do not like fables, let us speak truths. 
 
 " First, permit me to say that I regard your knee 
 and yourself as the most indifferent objects, and on 
 any other occasion, since you do not care whether 
 your injuries heal or not, I should leave you to fall to 
 pieces without putting out my little finger to save 
 you, and that with the best grace in the world, believe 
 me ! But, for the present, 1 am your doctor, and this 
 fact entirely changes the situation. 
 
 "Have you ever been a soldier, Monsieur? It has 
 seemed to me quite possible. But in any case, you 
 are not without knowledge of what the word soldier
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 87 
 
 implies, and of the submission wliicli it suggests. 
 I therefore wish to speak of obedience to orders. 
 The}' place a soldier at a post, with the command not 
 to let a living soul pass. Why? How^? In whose 
 name ? he knows nothing of it all ; but in the strength 
 of this command, he lowers his bayonet, come friend 
 or come foe. 
 
 *• Between you and me something like this exists. 
 I see you in the road, I do not know you, you are 
 nothing to me. And I would not bar your way with 
 a pebble. A fall comes, a wound, a misfortune which 
 renders you helpless, and by the blow which pros- 
 trates you, you belong to me. I answer for you as 
 the soldier for the post which he guards. 
 
 " I may not love you, I may serve you with regret ; 
 I may even count you among my enemies ; but 
 sickness and death present themselves and it is my 
 duty to arrest them ; to watch over you, and, if I can, 
 to defeat their plans. Without knowing you, with- 
 out any one having sent you to me, since you are 
 wounded, and I alone can cure you, I must answer 
 for you. Attempt to pass this door, and I lower my 
 pike, I warn you. Monsieur ! " 
 
 " Doctor ! " the young man replied, immediately 
 extending his hand, " pardon me, and be certain that 
 you see here a prisoner upon parole. I do not ask 
 you to excuse me by saying that sickness has made 
 me bad-tempered, for 1 am always as you saw me just 
 now ; but I confess to you that however headstrong
 
 88 COLE TTE. 
 
 I may be, when one strikes me hard and in the right 
 place. I yield ! " 
 
 " Once I am assured of that, it suffices," said the 
 good doctor. — And he left his fiery patient with the 
 desired materials for writing, which he had at last 
 obtained. 
 
 Meanwhile we have examined the passport of our 
 stranger, and we now know approximately who he is. 
 
 His name is Count Pierre de Civreuse, and " so 
 far as one can form an opinion of one at first 
 sight," said the doctor to me, •' his profession is to act 
 foolishly. In other respects, a very nice gentleman, 
 in my opinion, and evidently of an unusual character." 
 
 The doctor has in like manner made known to him 
 the names of my aunt and of myself; and now we are 
 all presented to one another. But of the time cause 
 of the accident, the doctor has said nothing as yet, 
 owing to our boarder's irritability, and it is to me 
 an inexpressible relief. More and more now the 
 stranger alarms me, and I do not see with what sort 
 of a countenance I shall be able to come to an ex- 
 planation with him. 
 
 Benoite, who has just put his room in order, tells 
 me that he is writing constantly, and I leave him 
 quiet with his friend Jacques, very anxious to know 
 how all this will end, and how I shall ever be able 
 to obtain my pardon from a character so little pre- 
 possessing.
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 89 
 
 Pierre de Civreuse to Jacques de Colognes. 
 
 You believe me dead, do you not, my good friend ? 
 and I will say that for some days I have believed 
 myself so. 
 
 I do not know how many hours I have been 
 buried, and I cannot say where. Without doubt 
 where all people who are unconscious go. And 
 that seemed to me to be so low under the earth, and 
 weighed so heavily upon me that with all the strength 
 left me, I seemed to be constantly trying with my 
 shoulders to lift off the cover of my coffin. Cer- 
 tainly, in this state of unconsciousness one must 
 already have made half of the final voyage, pausing 
 just at the extreme limit between the two worlds 
 wliere it needs but a grain of lead to tip the balance 
 to either side. 
 
 Happily for me, I have swung to the right side, 
 — humanly speaking, understand ; and I awoke 
 one evening a little bruised by my foil (for one 
 does not tumble from the heavens without noticin<r 
 it), and I now lie with my knee confined in a box 
 of white-wood and with my head done \\\-> in ban- 
 dages. Midnight was striking from the clock, the 
 propitious hour for retinning from the tomb, and it 
 was the first sound from the outside world that 
 had come to me. 
 
 If I remember correctly wliat passes in the world, 
 said I to myself, those little machines never give
 
 QO COLETTE. 
 
 more than twelve strokes ; if this one does not ex- 
 ceed that, then I am upon the earth and living. 
 
 It happened thus ; and now, sure of my identity, I 
 opened an eye that I might reconnoitre the place. 
 
 My friend, do you know "La Fee," by Octave 
 Feuillet, a lively little play quite popular just now? 
 Or have you ever seen it presented? Well! this 
 particular evening, which was yesterday, I believe, 
 I awoke at the first act of the drama of " La Fee," 
 and I gave the replies to Mll» d'Athol in person 
 during a scene or two. Do not think that I am 
 joking, but listen to me. 
 
 The first thing that a sick man thinks of inspect- 
 ing is his bed. Mine had twisted columns hung in 
 green tapestry of the time of Louis XIII, or perhaps 
 Louis XIV, — I cannot be certain of it, — and with 
 a coverlet of old silk which we will call a curtain, if 
 you please. The room in which I found myself was 
 very large, and badly lighted by two wax candles 
 placed in candlesticks so tall that they never seemed 
 to end. The room was wainscoted in sculptured oak, 
 and by force of instinct I imagined that I could see 
 in the shadowy darkness that the beams of the ceil- 
 ing were very high indeed, with a small golden band 
 which glittered here and there. 
 
 Against the wall were some great stiff sofas which 
 made my back ache to look at, and a collection of 
 praying-stools, all alike, put in a line as if for matins, 
 and not the shadow of a carpet on the floor.
 
 
 
 
 ~*4«»>4^M{ 
 
 "In an Easv Chair iikfore thf Firk place a 
 
 LIllI.E Sl.K.NUKIt l,AI)\."
 
 COLE TTE. g J 
 
 Finally, in an easy-chair before the fireplace, — 
 you suspect, indeed, that I keep this easy-chair for 
 the last, do you not ? — a little slender lady, who is 
 sleeping in a very upright position ; I observe that 
 she has an exquisite figure and is of a blond com- 
 jjlexion. and that she is dressed in a gown of rose- 
 colored satin with a long train. Her gown was two 
 hundred years old, her face eighteen : how could 
 these two things agree ? I labored such a long time 
 over this problem that the little lady awoke suddenly, 
 without giving any sign of her intention. 
 
 She glanced towards my bed like a child caught in 
 a fault; in the half light I still had the appearance 
 of one sleeping soundly, and quieted in respect to 
 this, like a foithful vestal, she directed her attention 
 to the fire. She knelt down, arranged the embers, 
 breathed upon them with pursed up lips and scat- 
 tered the cinders in her hair; then with her two 
 hands she took up a log. the quarter of an oak of 
 medium size, and laid it promptly upon the coals. 
 
 She moves, she lives, and then the idea of a 
 chatelaine of former times petrified in her house by 
 some strange enchantment leaves me, and I perceive 
 tliat I am in the Breton chateau where /eaune cf 
 Athol prepares her pious witchcrafts and converts 
 that sceptical de Commhiges i)y the sole charm of 
 her grandmother's gown and her old-fashioned talk. 
 Only this time she has forgotten her cloud of powder, 
 and tiie color of her hair does not heighten the illusion-
 
 92 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 As gently as I can, I call her; she turns around 
 with a cry. Evidently my awakening was not in the 
 program, and her trepidation is great. She ap- 
 proaches however, and we talk a moment, at cross 
 purposes, she leading me away from my subject, and 
 I showing her very plainly that I read her game. 
 Finally she frees herself from me by giving me a 
 narcotic as one does in such cases ; but it does not 
 send me to sleep quickly enough to prevent me from 
 seeing the third personage enter, an old duenna, 
 withered as a last year's apple, with little gimlet eyes 
 which seem to pierce clear through you as she looks 
 at you, and who will play finely the role of the old 
 Frantpoise. Then the curtain falls, and I awake the 
 next morning, still amidst the same surroundings, but 
 face to face with a doctor, witty and rough, who ex- 
 plains my case to me in two words, and who puts me 
 back into my place so quickly when I attempt to 
 revolt, that I am still a little stunned by it. 
 
 If you wish to know all, my friend, I have a hole in 
 my head and a broken knee. Had you an idea that 
 heads and knees are such fragile things.'' I had 
 not! and I handle myself now with an unwonted 
 gentleness and respect. 
 
 Can one conceive that between the femur and the 
 tibia it is possible to produce so violent a rupture! 
 Some splinters here, a fracture there, and with the rest, 
 a kneepan thrown off the hooks, like a broken com- 
 pass that has lost the north and is no longer capable
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 93 
 
 of acting in a reasonable way! As for my bone box, 
 it is the forehead which is injured, and they promise 
 me a rapid and solid healing in a few days. 
 
 To sum it all up, I laugh, but I am furious ; furious 
 as I know how to be in my best moments ; and the 
 thought that you are to be detained at your uncle's 
 house for some months, adds not a little to my wrath. 
 Days or weeks of immobility without you to hold my 
 head! Think of me with my little rose-colored lady 
 for my only nurse, under six feet of snow ! For I have 
 forgotten to tell you that like the grain sown in the 
 autumn, we are actually under the snow, where it 
 only remains for us to sprout. And to come up here 
 and care for me, my doctor has to put on alternately 
 seven-league boots and Norwegian skees. 
 
 Now you are going to ask me the cause of all this, 
 and also, what on earth did you go there for? 
 
 Let us see : You remember that I intended before 
 going to the country of the Sun, to give myself the 
 pleasure of a striking contrast by coming to freeze 
 first among some of the characteristic aspects of win- 
 ter, as gourmands prepare themselves for a good din- 
 ner by a morning of fasting and a long walk in the 
 open air? 
 
 For this purpose I stopped at a little village — its 
 name would tell you nothing, for you do not know it 
 any more than I knew it yesterday ; and from there, 
 furnished only with a sort of soldier's knapsack, I 
 went on foot into the mountains.
 
 94 COLETTE. 
 
 My route was pointed out to me, and I was told 
 that by walking stiaiglit ahead I should soon come 
 to the highest point, where there was a superb view, 
 a forest of pine trees, the glimpse of a valley, and pos- 
 sibly even the sight of a chateau. 
 
 At the end of five hundred metres I was in abso- 
 lute solitude ; and if you have never happened to wan- 
 der about the country at this time of the year, you 
 cannot imagine how infinitely more profound this soli- 
 tude is than any other. You see no sign of a footstep 
 except your own, you hear no sound of an animal in 
 all the surrounding country, and there is even more 
 diversity in the blue Luzerne, the pink sainfoin, and 
 the yellow of straw, than here, where there is only a 
 smooth and shining tone, which is admirable during 
 the first half hour, but fatiguing during the second, 
 and enervating and irritating after a time. 
 
 No more irregularities of surface, no more hollows, 
 no more humps ; all is level ; a Republican equality! 
 From time to time a flock of crows makes you despond 
 with their insolent screamings ; they are the only sur- 
 vivors. It is their hour, and they know it! Upon 
 the bushes there is snow and little frost tears ; they 
 are the congealed moisture of three months ago and 
 have yet some weeks to glisten before they evaporate. 
 A devilish north-east wind cuts your face like a knife. 
 
 Still, it is a long road which has no turning, and I 
 had had successively my glimpse of the valley, the 
 beautiful view promised, and the forest, when the
 
 COLETTE. ^5 
 
 chateau itself appeared. I spare you a description of 
 it, having seen it very imj^erfectly myself, as you will 
 soon understand, though now we shall be forced to see 
 much of each other. 
 
 One of its wings faces the road. It was before this 
 that I liad stopped and I innocently occupied myself 
 in removing the snow from a great stone, on which to 
 sit that I might look at it more at my leisure, as I 
 was quite captivated by the savage and melancholy 
 appearance of the place. 
 
 A singular curiosity seized me. It seemed to me 
 that behind these walls something original and unex- 
 pected must be concealed, and I was at once assailed 
 by an overwhelming desire to penetrate their precincts. 
 
 You well know that whatever is closed and appar- 
 ently inaccessible always tempts me, and I do not re- 
 member, even as a boy, to have stolen an apple from a 
 low bough. . . . As to higli ones I cannot say as much. 
 
 At the same time the memory of our last conversa- 
 tion came back to me. You recollect that eveningf 
 when we were talking together about my journey, and 
 you cautioned me to be prudent ? '' Once in the 
 Indies," I said to you, " I intend to see everything, 
 and above all that which the European eye must know 
 nothing about. I mean to know something of llie 
 intimacy of the family life and of the secret ceremo- 
 nies, to familiarize m3'self with the customs, laughable 
 or contemptible, and even to pry into the mysteries 
 of the religion itself, if I should have to use twenty
 
 96 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 disguises in order to come to the feet of Brahma and 
 adore without veils in accordance with the rites ; " 
 and you, you replied to me wisely : — " Take care! — 
 every man is jealous of his secrets and the inviolabil- 
 ity of his fireside, but the Orientals more so than any 
 others, and for the pleasure of putting the sole of your 
 foot where no one has put his before you, you will 
 risk getting into a scrape." 
 
 ''How?" I asked you, laughing. "Do you think 
 that the god will disturb himself for me, and that I 
 shall have the good fortune to see him manoeuvre his 
 eighteen legs in order to come down from his pedestal ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not," you said, " but his faithful ones 
 are without remorse, and it is very possible, if you 
 venture into his sacred enclosure, that you will en- 
 counter some Brahmin who will give you a rap upon 
 the nose to make you remember to respect the bound- 
 aries." 
 
 Why should I have thought of this at that moment? 
 Was it because I was wondering if the susceptibility 
 of the French would be as quickly aroused as that of 
 the East Indians, or because I felt I was unconsciously 
 measuring with my eye the height of the wall and 
 seeking a projecting stone where I might place my 
 foot? I cannot tell; but, just at this moment, a great 
 noise of breaking glass made me raise my head, and 
 before I could say, " ouf ! " a projectile, the nature 
 of which I do not know, but which was hurled 
 with a sure hand, struck me full on the forehead.
 
 '^^■ 
 
 •V 
 
 
 ^V' V-.' •''^IC^^: 
 
 
 
 The Chateau D'KitLAMii; di: 1 hm' i)i:-\'ii;i x.
 
 COLETTE. g- 
 
 The blow was so severe tliat it made me stagger, 
 and with both of my feet caught in the stones, I fell 
 upon my knees with my whole weight, without being 
 able to soften the fall, and so clumsily indeed that it 
 has resulted in the injuries above mentioned. 
 
 Could one reply in a more peremptory fashion to a 
 person's indiscretion, or could your lesson have a 
 more prompt application than this crushing of my 
 curiosity in the egg, and this encounter with your 
 Brahmin in the third degree of longitude? . . . 
 
 Some one hastened up, evidently frightened, and 
 talked in a confused way ; but I could have sworn 
 that an intense mist had suddenly risen from the 
 ground, for already I could not distinguish anything, 
 and I think I must have lost consciousness almost 
 immediately. 
 
 Of what took place afterwards, I have no remem- 
 brance, for my sleep in the other world lasted, it 
 appears, full four days. 
 
 As for the author of my wound and the instrument 
 of my punishment, so much reserve is practised 
 before me on that point, that I am left to my own 
 conjectures ; but when I sec my little rose-colored 
 lad)' again, or indeed the old woman with the pierc- 
 ing eyes, I will manage to find out. 
 
 In the meantime, I know at least the name of the 
 manor ; it is the chateau d'Erlange de Fond-de-Vieux, 
 and there you may address your letters. 
 
 The postman comes up here from time to time, 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 especially when the packet for the neighboring villages 
 appears large enough to him. or when he is charged 
 by the grocer or the butcher with something impor- 
 tant enough to merit the ascent. 
 
 Only two women live here : Mile. d"Epine and 
 Mile. d'Erlange. aunt and niece ; and when I ventured 
 to insinuate to the doctor that I might be somewhat 
 of an embarrassment to them in more ways than one, 
 he denied it with so much warmth that it only re- 
 mained for me to put my scruples aside, and accept 
 the kindness of this little community. 
 
 Have I said, by the way, that this doctor speaks of 
 a month of quiet, a term which, in the mouth of a 
 doctor, signifies invariably twice that length of time, 
 and that he requires me to lie in an absolutely hori- 
 zontal position? 
 
 This idea fairly maddens me. And when I think 
 that it is all on account of a platonic contemplation 
 in front of a wall, a contemplation which did not last 
 even ten minutes, and which would not have made an 
 angel blush, that I am going to pass weeks of ennui 
 in the company of three women when I ought to be 
 hunting the tiger in the jungles, — when I think of 
 this, I am almost ready to beat my brains out! . . . 
 
 " But since you are in the place that you were so 
 eager to enter, of what do you complain ? " you are 
 going to reply to me. . . . 
 
 Ah, my dear friend! it is because that I am here, 
 that I wish now to get out ; I have seen all there is
 
 COLE TTE. og 
 
 within, and there is not enough to divert a man of 
 eighty. 
 
 But be silent, Jacques, some one is knocking at the 
 door, although the blow is so light that it can only 
 come from a very small finger. Conceal yourself at 
 my bedside, my friend, and I will tell you all ; be 
 calm. . . .
 
 XVII. 
 
 March 26. 
 
 After the departure of the doctor yesterday, I 
 delayed such a long time before going back to the 
 chamber of M. de Civreuse, wishing to give him the 
 opportunity of writing wholly without interruption, 
 that finally I was at a loss how and when to go back. 
 To knock and enter and seat myself in my customary 
 place, was to force him to enter into a conversation 
 with me, and on the other hand, to leave him long 
 might look like neglect, and subject him to incon- 
 venience if he were in want of anything. 
 
 I should have sent Benoite, but my aunt, who pre- 
 tended to be entirely ignorant of the presence of tlie 
 injured man, had overwlielmed her with work for 
 several days, and she still held her captive in her 
 room under the pretext of shaking out her curtains. 
 
 Then an idea came to me, and calling my dog 
 very softly, I made him understand what I desired of 
 him, and where he must carry the paper which I at- 
 tached to his collar ; and approaching the door, I 
 knocked lightly, quite concealing myself, and motioned 
 him to enter. 
 
 Upon the paper I had written: "I beg M. de 
 Civreuse to say whether he wishes to remain alone, 
 
 100
 
 COLETTE. lOI 
 
 or whether he is in need of ?'nj;tbing. , The dog will 
 bring back the reply, or will waiit' IVSon'sieur's pleasure. 
 Simply say to him : 'Go.'"/, ,■ ,; r *■•■."»'.,' ' > 
 
 A moment later, I heard "'U/i''* ^crdtoKiilg^ as t!ic' 
 door, and upon his collar I found my note, on the 
 back of which was written: — ''M. de Civreuse 
 scarcely dares to confess that he is dying of hunger 
 and thirst, and that the faithful messenger, in turning 
 around to extend to him his neck, has just upset the 
 table and inkstand. M. de Civreuse is exceedingly 
 sorry not to be able to pick them up himself." 
 
 Upon that I entered, and with a turn of my hand 
 I placed the table upon its feet again, and wiped up 
 the ink as well as I could, while M. de Civreuse said 
 to me, in a tone of inquiry : "Mademoiselle d'Epine? 
 or Mademoiselle d'Erlange ? " 
 
 " Mademoiselle d'Erlange," I replied quickly, little 
 pleased at the confusion of names. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said, " there are aunts at almost 
 any age ; " then, as I was tapping the floor with the 
 toe of my boot, he began to excuse himself for the 
 accident, upon which I reassured liim by replying tliat 
 nothing was so indifferent to me as a stain, provided 
 it was not upon my own person, which was tiic actual 
 truth. 
 
 I asked him immediately if he had any particular 
 wish respecting his food, warning him that the larder 
 at Erlange was very rustic; and lie replied that when 
 he prepared for this journey, he was by no means
 
 I02 COLETTE. 
 
 sure of finding ocmethmg to eat every day, and he 
 considered hinr.self fortunate to be able to dine regu- 
 JarJy, whatever the menu might be. 
 
 1 succfceded in stcalirig Benoite from my aunt for a 
 quarter of an hour, and finished the preparations 
 after she had gone, pouring the wine, cutting the 
 bread, and so forth. While eating it with a delight- 
 ful appetite, M. de Civreuse plied me with questions, 
 always in a cold and slightly indifferent tone, which 
 not only froze me, but which must have made me 
 reply very foolishly, I think, for he looked at me from 
 time to time as if I had just uttered the greatest 
 nonsense in the world, and shortly afterwards I set 
 myself about making his coffee. 
 
 My nurse had left me some water, which was boil- 
 ing over the coals, also some coffee, and had given 
 me many instructions ; but, merciful heavens ! it was 
 such a new work for me, that at the outset, I per- 
 ceived that I no longer remembered a word of what 
 she had told me, and I remained kneeling before the 
 fire, the boiling water in one hand and the coffee in 
 the other, in terrible perplexity. 
 
 I ought to put one into the other, I knew that very 
 well, but with which to begin and in what way to 
 put them together, that was the difficulty. 
 
 To pour the water into the wooden box which 
 contained the coffee, seemed queer to me ; it was 
 more likely that I ought to put the coffee into the 
 boiling water. If I returned to Benoite to ask her
 
 COLETTE. lo 
 
 v) 
 
 what to do, it would mean giving myself up to an 
 hour of exclamations and reproaches from my aunt, 
 but on the other hand, j\I. de Civreuse was following; 
 me with his eye from the bed, with a cool curiosity 
 that exasperated me. I therefore decided promptly, 
 and I emptied the box into the water with a single turn, 
 and put it all back upon the fire to simmer a moment 
 
 '*Do you wish me to serve you, Monsieur?'' I 
 asked immediately afterwards, as I approached him. 
 
 " Certainly," he replied without hesitation, holding 
 out his cup. . . . 
 
 Alas ! it was a veritable mud that I poured out. 
 black, thick, and unsightly enough to make one 
 shudder; it settled in the bottom of the cup in the 
 most unappetizing manner. 
 
 I stopped then, utterly disconcerted, exclaiming : 
 
 " That is not right ! Evidently I have made a 
 mistake ; but I do not know how to make coflFee ! " 
 
 " Nor I either," replied Monsieur I'ierre, still hold- 
 ing out his cup ; '• but I think that they serve it from 
 that usually." — And he pointed out to me, with his 
 finger, the coflfee-pot which Benolte had placed upon 
 the table and of which I had never thought ; and I 
 asked him quickly why he had not spoken of it. 
 
 '• I thought that you were making it in Turkish 
 style," he replied. 
 
 At last I strained a cupful of it through a square of 
 linen, and he drank it, witiiout shrinking, to the last 
 drop.
 
 104 COLETTE. 
 
 "So you have resumed your true shape?" he said 
 to me afterwards, just as I was seating myself accord- 
 ing to my custom, in my easy-chair. 
 
 "My true shape? . . . but I am always like this." 
 
 "Not last night!" 
 
 " Ah ! because I had put on that old gown ! Indeed, 
 I must have presented a strange appearance . . . 
 and I wonder what you thought when you saw me 
 thus ? " 
 
 " I thought that I had at last the good fortune to 
 find a place where time had stopped his clock, and 
 had not gone on again for two hundred years." 
 
 "Why the good fortune?" 
 
 " Because I know nothing more absurd than the 
 present age!" he replied. 
 
 And immediately I answered : — 
 
 "Ah, well! I know something that is 3'et more ab- 
 surd, it is not to know this jiresent age at all, and 
 such is my misfortune ! " 
 
 " Be satisfied, you resemble it more than you think! " 
 he replied. Then, as if he thought that the remark 
 that he had made was not quite polite, he went on 
 before I had time to answer a word : — 
 
 " And your dog. Mademoiselle, why Iiave you left 
 him outside? It is not on my account, I hope?" 
 
 "But I am afraid tliat he may tire you!" And as 
 he made a sign in the negative, I ran to open the 
 door, and that fool of a "Un" entered at a bound, 
 rolling over upon my feet, putting his muzzle upon my
 
 COLETTE. lO- 
 
 knees, and half upsetting me in the ardor of his 
 caresses . 
 
 jM. de Civreuse watched his antics without saying 
 anything, and just as I was kneeling down to permit 
 him to put his paws about my neck : — 
 
 " You love him very much ? '' he asked. 
 
 "Infinitely!" I replied with fervor. . . . "My 
 poor old nurse first, and him last ; these two possess 
 my dearest affections I " 
 
 "And the aunt, she is third in the line then?" he 
 said in a low voice, speaking rather to himself than to 
 me, I thought. 
 
 I murmured in the same tone : — 
 
 "Not even that! " but he did not hear, I think ; and 
 I rose to clear off the table. 
 
 A moment later he asked the time, and as I told 
 him, I could not refrain from adding : — 
 
 " I am afraid that the days will seem cruelly long to 
 you here, and that you will be terribly bored in a 
 short time." 
 
 "Oh! I am not thinking of myself," he replied at 
 once ; " I am afraid for you. What a charge, what 
 a task, what a trouble, this sick stranger who is sud- 
 denly thrust into your house, is going to bring to 
 you!" 
 
 He was going to begin a chapter of thanks, when I 
 quickly interrupted him : — 
 
 " Oh, do not think that : it is quite the contrary ! 
 I am so delighted at it ! ... it is so diverting I "
 
 Io6 COLETTE. 
 
 I was thinking of my solitude in speaking thus, and 
 of the joy of having a Hving soul near me for two 
 months at least; but he understood it otherwise, I 
 believe, for he continued, pressing his lips tightly 
 together and ceremoniously inclining his head : — 
 
 "Ah, so much the better, the misfortune is good 
 for something then, and I am delighted to see that 
 some one at least will be pleased with this affair ! '" 
 
 Benoite entered at that moment, and I took advan- 
 tage of her entrance to glide out of the room, for I 
 no longer knew what to say. 
 
 To sum it all up, this gentleman does not please 
 me at all, and if I had not a passionate wish to obtain 
 his pardon and to make him forget little by little my 
 deplorable violence, I should become prejudiced 
 against him at once and should show it to him with- 
 out dissimulation. 
 
 His imperturbable coldness has the eiTect of a 
 bridle upon me, with which he seeks to restrain my 
 natural buoyancy of spirit, as if he had a right to 
 do so ; and that mocking eye of his which follows 
 all that I do tempts me to utter insolent things. 
 When once his bandage is taken off, and there are 
 two eyes instead of one, it will be no longer endur- 
 able, and it seems to me that through the door I fee) 
 them already fi.xed upon me. . . t
 
 " Bknt his IIkai) to snow mk a i.nri.i; wiirii; I'aiicr 
 
 Al TA( lli;i) ID Ills COLLAU."
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 107 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 My friend. I have discovered all. I manoeuvred so 
 skilfully during a tete-a-tete which chance brought 
 about for me with Benoite, the body-guard of Mile. 
 d'Erlange, that I made her relate all that the doctor 
 thought best to withhold from me in his recital. 
 
 But first, I left you, I think, watching behind my 
 curtain, for the entrance of my blond fairy of the past 
 night, and very curious to see her in the clear day- 
 light. 
 
 Ah, well ! my friend, you may believe me when I 
 tell you that the magic continued, and she presented 
 herself under the familiar and sympathetic form of a 
 great shaggy Newfoundland. 
 
 The intelligent animal walked without hesitation 
 towards my bed, and sitting up upon his hind legs, with 
 the grace of a circus elephant, bent down his head 
 in order to show me a little white paper which was 
 attached to his collar. And you remember: "And 
 then the beautiful Princess dispatched to him a 
 messenger under the form of a three-headed hippo- 
 griff, blacker than Hades, to declare her wishes in 
 detail." 
 
 The wishes this time were indited in a simple style, 
 and amounted very nearly to this: •• What does M. 
 de Civreuse really desire?" The writing, dishevelled 
 like the branches of a willow on a windy day, was 
 traced without ceremony from top to bottom ol a
 
 loS COLETTE. 
 
 little square of paper, and the last words, written 
 very small, actually climbed upon one another. 
 
 It gave me at once an unpleasant impression of the 
 author ! Let a woman not write at all unless she 
 wishes, but if she attempts to do it, let it be prettily 
 done, instead of making the traces of her pen resem- 
 ble the fantastic promenade of a frightened June- 
 bug ! I cannot help this feeling, for it produces upon 
 me the same effect as if I should see a little marquise 
 draw from her pocket a great cotton handkerchief, or 
 perfume herself with patchouli. 
 
 However, as it was not the proper time to philoso- 
 phize, and as the dog's outstretched neck reminded 
 me that an answer was required, I confessed brutally 
 that I was desperately hungry, and that my highest 
 ambition for the moment was to have something to 
 put between my teeth. This was not a madrigal, far 
 from it, but, ma foi, to a woman who cannot write ! 
 Then as I bent over to attach the ribbon to the collar, 
 the dog made a movement, and with a single push 
 of his shoulder sent the table to the ground, inkstand 
 and all. 
 
 Properly abashed, I added a post scriplnin to 
 announce the misfortune, and a minute afterwards 
 my young guardian of the past night entered. 
 
 She was dressed this time in an ordinary gown, 
 and had twisted her hair into a figure eight ; and she 
 so much resembled the common class of women, that 
 she had upon me the incongruous effect of a Velas-
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 109 
 
 quez portrait tliat had been restored by putting a 
 child's head in place of a respectable Burgundian 
 peasant woman's. . . . Can one have at hand so 
 much local color and not make use of it ! 
 
 Regardless, I believe, of the effect she produced 
 upon me, she repaired the disaster without saying a 
 word — raising the table, sopping up the ink, and 
 pushing a piece of cloth over the floor with the toe of 
 her boot. 
 
 I had at first begun to excuse myself as humbly as 
 possible, but at the first words, she stopped me so 
 quickly by saying : — •' Oh ! do not be troubled, these 
 stains are nothing to me!" that I made no further 
 attempt. Then she went out to prepare the nourish- 
 ment and I remained alone with my thoughts. 
 
 My dear friend, this young girl is already positively 
 displeasing to me. Her appearance corresponded 
 exactly with her writing, and this last phrase finished 
 her for me. I also, parbleu, care nothing for stains, 
 and I have seen with a serene eye more than one 
 stream of ink flow ; but in her, this shocks me. 
 
 If there is one thing that displeases me above all, 
 it. is to discover in others, particularly in a woman, 
 my principal faults. Good heavens! I know my 
 face, and when I wish to see it, have only to approach 
 a mirror: I do not want to be forced to find my 
 grimace stamped upon the face of every one. As far 
 as so much ugliness is concerned, I like a change, 
 and my eagle's beak accommodates itself better to the
 
 no COLETTE. 
 
 neighborhood of the little turned-up noses than to 
 that of its equals. 
 
 Upon her return she commenced serving me the 
 repast which the old woman had just brought up, 
 moving about full of alacrity and good-will, but with 
 such absolute want of skill, that presently I would not 
 even ask her for bread. For with every slice she was 
 within half an inch of cutting her thumb off, the china 
 knocked together under her fingers, and you could not 
 have seen anything the least feminine about this young 
 girl. 
 
 " It was timidity and your devilish green eyes 
 that made her nervous," you are ready to say to me. 
 So be it, then ! Am I also to blame for the coffee, 
 which she prepared for me with her own hands, 
 and which I drank even to the dregs ? 
 
 Ah ! my friend, every man has his cup which he 
 must drink in this world while awaiting those which 
 purgatory has in reserve for him ; I know it, and I 
 resign myself to it ; but with what intolerable bitter- 
 ness was mine filled that day ! 
 
 From the distance, I had watched Mademoiselle 
 d'Erlange kneeling before the fire preparing her mixt- 
 ure with all the evidences of skill, and although it 
 seemed to me slightly unusual, still my own inexpe- 
 rience forbade hasty judgments until I had tasted it 
 at least. But then ! 
 
 Have you in your past, as a child, any recollections 
 of puddings soured or spoiled, which made you weep
 
 COLE TTM. 1 1 1 
 
 at the deception? And can you yet see that thick 
 and troubled concoction where grains of an unex- 
 plained origin floated and multiplied? My poor 
 Jacques, it was indeed that which she offered to me ! 
 I confess that I was vexed, to have the flavor of this 
 .Mocha vanish in the smoke, and it made me knit my 
 brows. 
 
 I hear you pitying the poor girl, and blaming 
 me for my disagreeableness. Ah ! my dear friend, 
 keep your pity, her discomfiture did not last 
 Ions, I assure vou ; and indeed. I believe that she 
 was only waiting for a sign from me to burst into 
 laughter. 
 
 But, mafoi, I did not find it funny at all ; I did not 
 move, and possessed with the idea of repairing every- 
 tliing. she thought of an expedient which appeared to 
 her so fine that she announced it to me with a cry of 
 joy. She ran to a wardrobe, drew forth a handker- 
 chief, and began to strain for me a cup of her horrible 
 drink through one of the corners of the linen which 
 she delicately raised. The strainer was very white. 
 I admit, but the choice of it was questionable and 
 little calculated to sooth my .susceptibilities ! 
 
 I drank! What would you have done? But that 
 bitter taste, with that little after-flavor of lavender, 
 of vervain, or I do not know what, imparted by the 
 linen, was atrocious ! 
 
 Then, with a consciousness of a duty accomplished, 
 she seated herself in her great easy-chair, her head
 
 112 COLETTE. 
 
 reaching scarcely three-quarters of the way up its 
 back, and I attempted to make her talk. 
 
 Do you wish to hear the order and number of her 
 affections? She made no mystery of them: her old 
 nurse, her dog, and that is all ; for her aunt really 
 counts for nothing with her. ... As for my acci- 
 dent, she has given me her opinion upon it without 
 being urged. That amuses her! Oh! that amuses 
 her so much! She has never seen anything funnier 
 than this adventure ! At least, I shall have the satis- 
 faction of thinking that this can divert some one, if 
 not myself ! 
 
 Established upon this footing our conversation 
 languished, as you can understand, but the duenna 
 entered very seasonably to relieve us from our diffi- 
 culty. Mademoiselle d'Erlange fled, and I, who un- 
 fortunately could not do the same, squared myself 
 upon my pillows, very determined not to let Benoite 
 depart, since Benoite was there, until I had squeezed 
 from her old head all the revelations which it con- 
 tained. 
 
 But our two wills upon this point seemed to be 
 diametrically opposed, and she appeared sk deter- 
 mined to be silent as I was to make her speak. So 
 during a full quarter of an hour, we literally played 
 at hide-and-seek with each other, she finessing, and I 
 bringing her straight back to the subject, only to see 
 her again glide between my fingers, until I captured 
 the fortress, like a hussar !
 
 COLETTE. 113 
 
 My friend, if you still dare defend those little deli- 
 cate fingers which moved the china about so gently 
 and knew how to prepare such delicious coffee, it is 
 their own mark which 1 carry upon my forehead, and 
 my antipathy against Mile. d'Erlange was prescience ! 
 
 Bad intentions ? I do not say that, but a slightly 
 lively action, you w-ill admit. I think ; above all, when 
 you know the nature of the projectile employed. It 
 was heavy, massive, and of excellent metal. Do you 
 guess it? Of course not, if I should let you guess a 
 hundred times, you would not be any more en- 
 lightened. 
 
 Do you see on the other side of my room that 
 statue of St. Joseph, which is withdrawn so far into 
 its corner that it seems to be going through the wall ? 
 It is a beautiful work, very delicate, chiselled out ot 
 solid silver, which I attribute without hesitation to the 
 Italian school, and which might bear the mark of 
 Cellini, the work upon it is so exquisite ! Neverthe- 
 less, that is the instrument of my misfortune ! . . . 
 
 In order that you may understand how the attack 
 was made upon me, let us go back a few days. Pict- 
 ure to yourself Mile. d'Erlange. then so penetrated 
 with the virtues of this saint, so trustful of him, so 
 filled with a passionate veneration for him that the 
 greater part of her days was passed at his feet ! 
 
 Then all at once, without any apparent reason, 
 whether from some disappointment or from weariness, 
 a complete schism took place between them, and the 
 I
 
 114 COLETTE. 
 
 young suppliant passed quickly from one sentiment 
 to another, becoming as fiery in her anger as before 
 she had been humble in her humility, and in a tempest 
 of wrath she ended by throwing the respected statue 
 ignominiously out of the window. 
 
 To cease praying to it was not enough ! The old 
 Sicambrians are not the only ones who like to burn 
 those whom they have worshipped ; and besides, as 
 the good Benoite said to me, sighing : " My girl 
 never does things by halves ! " So far I have noth- 
 ing to say of this way of acting. I do not know the 
 griefs of this young rebel, it was her right perhaps, 
 and in any caSe it was strictly her affair ! But the 
 saddest part of it is that while she was playing this 
 little domestic scene in the usual way of the world, 
 an innocent person was getting ready to suffer for 
 the guilty ! 
 
 You guess it, my friend! this time the lamb in the 
 fable was to be myself, and the hour when the most 
 ill-advised of reveries led me upon this deserted road 
 of which I have already told you, was also the pre- 
 cise moment when Mile. d'Erlange sent the poor 
 saint flying out into the country, committing thus the 
 double crime of attempting the life of her neighbor 
 and of inflicting the most mortifying treatment upon 
 an object of devotion. 
 
 The saint, however, without troubling himself at 
 all, and forgetting his strictly sacred and pacific char- 
 acter, fell upon me with a force like the bursting of
 
 COLE TTE. I J r 
 
 a professional bomb-shell. And that is how, without 
 anv appreciable crime with which society or the gods 
 could reproach me, I have been placed at the very 
 verge of death, and am threatened with a useless knee, 
 or at least with one badly weakened ; and all be- 
 cause a little girl and a silver statue had a quarrel. 
 
 How does Mile. d'Erlange appear to you now ? 
 Do you not think that you can see claws growing 
 under her rosy nails ? and will you be' entirely tran- 
 quil henceforth during the hours in which she alone 
 will watch over me ? I await with indescribable curi- 
 osity the explanation which will take place between 
 us on this subject. Will this haught\* Amazon show 
 any confusion .'' Nothing is less certain, and I am 
 concentrating my utmost resources to get out of it 
 with the honors of war. 
 
 I am the victim ! It is indisputable, and she must 
 not be allowed to forget it, and if she takes the affair 
 too lightly, I will snatch off my bandage, as they do 
 on the last page of the romances of Anne Radcliffe, 
 and I will show her my gaping wound ! . . .
 
 XVIII. 
 
 March 29. 
 
 Benoite has spoken, M. Pierre knows all ! Mon 
 Dieii ! what shall I say, and how shall I present 
 myself before him ? These are the words which I 
 repeated to myself incessantly yesterday and without 
 finding a reply. 
 
 In one respect I am rather glad that all is con- 
 fessed. Badly defined situations have always been 
 odious to me, and I remember the time when as a 
 little girl I asked of my aunt " two slaps immediately " 
 rather than wait for the punishment which she was 
 reserving for me in the evening. Now I am to be 
 punished again, and I shall not be sorry to learn 
 quickly what I am to expect. But the manner of 
 presenting myself, with what words to begin ! It is 
 always this which will not come to me, or at least 
 which repeatedly escapes me as soon as I approach 
 the fatal door. 
 
 Ten times during the afternoon I drew near 
 enough to half-turn the handle of the door ; but I 
 was always seized with fear at the last moment, and 
 drew back before having finished my action. It 
 really seemed to me that all my ideas remained 
 heaped up in the library, which I have made both my 
 
 116
 
 COLETTE. jiy 
 
 retreat and my room for some time ; for as soon as I 
 found myself there the words came to me in a crowd. 
 I gesticulated with fervor, and sentences most suitable 
 to move a haughty heart pressed upon my lips. I 
 advanced to a divan upon which I imagined M. de 
 Civreuse to be extended, in order that the rehearsal 
 might be complete, and seizing the corner of a cush- 
 ion as I propose to seize his hand : — 
 
 " Monsieur," I said in a tone of deep emotion, 
 "pardon me, I pray you ! I have committed a foolish 
 action ; remorse will remain with me always, and I 
 can never think of it without terror ; but see how un- 
 happy I am ! and tell me, I beg you, that you do not 
 bear too much ill-will against me ! Without that I 
 know I can never say a good word to myself, and I 
 hate to live at war with my conscience, for the re- 
 proaches which 1 heap upon myself are much harder 
 than any that you could think of ! " 
 
 The cushion would raise my hand to its lips and 
 courteously kiss the tips of my fingers, and give me 
 absolution without requiring to be urged. There- 
 upon I would go back again, filled with my subject ; 
 but in passing my door, my speech would begin to be 
 a little disturbed ; in crossing the antechamber half 
 of it would escape me, and the rest would vanish dur- 
 ing the remainder of the journey, so that I arrived 
 at the decisive place with empty hands ! 
 
 Then I would hastily retrace my steps, when, as by 
 some inexplicable witchcraft, my ideas would come,
 
 Ilg COLETTE. 
 
 rising up from the floor, coming forth from the wain- 
 scoting, and would fill again the vacant places, so that 
 when I drew near to the symbolic divan, I had recov- 
 ered my ease, and was once more prepared to soften 
 him by words analogous to the former, but much more 
 persuasive. 
 
 But I could not go on like this forever ; the day 
 was closing, and I could not condemn iM. de Civreuse 
 to darkness because I did not dare to enter his room 
 to bring him a lamp. It was evident that as long as 
 I remained in this condition, I should be subjected to 
 the same ridiculous alternations of mind, and it only 
 remained for me to take myself by surprise. 
 
 Accordingly with lowered head, like one absolutely 
 impelled, I opened the door, and, swift as an arrow, I 
 came near his bed, trusting in my lucky star to find 
 that happy word so necessary to begin with, and 
 which was going to come to me this time surely. 
 
 But M. de Civreuse, after having bowed to me, 
 began to look behind me, in such a singular way, 
 bending over in order to see better and keeping his 
 eye so obstinately fixed upon the door, that notwith- 
 standing my preoccupation, I turned around under the 
 impression that I was dragging in with my gown 
 some unknown or peculiar object. There was nothing 
 at all, and as I looked at him in great surprise : — 
 
 "I thought you were pursued, Mademoiselle," he 
 said to me quietly. 
 
 Then he laid his head back once more upon his
 
 COLE TTE. 1 1 f, 
 
 pillow with a gesture of relief, letting his eyelids fall 
 with a languid air, and so very much at his ease, so 
 little prepared for the affecting explanations which I 
 was reserving for him, that many a one bolder than I 
 would have lost courage as I did. Erect, motionless, 
 with evident perplexity in my look, all the while try- 
 ing but unable to speak, with my lamp still in my 
 hand, as I had forgotten to set it down, I felt so ex- 
 tremely awkward that I would have given anything 
 to any one w'ho would have shown me how to assume 
 the self-possessed attitude of M. de Civreuse, or who 
 would have told me at least how to place my hands 
 and feet naturally, the management of which liad 
 never seemed so difficult to me before. 
 
 Meantime, he leaned back with the majestic non- 
 cb.alance of a Roman emperor, having no awkward 
 movement to fear in his easy situation, and inso- 
 lently enjoying to the full extent his advantage. 
 
 This state of affairs could not last long without 
 becoming ridiculous, moreover this provoking cold- 
 ness acted upon me like the stroke of a whip. Since 
 he did not wish to help me, ma fat, so much the 
 worse ! I would speak frankly, satisfactorily or not, 
 and explain the affair to him without ceremony. 
 
 My mind was now so fully made up to this, that I 
 advanced one step more, and put tlie lamp upon the 
 table. 
 
 " Monsieur," I commenced rapidly, " here is your 
 lamp ; "' — this was all in the shape of originality I had
 
 I20 COLETTE. 
 
 been able to find as a beginning, — ''and I beg you 
 to believe that I regret exceedingly the deplorable 
 accident from which you still suffer ; but really it 
 was not my fault ! " 
 
 '■'■Moil Dieii, I do not tliink that any one could 
 justly accuse inc of it ! " said he, calmly raising his 
 head and looking at me. 
 
 " I do not say that ! " I stammered, losing counte- 
 nance. 
 
 And as he shook his head with an air which signi- 
 fied : '' So ? well that is fortunate ! " I replied, 
 breaking quickly in: — "I mean to say that I very 
 well know that it is my fault in reality ; but what I 
 intended to say is that I did not do it intentionally." 
 
 " Mademoiselle, I believe you," he said, with his 
 mocking smile. 
 
 " For indeed," I said, becoming animated, " how 
 could I know that there was any one there ? This 
 road belongs to us, and usually no one passes this 
 way." 
 
 '■ That is certain," replied he, with the same cool- 
 ness ; '• I was the one who came along just at the 
 wrong time, and as soon as I entered upon your land 
 you were quite in your right. Have not the Seignors 
 the power of life and death over their own lands, and 
 has not each one liberty indeed to decide his quarrels 
 in his own way without crying : — 'look out' ? It is 
 the duty of those passing to raise their heads and 
 avoid the blows ! "
 
 COLE TTE. J 2 I 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur," I cried, in the height of indigna- 
 tion, "you make me say fooHsh things which you know- 
 very well I do not mean, and you reply very unkindly 
 instead of granting the pardon that I ask of you ! " 
 
 And as I felt that my tears were conquering me in 
 spite of all my efforts, I was going to save myself bv 
 flight, when he stopped me with a gesture, forgetting 
 this time his insupportable coldness : — 
 
 " Mademoiselle, I beg your pardon now. I am a 
 brute, and I ought to be flogged for having made my 
 devoted nurse cry, when she has watched so kindly 
 over me ! Do you pardon me ? " 
 
 But it is one thing to make the tears flow and quite 
 another to stop them. I smiled, I replied: — "Yes. 
 yes," with my head : but they had commenced, it 
 was necessary for them to have their course, and I 
 bit my lips in vain, wiped my eyes upon my handker- 
 chief squeezed into a little ball, but in spite of all that 
 I could do, I still resembled a small fountain. 
 
 From time to time, M. de Civreuse repeated his 
 excuses, and ma foi, at the bottom of my heart, 1 was 
 not sorry to see at last in that great glacial eye a 
 little anxiety and embarrassment. After all the 
 trouble that he had caused me for a fortnight, it was 
 only fair. However, it was unintentional on my part, 
 and I calmed myself as soon as I could, for I saw 
 how much this little episode troubled him, and we 
 both began to speak at the same time as soon as I 
 had found my voice : —
 
 122 COLETTE. 
 
 '' Then you do not bear any grudge against me ? " 
 
 " You truly pardon me then? " 
 
 I extended my hand, taking up the thread of my 
 program where I had left it off; he contented himself 
 with pressing it very gently, and he added, laughing, 
 but this time without any mockery : — • 
 
 "A complete amnesty, is it not, even for him?" — 
 And he pointed out to me with his finger the un- 
 fortunate statue of my St. Joseph, who was back again, 
 by I do not know what miracle, in one of the corners 
 of the room. 
 
 I reddened up to my eyes, increasing thus the 
 warmth of my face, which I already felt was burning, 
 — even my nose I thought swollen and deplorably 
 shining, — and as I answered nothing, M. de Civreuse, 
 afraid lest I should begin to cry again, hastened to 
 add: — 
 
 " Be composed. Mademoiselle, I know nothing of 
 the nature of your sorrows ; I only know the punish- 
 ment without the cause." 
 
 '• I should think so, indeed," I replied, " for you 
 would be obliged to read my mind for that. I have 
 told no one anything about it." 
 
 He did not insist and I went out to bathe my eyes. 
 
 The doctor, who has just gone, is delighted with 
 the forehead of his patient. He said that the wound 
 was healing with miraculous rapidity ; but as for the 
 knee, he confessed to me in confidence, that he did 
 not see that it was any better at present, and that
 
 COLETTE. 123 
 
 time and an absolute quiet are the only things which 
 can et^ect a complete cute. May the heavens grant 
 that M. de Civreuse consents to swallow with a good 
 grace these two bitter medicines ! 
 
 As ior me, it is with a relief too great for words, 
 tliat I remain now near my sick man. There is no 
 longer a painful explanation to be dreaded between 
 us, and although his humor may not be sensibly 
 softened, still this fact puts me much more at my 
 ease. 
 
 As for him, he remains a little gloomy, always cold, 
 and with that tendency towards irony which shows 
 itself at every turn. 
 
 '• 1 was born a grumbler, you see," he said to me 
 just now. "and as no one thought of pulHng out this 
 bad weed in my youth, it has now grown to be a 
 small oak which is quite beyond my power to uproot." 
 
 •■' And what do your friends say about it ? " I asked 
 him. 
 
 '* They are generally used to it, or when they be- 
 come tired of it, they lop off a few branches." 
 
 "They are very kind indeed," I could not prevent 
 myself from replying ; " in their place I should seek 
 another shade tree than this little oak ; it does not 
 seem to me safe ! " 
 
 He frowned. It is his way when he is not pleased, 
 and as he did not wish to say anything, and I have 
 discovered that that signifies in plain terms : — '• Leave 
 me alone ! " I have done so, and here I am in my room.
 
 124 COLETTE. 
 
 After all, I am like his friends, — I find that there is 
 a great deal to lop off among the branches of this oak, 
 and that it has grown gnarly, although vigorous. 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 My friend, do you know of an argument more 
 commonplace and at the same time more irresistible 
 than tears? It is old as sin, every one makes use 
 of it, and every one also knows the simplicity of 
 the process, and yet every one is softened by it in 
 spite of himself. Eve obtained her first pardon and 
 sealed her first reconciliation by means of this be- 
 nevolent liquid, and Mile. d'Erlange, — be it said 
 without comparison, — made such good use of it just 
 now, that not only has peace been signed between 
 us, but it is I myself who have asked pardon. 
 
 Imagine a role at the same time more ridiculous 
 and more annoying than that of a man who makes a 
 woman cry, when that woman is an entire stranger 
 to him ! Eyes buried in her handkerchief, her voice 
 stifled, her explanations broken by great sobs, and 
 coming to you only in fragments, it makes one feel 
 like a great brute, and one is helpless what to do 
 or say. To look at her is indiscreet, to turn away 
 one's head is cynical, for it might be interpreted : " I 
 do not care ! " and so it only remains to swear that 
 one is a wretch, and humbly to beg pardon. 
 
 I do not know that you would feel like this, and 
 niv being unaccustomed to it probably impresses
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 125 
 
 me all the more. When I am told of wounds or of 
 broken arms, I know what is meant, I have had 
 them. But these tears, this hurrying flood, impetu- 
 ous, uninterrupted, so little resembling the tears 
 that I have shed (rare tears and always shed in 
 secret), that I look at them with the vague fright 
 which one feels towards the unknown, wondering 
 when and how they are going to stop, and how Allle. 
 d'Erlange will feel after them, and if she does not 
 risk being dissolved as entirely as a Naiad feeding 
 some living stream ! these I know nothing about. 
 Therefore I was ready for all necessary capitulations, 
 and thought myself happy to exchange grief for grief, 
 and to give her my full pardon in return for that 
 which I should receive from her. 
 
 There remains only this poor saint, a reconciliation 
 with whom she does not wish to hear mentioned ! I 
 have attempted to act as mediator, but the facts of 
 the case must have been very severe, for she remains 
 cold, and I do not wish, by an intemperate zeal, to 
 compromise a peace so newly made and so dearly 
 bought. 
 
 And here was I who had completely settled the 
 conditions of this interview, and who was going to 
 subject this foolish girl to my just wrath, who had 
 even arranged in my mind all the disagreeable 
 truths I was going to say to her and which it would 
 be well for her to hear sometime, asking pardon my- 
 self ! You laugh, traitor ! it is out of place, I assure
 
 126 COLETTE. 
 
 you, for never was I less inclined to give you that 
 satisfaction ! . . . Our peace, besides, is only an 
 armed peace. There is an understanding upon one 
 point, but upon one point only. We are not to 
 speak from henceforth of the reason which procures 
 for us the pleasure of this tete-a-tete of a month's 
 duration, of which I cannot think without a shudder ; 
 but, aside from that, reasons for dissension will not 
 be lacking to us, I believe. 
 
 Picture to yourself all the contraries in the world : 
 white and black, water and fire, two horses perpetu- 
 ally whipped into a gallop in opposite directions, so 
 that they hit each other regularly every time they 
 go round the ring, and you will see us in this great 
 wainscoted room where I am being glued together 
 again like the most common of knick-knacks, tied 
 carefully with thread until it is perfectly dry. 
 
 And yet, no ; hold ; my definition is bad. Do not 
 read absolute opposition, for she resembles me, my 
 friend, and it is that which is so odious to me, as I 
 have already said ! She wears a gown, — is adorned 
 witli a head of hair ad hoc, such as I could not lay 
 claim to except in the warlike days of the Mero- 
 vingians, she is endowed with a fine candor and 
 with a naivete which evidently no longer belongs 
 to me, but apart from that, we are twin brothers ! 
 ISTow for a woman, you will agree with me, there 
 might be a better model to take than your friend, 
 and she would gain assuredly in grace and charm all
 
 COLE TTE. 1 2 7 
 
 that she would lose from her likeness to me. Among 
 all people, the species called bon gar^on has always 
 displeased me most. I should like her better if she 
 were a dreamer, a coquette, a prude, romantic, any- 
 thing you will, in short, that would permit me, during 
 my seclusion, to make a study from life of something 
 different, rather than with this jovial and capricious 
 assurance which translates itself by the classical 
 "shake hands,'' imported among us by the pointed 
 elbows and the nervous hands of the daughters of 
 Albion, which is the thing I least pardon them for, next 
 to their ugliness. Just now in the midst of her tears, 
 she was already more of a woman. I do not mean 
 to say by this, that during that time I was much more 
 amused, or that I was entirely at my ease ; but I like 
 the respect due to old customs, and I wish to see 
 young girls timid, submissive, a little cowardly if 
 need be, a little idealistic, an octave higher than we 
 are in fact, like the difference between the masculine 
 and feminine voices! 
 
 But I shall only divert myself the better perhaps. 
 I went out in search of a new country, of strange types, 
 of original individuals to study, and they say what the 
 French certainly know least about, is France ! Let us 
 study France, my friend, since we are here ; and re- 
 ceive the notes of a traveller with the same kindness 
 as if they came from the sacred banks of the Ganges, 
 or the no less .sacred summits of the Himalayas. 
 They will have at least the merit of more freshness
 
 128 COLETTE. 
 
 than after that long journey, and when one thinks of 
 all the pretty things which Bernardin de Saint Pierre 
 succeeded in discovering under a single strawberry 
 leaf, I should prove myself very unobserving not to 
 find as much in the acre and more which surrounds 
 me. 
 
 But here I am far from my subject : I browse among 
 philosophical considerations like a simple donkey 
 among the bushes by the wayside, and the equipage 
 in which I drive you jolts a little, I think. You wish 
 the story, do you not ? We left off at the tears of 
 Mile. d'Erlange, if I remember rightly, and I wager 
 that you picture to yourself good-naturedly that with 
 a single word I was going to stop them, as I must 
 confess I had made them flow ; I begged her par- 
 don, it was granted, and afterwards we were better 
 friends. 
 
 Oh ! my friend, may God guard you from ever pro- 
 voking a crisis of which you cannot see yourself mas- 
 ter at the end of an instant, for it is terrible ! One 
 feels one's self small before an overflowing torrent 
 they say, because it is something impossible to resist 
 that flows near you. . . . What would you say, then, 
 to the tears of a young girl ! Can one bank them up 
 more than a torrent ? I made myself gentle, I made 
 myself humble ; in truth, I became insipid, and the 
 flood still rolled on, and it was marvellous to see 
 always that same little handkerchief, as large as the 
 palm of my hand, turned, returned, kneaded in every
 
 COLETTE. 129 
 
 way. and still sufficing for the work ! Folded, it filled 
 just the hollow of an eye, indeed it was necessary to 
 wipe them alternately ; but it was done with a move- 
 ment so prompt that one could hardly perceive that 
 it had been doubled up again, and in spite of the 
 uneasiness that I felt, I could not prevent myself 
 from following curiously this admirable dexterity I 
 
 I must say, however, that Mile. d'Erlange did not 
 abuse the situation ; she calmed herself as soon as 
 she could and extended her hand without rancor, I 
 believe ; and at my request seated herself near me, 
 instead of running away as had manifestly been her 
 intention. 
 
 It remained for me to make reparation, and '■'■ le 
 quart d'heure de Rabelais " of my want of tact was to 
 be settled by many amiabilities, I foresaw. It was 
 necessary to lay myself out, to amuse her, to talk, 
 to take away from my brutality all that had been too 
 violent, and I think that I have not got out of the 
 difficulty very badly ! 
 
 At the beginning great sobs cut her words in two, 
 the true sobs of a child in distress, and a tear which 
 passed from time to time to the edge of her eyelids 
 called for the intervention of the famous handker- 
 chief ; but, little by little, she became more animated, 
 so much so, indeed, that at the end of a moment it was 
 difficult to follow her. 
 
 She likes to talk ; she does it with vivacity, with- 
 out any great connection, as if it was simply a 
 
 K
 
 I^o COLETTE. 
 
 question of a hygienic exercise for the tongue. 
 Questions, reflections, facts, precipitate themselves 
 in a curious medley ; she takes even her ideas in the 
 lump without trying to sort them out, and throws 
 them as one throws grain to the sparrows, " Hop, 
 hop ! catch it who can ! " I wager, indeed, that tlie 
 parable of the sower in the Gospel has not made her 
 dream often, and that losing seed among the thorns 
 by the roadside and upon the arid rocks does not 
 trouble her in the least ! 
 
 Do not imagine, however, that it is common gos- 
 sip ; her untiring animation is rather a superabun- 
 dance of life, if I am not mistaken, and she expends 
 her energy in that way because she cannot throw off 
 the superfluity sufficiently in any other way, although 
 she takes trouble enough about it, I assure you ! 
 While talking she goes back and forth, teasing her 
 dog, arranging and disarranging tlie fire twenty times 
 an hour, so that she half extinguishes it and fills the 
 room with smoke. Then she opens the window, with 
 an apology, and puts on such a big log that the flames 
 from it lick the front of the fireplace, and have to be 
 sprinkled with water to keep us from a greater mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 Seated, she draws successively her two feet under 
 her, after the manner of the Turks, — as she made 
 her coifee, — and balances her body, while talking, in 
 a manner causing the greatest anxiety for her equilib- 
 rium, which she preserves, however, in a marvellous
 
 COLETTE. j^j 
 
 fashion, for one must do her justice, and I become 
 ahnost breathless when following her with my eye. 
 
 " I find you feverish," said my doctor to me a short 
 time afterwards ; " what has happened ? Have we 
 given you solid food too soon, and must we go back to 
 dosing you again with the broths of the sick man?" 
 
 '' Dose this Will-o'-the-wisp, rather ! " I wished to 
 reply. 
 
 But taking everything into consideration, you see, 
 Jacques, fourteen hours of solitude a day when one's 
 feet are tied would be terribly monotonous, with- 
 out these little interludes, so we must not say too 
 much. 
 
 Our varied conversation has put me in tlie way 
 of understanding much that surrounds me, both 
 people and things. 
 
 TJTe chateau of which I have spoken, very pom- 
 pously perhaps, is decidedly not all that I expected, 
 and, like the scenery of a theatre, behind the faqade 
 that it shows to the public, it conceals more than 
 one deception. Its splendor dates from Louis XIII, 
 and its decadence from the Revolution ; that proves, 
 M. Prudhomme would say, that good fortune lasts 
 longer upon this earth than bad fortune, whatever is 
 said to the contrary, which signifies. I believe, very 
 clearly, that a hundred years is the extreme limit 
 during which .stones consent to hold themselves up- 
 right without the help of any one. However this 
 may be, there have already disappeared from this noble
 
 132 COLETTE. 
 
 building one entire wing, a clock tower, and two 
 turrets . 
 
 They have crumbled away without violence, as 
 well-behaved towers should, like people too tired to 
 remain standing, and who seat themselves upon the 
 earth for want of a better place. Then the ivy, which 
 they have drawn down with them, has become green, 
 or the simple grasses, and the gillyflowers, which no 
 one thinks of disturbing, have commenced to bloom, 
 and the year following the birds build there, finding a 
 safe shelter, and a fragrant flower-garden. 
 
 " The history of all old walls," you will say to me. 
 " I know your ruin without your describing it : they 
 are all alike, these decaying chateaus ! " 
 
 And the way in which the proprietors conduct 
 themselves, is that the same everywhere also? And 
 do you think that you have seen many places where 
 they act as they do here at Erlange, under such cir- 
 cumstances ? 
 
 When the cracks multiply too rapidly, when their 
 half-open doors take the look of people uttering their 
 last sigh, and the stones shake decidedly on the days 
 when there is a high wind, each collects his personal 
 effects, or gets together all that can be handled with- 
 out too much difficulty, and philosophically trans- 
 ports himself and his baggage to another more hos- 
 pitable part which is still standing. 
 
 After that, the first whirlwind has a right to the 
 timbers thus abandoned, it tosses them about and it
 
 COLE TTE. .,-'•> 
 
 becomes the palace of the polecats and the owls, 
 while the emigrants rebuild their nests beside them, 
 accommodating themselves to their new surroundings, 
 discovering their advantages and their disadvantages, 
 not more aiTected than a tribe of Gauls, who have 
 broken camp in the morning to change their hunting- 
 grounds. 
 
 Thus they have already left successively the tower 
 on the south for the tower on the north, the right 
 wing for the centre, and if the centre yields in its turn, 
 — vion Dieu, with these snows which crush it, one 
 must be prepared for everything, — there will still 
 remain the left wing repaired more recently, then a 
 tower (two towers indeed, I believe), a chapel, and 
 the servants' quarters. 
 
 This is all there is to assure a habitation to the 
 descendants of Mile. d'Erlange, and, more particularly 
 to this mysterious aunt, who is still unknown to me, 
 and whom I sometimes find myself regarding as a 
 veritable myth. 
 
 All this is certainly the very extreme of philosophy, 
 if not of madness, and yet it is a fact. Mile. d'Erlange 
 appears, indeed, to find the thing very simple. One 
 would say, on hearing her, that she was speaking of 
 the most insignificant change, like that of a person 
 moving his seat in a garden when the sun had 
 driven him from the shade of a tree, or something 
 analogous. 
 
 " Since it was falling, what would you have done.'' "
 
 j^^ COLETTE. 
 
 said she on seeing me open my eye wide ; " would 
 you have remained ? " 
 
 " No, but I would have restored it ! " I replied. 
 
 "With whom? With Benoite and myself as 
 masons, and Fran^oise to mix the mortar for us with 
 her hoofs ? " 
 
 " Who is Fran^oise? " 
 
 " My mare, a good old animal that stumbles on 
 entering her stable. I will show her to you some 
 day. She is my third affection." 
 
 " But do you not think," I could not prevent myself 
 from saying, " that it is a pity to allow such a beautiful 
 old dwelling to crumble away, and does your aunt 
 not feel it so?" 
 
 " Pooh ! " she replied, shrugging her shoulders and 
 laughing ironically, "my aunt well knows that the 
 last part of the wall of Erlange will survive her, and 
 since she is certain of a shelter to the end of her 
 days, what do you think that she cares about the 
 " afterwards " ? 
 
 I did not dare to say more, the question was becom- 
 ing too personal, and we came back to generalities. 
 Very joyously my young interlocutor related to me 
 how she had furnished her room, taking from each of 
 the other rooms what remained in it, and even going 
 so far as to seize the praying-stools in the chapel. 
 
 Thus is explained the monastic and bizarre profu- 
 sion of religious stalls which had struck me upon my 
 first awakening.
 
 COLETTE. I^r 
 
 She calls these her '■'■chaises volantes,'" and while 
 speaking, she drew them one after the other up to 
 my bedside that I might see them. 
 
 " They are all alike, there is no variety, is there ? " 
 said she. turning them about, " but they look rather 
 pretty near my sofas. Have you seen the tapestry on 
 my sofas ? " 
 
 And she seized hold of one of them, drawing it up 
 to me, rolling it from one end of the room to the other 
 with a frightful noise, and pushing it back against the 
 wall with the same rapidity. 
 
 From all this I have learned, then, that the chateau 
 is as dilapidated within as without, and I have caught 
 myself wondering what band of robbers despoiled 
 it .'' Carelessness and thoughtlessness would not have 
 sufficed, and Time does not carry away a piece of fur- 
 niture upon his back for himself alone unless poverty 
 helps him a little. This idea troubles me. for my 
 presence in that case must be a heavy charge upon 
 my hostesses, and I was thinking of bringing the 
 matter up before my doctor, when Mile. d'Erlange took 
 the bull by the horns, by divining my thoughts, as if 
 she instinctively perceived what was passing in my 
 mind. 
 
 '' Now you are getting anxious. Monsieur, because 
 you find us less rich than you at first thought !" slie 
 exclaimed. " i5ut reassure yourself ! if the tables and 
 chairs needed do not grow at Erlange, we have here 
 all the vegetables of midsummer, to say nothing of
 
 I 
 
 5 COLE TTE. 
 
 the hens and ducks, and as my aunt, who always 
 looks out so well for poor me, contrives to arrange so 
 that we do not suffer, I conclude that she has not yet 
 come to the bottom of her woollen stocking, and 
 that starvation does not menace us quite yet. This 
 being the case, it would ill become you to torment 
 yourself about that, for it is assuredly not your fault 
 that you are here to-day, and it is the prevailing 
 custom in all places to support one's prisoners." 
 
 This frank explanation put me entirely at my ease, 
 and I did nothing more than to excuse myself for 
 having dispossessed Mile. d'Erlange of her room, 
 begging: her as a favor to take it back and have me 
 carried elsewhere. But she refused, saying that 
 " elsewhere " here was a pretentious word, and that 
 for the rest, she wished to see me upon the same 
 spot where the deed was committed, that she might 
 make it into a sort of expiatory chapel. 
 
 All this made me understand more than one pe- 
 culiarity which had struck me from the beginning in 
 the inequalities of my table-service, and I can now 
 explain this assemblage of Sevres porcelain, this 
 beautiful Venetian glass in which my wine looks like 
 a golden fluid, and this massive silver whicli I do not 
 hke to see Mile. d'Erlange handle too near me, — 
 a striking contrast to the napkins of coarse brown 
 linen, and this very cheap-looking knife, — which 
 complete my table-service. 
 
 Yesterday I was making use of this knife, tearing
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 137 
 
 my meat like a young dog. employing alternately the 
 back and the edge without any success, and I was 
 nearly out of patience. 
 
 "It cuts badly, does it not?" said Mile. d'Erlange, 
 who was watching my actions with delight, "and 
 you are angry! . . . Wait, I have something which 
 will be just what you need." 
 
 She ran to a drawer and brought me, triumphantly, 
 a little dagger enclosed in a carved ivory sheath, 
 which she drew forth with a gesture which sent out a 
 steel-blue lightning, and with a quickness which 
 made me tremble. 
 
 '•There," said she, "it cuts like an angel : I always 
 use it for my pens. Do you wish it ? " 
 
 Thus is my table-service completed, my friend, and 
 you have now an e.xact idea of my shelter, as well as 
 of the persons who surround me : the phantom aunt, 
 the doctor, Benoite, " Un," and finally Mile. Colette, 
 for such is the name of Mile. d'Erlange, as she has 
 herself informed me, together with the reflections 
 which it suggests to her. 
 
 " A queer name, is it not ? " said she : " Col . . 
 Colette . . . Why not Colarette ? What does it 
 mean ? and from whence could it have come ? " 
 
 "From a saint in the calendar, I suppose." . . . 
 
 " It is possible ! I have never thought of that ! 
 I imagined that they had invented it for me. But do 
 you know her then. Saint Colette ? Perhaps you 
 have prayed to her to cure the toothache ? They
 
 138 
 
 COLE TIE. 
 
 say it is efficacious and that one is certain of a cure 
 in addressing himself to her ! " 
 
 " I confess to you that I have not ! " I replied ; 
 " on one account, because my teeth have fortunately 
 never given me any trouble, and then your lack of 
 success would forever deter me from making such 
 prayers, for I could not be so foolish as to believe 
 that I would succeed where you have failed so com- 
 pletely." 
 
 She reddened to the tips of her fingers and turned 
 aside her head ; but at the end of a moment she 
 replied very low : — 
 
 " Oh ! it was because I asked something very diffi- 
 cult ; it was on that account ! " 
 
 She was afraid evidently of discouraging me by her 
 failure and of leading me into temptation or revolt, 
 and half for her candor, and half because I feared 
 that I had hurt her, I added by way of conclusion : — 
 
 " It is certain that one should never despair of any- 
 thing, and perhaps what you wish is much nearer you 
 than you think ! " 
 
 As for Saint Colette, I do not think much of her 
 powers, and that is the truth ; but if you hear any 
 one speak of any of those celestial people who pre- 
 side over the mending of fractures, burn a candle to 
 him, my friend, for unfortunately I do not improve.
 
 XIX. 
 
 March 30. 
 
 An idea came to me some time ago, and I have in 
 vain shrugged my shoulders in its face, to show it 
 that I tliought it absurd ; it remains there, firmly 
 implanted in my mind, so that I have no room in 
 my head for anything else. 
 
 But it is so foolish that when I write it down I 
 close my door with three locks, and I turn over two 
 white pages, that I may put this ridiculous thought 
 all by itself. 
 
 Reflecting upon my last adventure, thinking over 
 again the violent way in which I treated my poor 
 saint, my anger, and its result, and finally the day 
 when iM. de Civreuse was brought into Erlansje, I 
 have wondered, ... I have told myself that it was 
 possible, ... it came into my mind that perhaps 
 St. Joseph had granted my prayers in spite of 
 everything, and that M. de Civreuse was the ex- 
 pected saviour and hero. 
 
 I know very well that he did not come to Erlange 
 to seek me, and that even now his manners are not 
 in the least gallant. . . . But what a coincidence! 
 
 I asked for aid, and suddenly into my wallcd-up 
 life a young man has entered, original and interest- 
 
 139
 
 j^O COLETTE. 
 
 ino", if not amiable, and of tlie exact stuff of which 
 heroes are made ! Is it not a veritable Providence ! 
 Are not the obstinacy and fury of my aunt sure guar- 
 antees? Her daily assaults show me that she thinks 
 as I do that Colette's liberator has arrived. 
 
 When I ovenvhelm myself with excuses before my 
 poor statue, which I have taken back, it seems to me 
 that he smiles upon me as formerly, and that he says 
 to me: — ''You see that you despaired too quickly, 
 and that I did not deceive you at all!" Then a 
 moment after, I repeat to myself that I am crazy, 
 and the glacial eye of M. de Civreuse comes back 
 to my memory. He cares no more for me than for 
 my dog, and it is easy to see that he is exasperated 
 at the accident which detains him here. 
 
 But then, if it was foreordained that he should 
 come, he ought to be very glad, glad that he is 
 injured into the bargain, for otherwise he would 
 have passed on ! 
 
 Does his appearance resemble in every respect the 
 ideal of my summer dreams? I can no longer re- 
 member. For now when I try to call up the image 
 of my beautiful gloomy hero, it is the face of M. 
 Pierre which comes before my eyes, and I never 
 turn back to the first pages of my note-book to see 
 if I am mistaken, for I am satisfied with him as he is. 
 
 His forehead, which one can see but partially now, 
 is evidently high and wide, his hair is chestnut color, 
 and cut very short ; his curved nose is rather too
 
 COLETTE. i^I 
 
 long, I think, his mouth is al\va3-s tightly closed, 
 and his beard is not entirely a beard, yet some- 
 thing more than a mustache ; I should like to ask 
 him just what he calls it. 
 
 As for the color of his eye, or of his eyes rather, 
 for I suppose that the other is like the one that I 
 see, it is peculiar ; it is not blue, it is not gray, and 
 resembles nothing but the water of the stream in 
 which I mirrored myself last year. All is there, 
 even the shadow of the clouds which I can imagine 
 to be passing from time to time, for the color varies 
 according to his emotions, becoming lighter or 
 darker in an instant. 
 
 His complexion is dark, except a line across his 
 forehead where the skin is white up to his hair, and 
 which looks very funny. One would think that his 
 face had been painted with the same shade up to 
 that point, and then that the color had given out 
 and he had been left like that. 
 
 His manner is brusque, scarcely amiable, and he 
 has the appearance of a man so accustomed to have 
 his own way, that the wishes of others count for 
 little. 
 
 I used to picture my hero to myself as a tyrant, — 
 a tyrant to every one, but growing more gentle than 
 this one under my influence. 
 
 But when 1 dream in this way, all the folly of such 
 an idea comes back to me again. Never did a Prince 
 Charming make himself less attractive in order to
 
 142 COLETTE. 
 
 please the lady of his choice ! and I am forced to 
 perceive that M. de Civreuse actually resembles 
 nothing but a chained dog, a knowing dog, well 
 brought up, a perfect adept in beautiful manners ; 
 but that he does not enjoy himself at all in his 
 kennel is perfectly clear. 
 
 And then, would it be possible for me to adapt 
 myself to this grim humor? One would say that I 
 am under some weird influence, for all that I do and 
 say is exactly the contrary of all that I ought to do 
 and say, and I provide for the eyebrow of my patient 
 the opportunity of incessant gymnastics, it raises it- 
 self so often in lively astonishment at my actions. 
 But one should not be blamed after waiting eighteen 
 years for liberty and a spark of joy. . . . 
 
 And yet Mother Lancien appeared to be so sure 
 of her charm when she promised me success, and she 
 has seen so many things and I so few ! . . . 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 Ah ! my friend, this was just what I expected, and 
 your last letter is just like you ! 
 
 You get excited, you grow enthusiastic, you build 
 up a romance out of nothing, and send it to me by an 
 express train, asking if you are too late, if your con- 
 grat'jlations will come before or after the ceremony. 
 
 This accident which struck me down in the open 
 road, this old chateau whither they brought me 
 fainting, this young girl who watches over me night
 
 COLETTE. 143 
 
 and day, watering my bed with her tears — all this 
 intoxicates you, transports you ; you see me charmed, 
 a captive to love kneeling at the feet of my beautiful 
 lady, as well as a man with a broken knee can kneel, 
 blessing the impassable roads because this solitude 
 for two is joy, loving my misfortunes because they 
 have given me access to Erlange, and the winter, 
 because it makes our eagle's nest impregnable and 
 inaccessible to the jealous and the curious. 
 
 Ah ! my poor Jacques, I have not your inflammable 
 temperament, nor your flights of imagination, and you 
 must remember that formerly when we were both 
 going into society, I had the wisdom of a gray head 
 compared with the folly of your caprices. 
 
 While you, like a gourmand, were gorging yourself 
 with one and even two passions every evening, and 
 were sometimes so captivated with your partners in 
 the dance that after the cotillon you went so far as 
 even to think of marriage, it was with difficulty that 
 I could give my heart once a week ! And indeed, I 
 have sometimes gone from one Sunday to another, or 
 even for a whole fortnight, without feeling any e.xtra 
 pulsations. , 
 
 And you wish, now that I am at variance with the 
 whole human race, with the fine gentlemen of the 
 " Boulevard''' as well as with the amiable worldlings, 
 when, above all, I have my eyes widely opened, that 
 I should fall in love like a schoolboy, and weigh my- 
 self down with a chain at the very moment when I
 
 144 COLETTE. 
 
 am rejoicing in my freedom ! . . . No ! no ! and if 
 you wish the place. Jacques, by the faith of a Civreuse, 
 I yield it to you without regret — the bed with the 
 twisted columns, the plaster cast, and the little blonde 
 into the bargain ! 
 
 Have you forgotten already, my poor friend, the 
 two years that have just passed ? Evidently you have, 
 since they were upon your part only a long devotion, 
 and you would, with your shy delicacy, consider it a 
 crime for you to recall them. 
 
 But with me it is not the same, for there are certain 
 things the bitterness of which remain upon our lips 
 whatever we may do to drive it away, and my experi- 
 ences have been of this character. 
 
 I was such a simpleton, you see, so absurdly 
 trqstful, so convinced of the truth of everything 
 that was said to me ! I had thirty intimate friends, 
 and I believed them all true, all devoted and sin- 
 cere. 
 
 In twenty houses of Paris, people opened to me 
 the doors of intimacy, and I who believed myself 
 received in memory of my mother, went in and acted 
 as if it were her hand itself held out to me, went 
 without the shadow of a secret design, — the only one 
 probably who had not. 
 
 Poor fool, who had forgotten only one thing : it 
 was those three hundred thousand francs income, 
 quite safe, quite unrestricted, that I held at my free 
 disposal, in my two orphan hands ; and like an igno-
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 145 
 
 rant donkey I took to myself the civilities which were 
 addressed only to them ! 
 
 Then one morning, the sudden ruin, you remem- 
 ber? Mv banker, a friend also, turning all my capital 
 into unjustifiable speculations, not daring to consult 
 me about the method before engulfing my fortune, 
 and finally running away with all that was left, in 
 order to begin afresh in free America; and imme- 
 diately, almost at the same moment, the change in 
 my social position that followed. 
 
 The telegraph is slow compared with the news that 
 flies from mouth to mouth ! Four hours after my 
 ruin I had become Pierre as before : every one knew 
 it, and at the end of a week I was forgotten ! 
 Events occur so quickly at Paris ! Immediately after 
 my affair, there was the fall of a minister, a divorce 
 tried privately, the strength and weakness of which 
 all the newspapers bruited abroad ; and you can im- 
 agine if the wave which had engulfed me was at 
 rest ! 
 
 My intimate associations all ceased at the same 
 time. What was the use of inviting a man who was 
 no longer a possible suitor? Then for the first time 
 I perceived that in each of these select circles, the 
 daughter of the house was invariably between eigh- 
 teen and twenty years of age. 
 
 As for my friends, you see, Jacques, they were all 
 perfect ! There was not one who did not cross the 
 street or boulevard twice to shake my hand : and, 
 
 L
 
 146 COLETTE. 
 
 seeing me upon the other side of the walk, not one 
 who did not assure me of his sympathy. 
 
 " Poor Civreuse, what bad luck ! " 
 
 "What canaille is that £) * * * *^ he is posted, 
 you know? And by the way, do you intend to have 
 your sale take place at the ' Hotel Druot ' f The 
 season is excellent : that is a fortunate thing ! " 
 
 " What a plunge, my dear friend ! My word, it is 
 enough to give a man a distaste for all investments 
 other than in his straw mattress ! " 
 
 It was kind, all that, and it went straight to my 
 heart. But at the end of a fortnight my sale had 
 been made, my apartments rented, I no longer had my 
 Mondays, — you remember my receptions, and my 
 tables where all were welcome, — and I supped no 
 more at the Cafe Anglais ; more than that, I aban- 
 doned the fashionable district to go and live on the 
 other side of the Seine ! 
 
 Does one hunt for a needle in a haymow, or for a 
 man who lodges in the Jardin des Plantes? In good 
 faith, no ! and for at least two weeks I had absolute 
 peace, such as is ardently desired by sufferers, but in 
 a great city where one has lived happily, it is called 
 isolation rather than repose. 
 
 My story would have ended there, for it only re- 
 mained to put a period to it, or to enclose in a paren- 
 thesis my struggle with misfortune, if by good luck, 
 out of more than thirty intimate friends, I had not 
 possessed another, a thirty-first, that I had never 
 mixed up in the heap with the others.
 
 COLETTE. i^y 
 
 More cunning, however, than they were, this one 
 discovered my retreat ; once in the place he opened 
 my coffer bravely, and finding it empty as he expected, 
 put my arm within his own and brought me to his 
 house, where he compelled me to share his life during 
 two whole years ! 
 
 And this was not all that was offered by him, 
 friend Jacques — permit me to say it once to your face, 
 since I have the opportunity — it was done in such a 
 way that from the first I accepted it, and I have lived 
 with you like a parasite during all that time, without 
 the shadow of an ay-riere-pensee. 
 
 Do not exclaim ; it was indeed as a parasite, for 
 you know as well as I do what the salary of people is 
 who seek for work because they need it, and seek it 
 from one day to another without having passed the 
 ordeal of that administrative screw which is the glory 
 of our France. 
 
 Exactly what I earned, I do not remember ; but if 
 I paid in the good or the bad year, during those 
 days of trouble, one-quarter of the rent of our apart- 
 ments and my laundry bill, it was because they made 
 me concessions, I am sure of it ! 
 
 What profession, indeed, could I take up ? I was 
 a painter w^ho could enter without protest into the 
 Salon when I was an amateur ; but I became a dauber 
 only able to obtain fifty francs for a canvas of six 
 meters as soon as they had a suspicion that I was 
 selling it in order to live ! And as for music, one
 
 148 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 ought not to speak of it ! A guitarist is charming 
 on the balcony, but as a professor, what pupils could 
 I have found ? 
 
 There remained to me the choice of being a 
 supernumerary in finance, — three years of hopes 
 and of ambitious dreams that one must indulge in 
 when thinking of these appointments of fifteen hun- 
 dred francs which crown this novitiate, — or diplo- 
 macy and the chance of a consulship, — without the 
 possibility of buying myself patent leather boots and 
 fresh gloves which furnish the sinews of war there ; 
 — or finally, journalism. 
 
 Apart from that, when one has refused to nail his 
 name like an ensign upon the door of an intriguer, 
 tell me how a-gentleman can find employment in Paris ? 
 
 Therefore, I thought of emigrating, and had it not 
 been for you, there is strong reason to believe that 
 I should have followed my rascally friend across the 
 sea. But you were there and I remained, with a heart 
 a little bruised, I confess, by all that I had passed 
 through, but far from imagining the sudden turn in 
 the tide which awaited me and which was going to 
 permit me to complete the moral study of the human 
 animal upon the spot. 
 
 Mon Dieu, I should only have had to open one of 
 
 ' the pages of " La Rochefoucauld, " to have found it all 
 
 set down there in advance. But who believes '' La 
 
 Rochefoucauld" before having tasted for himself 
 
 what his better wisdom unfolds?
 
 COLETTE. 14^ 
 
 Briefly, I am not obliged to recall to you the de- 
 noument of the comedy which awoke me one tine 
 morning. The turn of the wheel was complete, and 
 Fortune brought back to me with one hand what she 
 had taken away with the other. My old villain, 
 richer than ever, had died intestate and without 
 children, and his lakes of petroleum, vigorously 
 claimed by all his dupes, were going to return to each 
 of us our rights. Our credentials were good, and 
 they gave us even the interest on the sums, which 
 was the involuntary self-denial which we had prac- 
 tised during two years ! 
 
 Three days after, Jacques, do you remember ? con- 
 gratulations and cards rained in upon us, and again I 
 was in possession of all my excellent companions. I 
 awoke, and all that I had believed lost, returned at 
 the same time and through the same door ; gold and 
 friendship ! 
 
 But this time it was too much ! Had they shown 
 a little patience I might have been deceived again 
 perhaps. But on the very next day they wished to 
 take up the old life at the precise point where they had 
 left it off; this dinner accepted two years before, and 
 which they now claimed of me ; that waltz, two win- 
 ters old and yellowed upon the card, which they 
 wished to recall to me ! it was vile, and it was laugh- 
 able at the same time, so much so, indeed, that I did 
 laugh, but with a heart full of contempt and indigna- 
 tion.
 
 J CO COLETTE. 
 
 To avoid then, was not enough. They had caused 
 me to be undeceived ; mahcious and cynical I entered 
 into all the combinations, I caressed all their hopes, I 
 flattered all their ambitions to make the deception 
 more complete on the day when I should break with 
 one blow all the threads of the puppets which I was 
 holding in my hand. 
 
 Then, embittered, wearied, forcibly separated from 
 you by your uncle's illness and the winter of seclu- 
 sion which it prepared for you, finding all words weak 
 which could express my hatred of the human race, 
 I was possessed with a desire to hear people lie 
 in Chinese, in Arabic, and in Hindustani, as I had 
 heard them do in French, in order to assure myself 
 that my country was neither in advance nor behind 
 its contemporaries. 
 
 And it is at this moment that you choose to preach 
 to me of love, the repose of the home, and that sweet 
 confidence which charms away the hours ! 
 
 My poor Jacques, you are a great child, and Mile. 
 d' Erlange, if she is not any worse than other women, 
 which is by no means certain, at least is like them all, 
 and that is enough to make me fly from her. 
 
 The proofs by which you wished to convince me 
 that I am guilty of being in love, have afforded 
 me much amusement. 
 
 "You are continually with her," you say to me ; 
 " you talk with her, you look at her, you treat her as a 
 blond fairy : confess that you are in love with her ! "
 
 COLETTE. iqi 
 
 Even if I wished to avoid liei, have I the legs 
 with which to do so ? Do you wish me to talk to 
 her with my head turned aside, and are you going 
 to see in the pleasing fantasies of my first regaining 
 consciousness anything but the usual exaggerations 
 of travellers who relate their adventures ? 
 
 And as for her being blond, my friend, I cannot 
 help that, she is blond, and I have said it frankly 
 without thinking any evil. . . . This brings me 
 back to your complaints on the subject of Mile. 
 d'Erlange : " You force me to imagine what she 
 is,'' you say to me ; "but apart from her hair, do 
 not give an indication of her personal appearance. 
 And you dilate at length upon the tapestries, the 
 crumbling towers, trifles indeed ! I have the frame, 
 I know it by heart. Put in the picture, I pray you ! " 
 
 Here it is, and true with a truth that my eyes by 
 no means prejudiced, as you see, can guarantee as 
 absolute. 
 
 Mile. Colette is rather small, or at least, without 
 being so in reality, she appears so. This agrees with 
 the extreme delicacy of her figure. Her head, like 
 that of Greek statues, is small, or do the quickness 
 and multiplicity of her movements give one that 
 impression ? I do not know. But it is certain that 
 standing, in the rare moments of quiet, she is erect 
 and straight as a tall birch tree, and I look at her 
 then with surprise. How has she taken on this extra 
 height ?
 
 152 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 Then, some idea enters her mind, she goes to the 
 right or to the left with her ghding step, and she is 
 nothing but an elf who has escaped from her home to 
 pay us mortals a visit. But you well know that an 
 elf has neither stature nor age. 
 
 Her nose is short, delicate, and a little saucy ; the 
 oval of her face is pretty, clear as a beautiful fruit, 
 and her complexion is like amber. 
 
 Do not read yellow, we are not at Gamboge ; it is 
 a transparent skin under which there always shines a 
 ray of sunlight. Her forehead is broad, her mouth 
 well made, and as for her eyes, I would willingly say 
 they are superb, if you would take it as it is meant ; 
 but you will see flames and bursts of passion, where 
 there is only the description of a conscientious pass- 
 port, for upon a passport itself they would be written, 
 I answer for it, and pointed out to every one as 
 "peculiar marks," they resemble so little those gen- 
 erally seen. 
 
 Large, superbly set, — I might as well tell you now, 
 for to-morrow you would ask for it, I know you, — 
 these eyes are of a deep black, intense, and from 
 them leaps an incessant lightning. 
 
 The eyelid lowered, it is the calm of a sleeping child ; 
 awake, it is flashing, and one is led to think that there 
 is an internal light shining through this flaming iris. 
 
 Does the black diamond exist? I do not know, 
 although it is often spoken of; but I believe that I 
 can picture it to myself easy enough now.
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 153 
 
 The distinctive feature of her appearance is a 
 mobiUty of expression, of which nothing can give 
 you the least idea, and a general vivacity. Literally, 
 one can see the ideas running about in those great 
 eyes which think so like an open book, and are rather 
 traitorous. 
 
 The curling lashes rarely droop, and then with a 
 slow movement like that of a bird's wing hovering in 
 the air, for the light does not trouble them in the 
 least : they and the sun are sworn comrades. 
 
 The eyebrows are straight and delicate, they are 
 like the stroke of a pencil made with a firm hand. 
 
 Finally, to complete this mixture of grace and mis- 
 chief, picture to yourself upon the left side, above the 
 lip, a very little dimple coming from no one knows 
 where, which shows itself in season and out of season, 
 raising only one corner of the mouth, — as if she laughed 
 only upon one side at a time, like one who is forbid- 
 den, — which gives her an expression of inexpressible 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 I will not say that Mile. Colette has the hands and 
 feet of a child, for I tliink the comparison absurd. 
 The idea ! To finish the tall body of a young girl 
 with two plump feet, as wide as long, and with those 
 little fat paws full of dimples which young children 
 have ! It makes one shudder ! But the Erlangcs are 
 evidently of good birth. 
 
 To sum up, it is an original face, remarkable in 
 many respects ; one which would fill you with admira-
 
 ir^ COLETTE. 
 
 tion, and to which you would dedicate a sonnet each 
 evening ; a painter would be delighted with it, although 
 it would be impossible for him to paint it just as it is. 
 
 I shall ask her permission to attempt it some day.; 
 however, and this first adventure of my journey shall 
 have the first page in my sketch-book. 
 
 "Ah, well ! what then?" you say. . . . Ah, well ! 
 is one obliged to love everything that is beautiful ? I 
 have described her to you like an artist, as I shall be 
 describing to you in three months, palaces, lotus flow- 
 ers, and Almas, — if, indeed, Almas exist anywhere 
 but in the ballets at the theatres ; but if you are 
 going to imagine a new romance with every new face 
 that I present to you, I shall be forced to write in 
 negro style : — 
 
 " Pleasant little trip. Just arrived. Made fine 
 crossing. Me not sea-sick. Found nice cabin to 
 live in. I kiss little white brother." 
 
 We must see the world as it is, my friend ; there is 
 no one worth very much, you and I exxepted, and we 
 deserve something better than these pampered dolls 
 we know so well, dreaming of fine carriages, of dia- 
 monds, and of toilettes. Therefore I took the vow 
 of celibacy a long time ago in your name as well as 
 in my own ; and we will suffice for each other. Sign 
 the contract, and dream no longer. 
 
 As for your delicate counsels in regard to Mile. 
 Colette, be easy, moralist ; if I am made of bronze, 
 she is of crystal ; and I do not think that my personal
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 155 
 
 appearance is such as to inflame any one at present. 
 And besides, do you think that a creature who laughs 
 all the day long can be very sentimental? She is not 
 a woman, she is a bell always jingling, and to see her 
 one would swear that the life we lead here is the most 
 diverting in the world. 
 
 You know what it is in reality, however ; and just 
 now, while Mile. d'Erlange was dancing about the 
 room, unconsciously humming in the way so habitual 
 to her, dusting the porcelains and the knick-knacks, 
 I followed with my eyes the movement of her hands 
 with much the same melancholy one feels in looking 
 upon those condemned to death ; and as I listened 
 to her humming I could not keep myself from ques- 
 tioning her about it. 
 
 '■'■ Moti DicitV I ex'claimed, "what makes you so 
 gay, and wreathes your lips in smiles?" 
 
 " My good humor! " she replied ; " does it tire you ? " 
 
 "Not at all! You astonish me, that is all." 
 
 "It is certainly very unlike you!" she answered 
 
 quickly. •' And if it is allowable for me to question 
 
 in my turn, what makes laughter such a stranger to 
 
 you ? " 
 
 " Suffering, just now," I replied at first, dryly, — 
 then, as I was ashamed of this flagrant lie, and above 
 all of the feeling of spite which aroused this rather 
 unkind recollection of the past, I continued : "' But 
 generally, I suppose that it is a humor contrary to 
 yours."
 
 156 
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 She raised her eyes, which had veiled themselves 
 with a quick movement, and smiling again, she said : 
 " Bad humor, then ? " 
 
 "Well, yes, bad humor without doubt, at least 
 in the opinion of those who regard laughter as the 
 assured sign of an amiable nature, and not as a 
 grimace or merely hereditary contortion confirming 
 the assertions of those who declare that we are 
 descended from monkeys." 
 
 " From monkeys ! " She drew back with a gesture 
 of dismay, embracing with a rapid glance her hands 
 and her entire person. " I have never heard of that 
 before ! Is it indeed possible? Is it true. Monsieur? 
 How have they found it out?" — Then.^as she saw 
 me shake my head: — "No? Oh! I am glad,'' she 
 continued before I could say a word, "for it would 
 be droll, but so disgusting. Imagine what one 
 would feel in meeting a caged baboon and saying 
 to one's self that it must be respected as an ances- 
 tor ! It is, indeed, bad enough to think that one 
 resembles them when laughing." 
 
 She ran to a glass, placed so high that she had to 
 get upon a table in order to see herself, and looking 
 at her deepening dimple, she said philosophically, 
 " It is quite possible that this is only a grimace after 
 all, but it is a good thing all the same." 
 
 And she burst into a most beautiful laugh, as a 
 proof of what she said, leaping to the ground with a 
 bound and with all the lightness and grace of a gazelle.
 
 COLETTE. I -.7 
 
 Her credulit}', as you see, is like her gayety, the 
 expression of a veritable child ; and she gave her- 
 self up for a moment to her sudden access of joy ; 
 then as I remained serious, she sat down, grew calm 
 and said very low : — 
 
 " Perhaps when one is much older, much wiser, one 
 may care for it no longer ; but 1 have not reached 
 that point yet!" 
 
 How is that, Jacques? Does she take me for a 
 patriarch, and have you noticed that I have become 
 gray and bowed ? 
 
 Well, this will quiet you and show you that there 
 is no danger in my remaining here. 
 
 As for me, I see nothing in her but a foolish child, 
 as I have told you; and as for her, she already 
 considers me so old and respectable that a little more 
 and she will confound me with her grandfather the 
 baboon. So we are both well protected. 
 
 After this, brother Jacques, invent no more ro- 
 mances, and sleep without dreaming ; my grand- 
 daughter and myself wish you good evening. 
 
 But watch yourself, my friend ; you see what a trai- 
 tor it is, this decrepitude ; it will come upon you some 
 fine morning before you are aware of it. 
 
 '• You who are so old, ... so old ! " 
 
 They take the bandage from my forehead this even- 
 ing. What appearance is my scar going to make ? 
 I think about it a little, I confess. 
 
 If the scar has an honorable look, I will get used
 
 158 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 to it ; but if it is a hole round and deep, like a blow 
 from a stick or a pedestal, I will summon Mile. Colette 
 and her executioner to rip it open again ! 
 
 Good heavens ! we have our self-love however aged 
 we may be !
 
 XX. 
 
 April 12. 
 
 I CANNOT say that my intimacy with M. de Civreuse 
 progresses ; it is the same to-day as it v.as yesterday. 
 He is now just what he Jias been ever since he first 
 regained consciousness : polite as a king, but rough 
 as a bear, and a mocker besides : our most trifling 
 conversations are disputes. 
 
 '■ Why are you always disagreeing with your Mon- 
 sieur?" said Benoite to me yesterday; "it is not 
 good for him, you know ! ■" 
 
 " What can I do, nurse ? " I replied ; " he sees red 
 where I see white." . . . Besides, I cannot allow him 
 to say such atrocious things and always approve them 
 just because he is sick, when he takes up so quickly 
 everything that I do. The temptation to resent is 
 too much for me ! 
 
 It is true that I have preached to myself morning 
 and evening, told myself that if I was different I should 
 undoubtedly please him better, and vowed that I 
 would change the next day ; but as soon as I am with 
 him, and hear the calm tone in which he so indiffer- 
 ently criticises both people and things, 1 start up in 
 spite of myself and reply to him with all the intense 
 indignation that I feel. Or again, when I am seated 
 
 159
 
 1 60 COLE TTE. 
 
 by the fire, listening to the melting snow which falls 
 with a great noise now that the eave-spouts are broken 
 down, and in the place of my solitude of the past 
 month see in the depths of the room that brown face 
 and hear that sonorous voice which replies to me or 
 questions me, while outside the April sun dances 
 across the window-panes, I am taken with such bursts 
 of joy, so quick and so unexpected, that I begin to 
 laugh without any reason, and without being able to 
 stop myself, I am so happy, so happy ! . . . 
 
 All this appears absurd to JVl. de Civreuse, and he 
 takes upon himself the duty of trying to prove to me 
 that it is nothing to be proud of, that all this gayety 
 is only an hereditary trait and the result of education, 
 and that we laugh as monkeys make grimaces, and for 
 no other reason ! 
 
 Does he say it mockingly, in order to frighten me, 
 or because he believes it a little ? I can never disen- 
 tangle more than half that he says to me, and were it 
 ten times true, what could I do ? Must I deprive my- 
 self of laughter and running about on account of a 
 chance resemblance, or possibly a natural one, and 
 must I no longer break my nuts with my teeth, or 
 leap over obstacles at a bound ? — things which show 
 still more the relationship ! . . . 
 
 He is a pedant whom I will leave to his criticisms 
 if he continues ; for this is a characteristic which I 
 did not take into consideration in that beautiful happy 
 time when I was praying to my saint, and when we
 
 COLE TTE. 1 6 1 
 
 came to an understanding as to what sort of a person 
 my hero should be. But whoever he shall be he shall 
 love Colette as she is, with her dog, with her faults, 
 with her laughter, with her peculiar ideas, and with 
 her girdle tied wrong side out, or she will return to her 
 own affairs, and will continue to pull down the stars 
 in her little corner, until she places her hand upon 
 the right one, at any rate upon one which has not 
 been soaked in a pail of water to extinguish all its 
 light before coming to her. 
 
 The truth is that I am furious, furious not only 
 because IM. de Civreuse finds me not to his taste, that 
 he thinks me ugly, foolish, and I do not know what 
 besides; but furious above all that I have tried in 
 vain, and cannot meet him with his own cold and 
 indifferent politeness. 
 
 Sometimes I am tempted to retort and to tell him 
 plainly that if his opinion of me is not flattering, 
 mine certainly is not as it regards him ; but I distrust 
 my tongue. For at the bottom, I do not think so at 
 all, and therefore it is quite possible that my diatribe 
 would turn suddenly into a compliment ! It is enough 
 to make one tremble ! His ear is so acute that I do 
 not know if it would be possible for me to express 
 what I feel, but do not really mean a word of, in such 
 a way that he would not detect the difference. 
 
 Then I relapse into silence, and when alone in my 
 room, with closed doors, I revenge myself by rudely 
 questioning my imagination and my heart. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 COLETTE. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I say to them, in a point- 
 blank manner, as in imagination I set them opposite 
 to me. "Explain yourselves; whence comes this 
 folly and this infatuation ? " 
 
 " What has this man done to you ? He is not 
 amiable, he is scarcely polite, less beautiful than we 
 are, assuredly, and it is clear that we hardly please 
 him." 
 
 " What effort has he made to conceal it from you ? 
 For three weeks, has he attempted to say to you a 
 single tender or gallant word, so much as a word of 
 two syllables, or even to utter a sigh ? Do either of 
 you know more about this than I 1 Speak ! " 
 
 Neither has much to say, but their short answer 
 admits of no discussion : — " He pleases us, that is 
 all.-' 
 
 And this is how I find myself thinking of M. de 
 Civreuse a little, often, constantly indeed, without 
 being at all satisfied with him, however, and without 
 fully understanding what is really in my heart. 
 
 Sometimes I wonder, seeing the astonished air 
 with which he follows my least word, if he has not 
 been shut up like me in an old deserted and ruined 
 chateau, where the moats and ramparts have kept him 
 until now from the sight of all women, as my battle- 
 ments have restrained me from contact with a living 
 soul. 
 
 But in that case, a long time must have passed 
 since he crossed his drawbridge, for his knowledge
 
 COLETTE. I (5 
 
 o 
 
 of humanit}-, although it is not very amiable, appears 
 to be quite extensive, and he knows much about 
 many things of whose very names I am ignorant. 
 Hence these peculiar conversations, when I reply to 
 him without knowing exactly what I am saying, or 
 when we quarrel without my knowing exactly why, and 
 during which I am not sure that he always knows 
 himself what he means. 
 
 Yesterday, for example, we were speaking of society 
 people ; I was saying to him how little I knew of 
 things outside of Erlange, and begging him to relate 
 to me what there is to be seen and what is being done 
 outside of my hole. 
 
 He commenced immediately, but he described what 
 I asked for in such a way, that I listened astonished 
 to hear him treat all men indifferently as wretches or 
 as rascals. . . . Was it a joke, or must one really 
 believe him ? If it was true, one would scarcely dare 
 to put one foot before the other ; here a trap, there a 
 pit-fall, farther on a mine, which only waits for you to 
 step on it to explode ; this is, according to him, the 
 ordinary condition of things, and all covered over 
 with flowers, smiles, and honeyed words to lead you on. 
 
 Is it literally true? and does he speak of real mines 
 filled with powder? I do not know ; and after having 
 attentively listened to him, I could not prevent myself 
 from rebelling. 
 
 " But then," I cried, jumping up, " your world 
 would be a den of robbers I "
 
 1 64 COLE TTE. 
 
 To which he replied very quietly : — 
 
 " It resembles that very much indeed ! " 
 
 And when I asked him, indignantly, if he was sure 
 that what he told me was true, he said : — 
 
 '■'•Mon Dienl I speak as a traveller who describes 
 the cross-road where thieves have taken from him his 
 watch and his purse ; that is all ! " 
 
 Have they truly robbed him? I could not help 
 but ask him that, and without moving an eyebrow 
 he said dryly : — 
 
 "Of my good faith and my confidence, yes, Ma- 
 demoiselle. Does not one find these worth as much 
 as doubloons and a valise ? " 
 
 This is my guest, and these are his peculiarities. 
 In these instances what could I reply? I remained 
 stupefied, and I could quite as easily have followed 
 his conversation if he had seen fit to talk in Chinese. 
 
 To sum up, he appears to me to be little subject to 
 illusions, and as for eighteen years I have tilled my 
 brain with ideals and chimeras, I think that now I 
 have found a check for them. 
 
 There is not even an exception : we are not wortli 
 any more than the others ; for when I ventured to 
 put in a little word in behalf of women : — 
 
 " Pooh ! " said he, " each has his instincts. Wolves 
 bite, tigers tear with their claws ! Do you think that 
 one is much better than the other?" 
 
 TiTily, I do not believe that any one ever treated 
 men and women before in this cynical way, the good
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 165 
 
 God himself who knows the secrets of all hearts 
 would not, I am sure. 
 
 I was determined to stop him, to embarrass him 
 at least, and so planting myself before him, I said : — 
 
 "And I, whom you do not know, what am I 
 then?"' 
 
 " Well.'' said he, smiling, " of buds not 3'et in bloom 
 I would not say too much, but I believe indeed that 
 all the instincts are there ! " 
 
 Really, I could have stmck him. Therefore, by 
 way of argument, I said : — 
 
 "And Monsieur Jacques?" 
 
 "Jacques?"' Then changing his tone upon the 
 instant. . . . "Jacques — There are all the treas- 
 ures, all the delicacies, all the kindnesses, all the 
 heroisms of the earth united in one man ! " 
 
 And as he took breath : — 
 
 " Then he is an exception," I said ironically. 
 
 "Precisely, the exception which proves the rule." 
 
 " What does that mean ? " 
 
 " Oh ! i>ion Dieii, not mucli in truth ! Merely a 
 repetition. It is a current phrase." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " I exclaimed angrily, " then one should 
 catch it sometime and put it in a cage, since it has 
 no sense." 
 
 I had uttered an absurdity, 1 knew it well ; but I 
 was vexed without knowing why. 
 
 M. de Civreuse laughed but did not reply, and 
 took up his panegyric on his friend from the point
 
 1 66 COLETTE. 
 
 where he had left off. He was another man now, 
 he spoke rapidly ; assuredly he had put aside his 
 reserve, and for the first time I saw him animated. 
 
 And this Jacques is kind and good and beautiful ! 
 Truly, I shall end by becoming interested in him : 
 it seemed to me that he was describing one of those 
 fairy kingdoms where all is perfect, streams of barley 
 syrup, rocks of candied sugar, and a little rain vanilla- 
 perfumed for the warm days! Therefore, when M. 
 Pierre let himself fall back upon his pillows with a 
 satisfied air : — 
 
 " Ah, well ! " I said with conviction, " I know that 
 I should like him very much ! " 
 
 Upon that he turned quickly around, knitting his 
 terrible brow, and looking into my two eyes : — 
 
 " Believe me, Mademoiselle," said he, in his most 
 biting tone, " that he would be proud and happy ! " 
 
 And I, not reflecting a second, replied in my turn, 
 not less quickly : " Moil Dieu ! I believe it ; but not 
 every one who wishes it is liked. Monsieur!" 
 
 After that, a silence heavy and crushing. 
 
 Is there in truth anything more singular than this 
 character, and can this conversation be explained? 
 These are, however, the ordinary talks between us, 
 and three times out of four, without my being able to 
 understand how, they end in disputes. 
 
 This time, however, could I have done any better ? 
 After having borne very patiently witli his chivalrous 
 classification, which placed me among the wolves, if
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 167 
 
 I was not reckoned among the tigers, I fell into agree- 
 ment with him in his eulogy on his friend, and be- 
 held him suddenly angered ! Turned towards the 
 wall, with an air as foreign to all that surrounded him 
 as if he had fallen from the moon, M. de Civreuse 
 began to whistle quickly a little march, accompanying 
 himself with a lively movement of his fingers upon 
 the coverlet. 
 
 I soon grew tired of this silence, and moved about 
 seeking some new subject, biting my nails one after the 
 other. But that made less noise than the little march, 
 and in spite of myself I followed its movement, the 
 bounding rhythm of which made me beat time without 
 wishing to — "La,. . . la, . . . la, la, la. la! " It was im- 
 possible to endure this, and besides, I felt myself in the 
 humor for nonsense. At the third repetition I will 
 speak, I said to myself. And as the third came before 
 I had found a single idea, I gave the table a sly kick 
 with my foot, and everything upon it fell with a 
 frightful noise. But I had not reckoned upon the 
 coolness of M. Pierre; he quietly finished his tune 
 without turning around, and as 1 murmured a little 
 confusedly : — 
 
 " It is the table, my foot caught in it."' 
 
 " Ah ! " was all he said. 
 
 I set about repairing the disaster. The contents of 
 a cup had been spilled in the crash. 
 
 "Lap it up, my good dog ! " said I to " Un,"" show- 
 ing him the liquid.
 
 1 68 COLETTE. 
 
 Suddenly M. de Civreuse stopped, and looking 
 at it, said tranquilly : — 
 
 " It is the cup which had the morphine in it ; he 
 will sleep until to-morrow." — And he started to go 
 on with his march. 
 
 But this I would not allow ; I replied that he was 
 mistaken. The contradiction stopped him on the 
 spot ; he turned his head to prove to me that I was 
 wrong, and in a minute we were at it again. 
 
 This is a specimen of our relations to each other. 
 Certainly the flower of gallantry is absent, and yet I 
 find an extreme pleasure in it. So much the more in 
 that nothing angers me, nothing wounds me, and my 
 perpetual bursts of rage cool so quickly, that in the 
 evening when I have returned to my own room, and 
 shake out the cinders of this fire to search for a half- 
 extinguished spark of rancor, all my recollections of the 
 day leap forth like veritable fireworks, and it is only 
 the rockets of joy and pleasure that flash before my 
 mental vision. 
 
 I know very well that I gain nothing ; but in the 
 future, in the far hazy distance, I picture to myself 
 the revenge I shall have, and I smile to myself in 
 advance at the thought of it. 
 
 Oh ! M. de Civreuse, on the day when you will fall at 
 my feet, what pleasure it will give me to leave you there, 
 and how you will regret then the time that you have lost, 
 while you anxiously look for those smiles which you 
 could so easily have won for yourself during these hours !
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 169 
 
 Often he makes me speak of my life at Erlange, of 
 my convent, and of my aunt. Yesterday I believe he 
 was even going to ask me some questions on my 
 studies. A little examination in history and geog- 
 raphy, in which assuredly I should not have distin- 
 guished myself ! 
 
 In my turn, I have questioned him upon his journey. 
 What beautiful things he will do and see ! To go 
 wherever his fancy leads him ; to take the advice of no 
 one ; to hunt elephants as one catches sparrows here 
 with birdlime ; to climb mountains on whose sum- 
 mits the head is above the clouds and the feet within 
 them ; to row upon the Ganges, a great sacred river — 
 as we would say here, " a river of holy water," — where 
 tliere are sometimes encounters with crocodiles as 
 long as boats, and sometimes dead Indians come 
 floating down the stream on their way to Paradise. 
 — for that is the road, it appears, and that is the 
 svstem of their burials there ! — To take the air in a 
 palanquin, and find each morning in the oysters for 
 breakfast pearls enough to make a necklace, what a 
 dream, what a life ! 
 
 A great cry rose within me while listening to him, 
 a mute cry indeed : "• Oh ! take me ! take me ! as a 
 domestic, as a page, as a cook, or as a comrade, ac- 
 cording to your wish ! I will be so agreeable, so 
 brave, so bold, so hardened to fatigue, so happy to 
 sup off a roasted jackal ! " But how should I express 
 these longings?
 
 lyo COLETTE. 
 
 He, seeing me hanging upon his words, with eyes 
 shining with enthusiasm and hands tightly clasped 
 in my emotion : — 
 
 " All that appears to you superb, does it not ? " 
 said he. with the air he usually takes when he finds 
 me carried away with excitement. . . . 
 
 Truly, to look at him, to hear him, one would think 
 that he had already lived two or three lives at least, 
 and that his fourth attempt bored him, like an old book 
 that one knows by heart. At such a page, he says to 
 himself, I shall find this, at such another, that, and his 
 indifference to everything comes from this cause ; he 
 has no longer any pleasure in the unexpected. This is 
 the only thing that can explain his moroseness, and 
 sometimes I long to ask him : — " Did you do this, 
 or did you think that in your former life ? " But he 
 would believe me insane without doubt ; therefore, I 
 wisely keep my little observations to myself, and 
 merely tell him in all sincerity how much I envy him, 
 and how this life of adventure entices me ! 
 
 '■' Bah ! you would soon be tired of it," he said to 
 me, shrugging his shoulders ; " there is neither a doll 
 nor a rattle there ! " 
 
 I tired of it, I ! But I should find it adorable, I 
 know, and moreover, do I have rattles here? If M.de 
 Civreuse would kindly show them to me, he would 
 oblige me. 
 
 I who have always loved the impossible, who, in 
 my cradle, longed for the golden arrow that held
 
 COLETTE. lyi 
 
 ba^k my curtains, because I believed it inaccessible, 
 and who since that time have continued to wish in 
 the same manner for all the golden arrows that were 
 placed too high for me ! 
 
 " But you do not know what I like, you see ! " I said 
 to M. Pierre ; '' I desire all that I cannot reach, and 
 I admire all that I cannot do V 
 
 •• Like the Malays of Timor,'' he replied, looking at 
 me with curiosity, " who adore the crocodiles, because, 
 they say very judiciously : ' A crocodile can swallow 
 a man, but a man cannot swallow a crocodile.'" 
 
 I made no reply, but the reasoning does not appear 
 to me to be so foolish, and these Malays seem to me 
 to be quite logical. 
 
 If one does not like a thing from preference, it is 
 something to worship it through fear ; and if I knew 
 the way to make some one say he adored me. even 
 from the fear of being devoured, how willingly would 
 1 become a Malay ! . . . 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 My friend, she has wit, it cannot be denied, but 
 her inflammability and Iicr ardor frigliten me. 
 
 Would you like to see a rocket which, instead of 
 going into the clouds, danced perpetually before your 
 eyes? It makes me nervous and I wink. But one 
 must be just : the rocket has beautiful colors and a 
 strong light. 
 
 This is to tell you that we have daily conversations,
 
 iy2 COLETTE. 
 
 and that she no longer restrains herself before me- 
 A patriarch is of no consequence, you readily under- 
 stand ! 
 
 But to commence with my somewhat tender sensi- 
 bilities, if you are willing. Things promise better than 
 I expected. The scar descends from my hair and 
 cuts through one eyebrow in a decided way. I have 
 no fault to find with that, and with it I could return 
 from a " Malakoff Tower," if I wished, without shame : 
 it is irreproachable. 
 
 The good doctor himself contemplated it proudly. 
 The vanity of the artist is indeed excusable ! Then 
 he invited all of my attendants to come and see the 
 model of his professional skill. 
 
 Benoite has complimented me after her own way 
 with her habitual naivete : — "It looked better before, 
 certainly, but for a patch, it is a good patch ! " And 
 Mile. Colette almost did me the honor of showing a 
 weakness ! 
 
 She bent over me to look at it, whiter than her 
 linen handkerchief, and as I raised my eyebrows to 
 show her its flexibility : — 
 
 " It moves! " she cried with alarm, turning towards 
 the doctor. 
 
 "What does?" said he to her; "the skin on the 
 forehead? I should hope so, indeed, and so does 
 yours." 
 
 She frowned and moved her own in every way to 
 assure herself; then, quieted, she approached, and
 
 COLETTE. ly^ 
 
 comparing my two eyes, the one just uncovered with 
 the other : — 
 
 "They are just alike!" she breathed in a low 
 voice. 
 
 And I must conclude from that, that up to 
 this time she has supposed me to be blind or 
 cross-eyed. 
 
 The excitement quieted down and the doctor de- 
 parted. Benoite returned to her oven, an extravagant 
 appellation, for they still cook at Erlange upon the 
 hearth and with the tripods of our ancestors, and 
 Mademoiselle Colette and myself were left to our 
 customary tete-a-tete. 
 
 You would not be able to believe all that we have 
 said here for some days, and my discoveries about 
 my young companion multiply. 
 
 First, Jacques, veil your face ; but I must come to 
 this conclusion, that she is absolutely ignorant. A 
 veritable little carp. Only you would lose time if 
 you attempted to pity her, and your sympatliy would 
 be badly placed, for she bears this deficiency with the 
 most amiable philosophy, and she has made a little 
 salad of all the knowledge she possesses, and that 
 appears to satisfy her perfectly. 
 
 She has passed, however, two years in one of the 
 best convents in Paris ; but we are great ignoramuses, 
 you and I, if we imagine it is work that occupies 
 them there. 
 
 From class to class the interests vary. From dolls
 
 I y4 COLE TTE. 
 
 they pass to hoops, from hoops to story-books, from 
 story-books to worldHness, to the polka step and the 
 forbidden sketch of a waltz taught upon the close-cut 
 grass near the hedges. Studies there are only acces- 
 sories, a side issue, a fifth wheel to a carriage. 
 
 Moreover, Mile. d'Erlange has her own ideas about 
 things, and she has given them to me with extreme 
 clearness. For her part, she has never been able to 
 retain anything but what treated of people or things 
 that she liked. But all these she knows to perfection. 
 As for the rest : Nothing ! That is her system. 
 
 Thus her history of France is very simple. She 
 takes to Charlemagne, a great man who interests her, 
 and she knows very well all there is about him : the 
 ball which he holds in his hand, his sword, his large 
 foot, and above all, his nephew Roland! From him 
 she jumps to Henry IV, her supreme delight. She 
 remembers all his witty sayings, adores his profile 
 and his fury, but gets somewhat confused in the 
 history of his abjuration and conquest. Since he 
 had France in his cradle when he was born, why did 
 he go to war on her account? Then Napoleon is her 
 final point and her last enthusiasm. Since then, are 
 we sleeping, or do we still live? This is what she 
 does not know, and until the next great man appears 
 she is resolved not to trouble herself about it! Con- 
 sequently the poor child runs the risk of having 
 nothing to do for some time, if I can believe the 
 signs of the present times ; how does it seem to you?
 
 COLETTE. I y^ 
 
 Meantime, she mentions confusedly. Bayard, 
 Duguesclin, Jeanne d'Arc, and in general every 
 warrior. These serve as commas in the immense 
 interregnum, and I am not sure that she does not 
 crown them at one time or another. 
 
 You see the process, there is nothing easier, — she 
 does not confine herself to theories, but applies her 
 way of reasoning resolutely to everything ; therefore 
 in geography, her international antipathies are nu- 
 merous, and she expresses them freely. 
 
 For example, England and the English displease 
 her ! Upon her map the British Channel has a red 
 mark through it which Mile. d'Erlange never crosses 
 over. You may judge if the Rhine fares any better. 
 The Italians are no more agreeable to her than the 
 English ; therefore the same fatal line undulates to 
 the summit of the Alps. On the other hand, she 
 even goes as far as Russia to interest herself in her 
 friends the Slavs : and I believe that she has an 
 idea of more than one peculiarity in her own 
 land. 
 
 Tell her that the Parnassus is a hill facing Mont- 
 martre, and you will not astonish her at all ; and she 
 mixes up the departments, the towns, the railroads, 
 and the rivers with the most amusing indifference. 
 
 Add to this some fragments of varied knowledge 
 which she has picked up no one knows where, some 
 verses gathered into a lump, some ijolitical ideas, 
 some anecdotes of the time of King William, a way
 
 1)6 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 of doing sums for which the humblest cobbler's ap- 
 prentice would be turned off, the possession of a 
 marvellous self-assurance, and an extreme quickness 
 of comprehension, and you will have an idea of a com- 
 bination which would give the jaundice to a peda- 
 gogue, but would fill a fanciful person with delight. 
 
 For myself, who am neither the one nor the other, 
 I contemplate it, I enjoy it, I comfortably seat myself 
 in my piazza chair, without forgetting to give you 
 the other end of the telephone, lucky rascal that you 
 are ! 
 
 Hesitating at nothing, moreover, and delighting in 
 the impossible, if I should propose to her a journey 
 to the Indies in my service to-morrow, I would bet 
 ten to one that she would accept — and this is said 
 without the least regard to myself, for that I should 
 hold no place in her thought is positively certain. 
 
 But to see the crocodiles, the rattlesnakes, and 
 such pretty things ! Can you imagine the pleasure 
 of it ? She would make the journey if she had to 
 swim all the way out for it ! 
 
 It is incredible that you find among all women the 
 development of the same emotions and the same love 
 of adventure which they place higher than any other 
 enjoyment, and yet which would make them die of 
 mortal fright if they were realized. 
 
 Put Mile. Colette face to face with the jaws of an 
 alligator who looked at her while yawning, and the 
 poor little thing would fly, unless her legs refused to
 
 COLETTE. j-» 
 
 do her service, screaming at the top of her voice. And 
 yet at this present time she cannot imagine any hap- 
 piness comparable to that of seeing herself near 
 these great lizards that sob during the evening with 
 the plaintive cries of children in their cradles, accord- 
 ing to what she has been told, but who at other times 
 swallow their man, showing that they are children 
 who have at least cut their second teeth. 
 
 I have attempted to disenchant her ; but she is 
 determined to find everything beautiful, and there is 
 so much blue upon her palette that I despair of ever 
 putting upon it a darker color. You cry out with in- 
 dignation at the idea of disillusioning this dreamer ! 
 Ah ! why do you not wish me to teach this girl that 
 water wets and fire burns ? She is capable of not 
 suspecting them, and of putting out her hand to try 
 them. Comfort yourself, however ; she loses neither 
 food nor drink in following my sceptical preaching, 
 and I wish that you could see her take her lunch ; it 
 is a comforting sight. 
 
 At four, just as soon as the first stroke of the clock 
 is heard, — a worthless old thing, which goes accord- 
 ing to its own will, with the greatest scorn of exacti- 
 tude, and which Mile. Colette herself winds up every 
 fortnight, in the top of the chateau, — she springs up 
 and disappears without the slightest warning, even if 
 she is in the middle of a sentence, or has to leave a 
 gesture unfinished, and is soon lost in the depth of 
 her ruin, as if like the shipwrecked passengers of 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 " la Meduse " she felt the positive necessity of going 
 in search of food. 
 
 Five minutes before, she was not thinking of it ; 
 but at four o'clock, it is as if she felt a faintness, an 
 uncontrollable appetite, and if the hand should pass 
 the quarter all would be lost. 
 
 At first, I await her return, surprised, anxious, and 
 always thinking that something unusual has occurred 
 to produce this sudden flight ; but at the end of five 
 minutes she returns with a light step, a part of her 
 dress raised in order to carry her provisions, and 
 seats herself again in her chair, and while eating 
 her repast she takes up the conversation at the place 
 where she left it off; and what a repast it is ! 
 
 Regularly, I say it to her praise, she offers to share 
 it with me, but she comes so bravely to the end of it 
 alone that I should scruple to touch it, and I watch 
 her break her nuts with the pressure of her teeth like 
 a Nuremberg plaything, eat her dried prunes, which 
 resemble melted rubber, or a kind of sweetmeats of a 
 soft paste, which she draws out in great white strings. 
 
 Once only have I accepted her courtesy. From 
 the folds of her gown, besides an enormous piece of 
 bread, she had taken out successively five red apples. 
 Five apples ! can you understand these young girls' 
 stomachs incapable of finishing a good bloody beef- 
 steak, but which make away with five apples in a few 
 minutes ? 
 
 At her first offer, I had refused, and without insist-
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 179 
 
 ing further, she had set herself to work. Conscien- 
 tiously, with the wool of her gown, she made each 
 apple shine before eating it, rubbing it, and re-rubbing 
 it, and not putting it between her teeth until her 
 great, black eyes were reflected in this singular mirror. 
 I followed her, amused by her proceedings, interest- 
 ing myself in the spots which resisted, and so occu- 
 pied with her that, at the third apple, she noticed my 
 attention. Was there in my glance a glimpse of 
 covetousness, or did she only think so ? I do not 
 know, but suddenly holding out her hand : — 
 
 " I have five of them to-day ; truly you can have 
 one of them," she said, with gravity. And as I an- 
 swered nothing, overcome by this munificence : — ■ 
 
 " I am going to make it shine for you," said she. 
 And still with the same fold of her draperies, with 
 an ardor which sent the blood to her cheeks, she 
 brought the apple up to the desired point, then handed 
 it to me. I ate it, as you may believe, with a grati- 
 tude proportionate to the kindness ; but this symboli- 
 cal fruit worried me, and with an anxious eye I sought 
 the serpent under the furniture. He was not there, 
 fortunately, ... at least, apparently not ! 
 
 This brings to my mind a physiological apprecia- 
 tion of Mile. Colette, which will amuse you I am very 
 sure, and will complete her scientific knowledge. 
 
 It was yesterday, at the particular hour of which I 
 have spoken. At the stroke of four she had de- 
 parted, and tlie quarter had struck before she re-
 
 I So COLE TTE. 
 
 appeared. Look at this anomaly: Fifteen minutes 
 to prepare her feast ! What was she going to bring 
 back ? Just heaven ! My eyes did not leave the 
 door. Five minutes later she appeared, both hands 
 full, and with a sedate air as if she was bringing in a 
 relic. For an instant I had the idea that she had 
 brought back her St. Joseph with her, and that peace 
 had been made between them ; but no. it was not 
 that ! The object of so much care was a piece of hot 
 bread smoking between her fingers, — a cantle, as one 
 would say here, — in size, nearly a quarter of a loaf, 
 in the midst of which a hole was made, filled with 
 thick and yellow cream, melting and giving forth the 
 most pleasing odor. 
 
 She uttered a sigh of relief while seating herself, 
 nodding her head with a trustful air and showing me 
 the object while saying in a low voice and with an 
 expressive grimace : — 
 
 " It is hot ! " Then incontinently, she attacked the 
 fabulous treat, biting and blowing it in turn. 
 
 " But," I could not help saying, " you are not going 
 to eat that ? " 
 
 " Certainly, why not ? It is excellent ! " 
 
 " Perhaps, but it is as heavy as lead ! You will have 
 a stomach ache ! " 
 
 " The stomach," she replied with an air of superiority, 
 ''what do you think that this can do to it P" And 
 she laughed with delight at the idea that this half pound 
 of warm dough could inconvenience her stomach !
 
 COLETTE. 1 8 1 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! it can give it some trouble to digest 
 it," I replied. Then, as she opened her eyes wide, 
 the thought came to me that she did not know in the 
 least what I was talking about, and calling to my aid 
 the classical description of my childhood : — 
 
 " The stomach," I said in a learned tone, " is a 
 sort of pocket which is shaped like a bagpipe. Its 
 inflated extremity is placed on the left side, and above 
 the" . . . 
 
 "Oh, well ! " said she, unceremoniously interrupting 
 me, " it is not at all like that, that I look at it ! " 
 
 And as the bread was decidedly too warm, she laid 
 it down upon her knees, and without being urged : — 
 
 " Here," she replied, '• is the way I represent it. 
 I see an old gentleman, very small, very bent, in 
 nut-colored clothes, with a powdered wig and a 
 gold-headed cane, who goes backward and forward 
 continually in a little room. In the middle there is 
 a great fireplace through which tumbles all that one 
 sends to him, and towards which he hurries as soon as 
 a cargo arrives. He stoops down, sorts it out, looks 
 at it, and rubs his hands when what he receives seems 
 good to him, shrugs his shoulders, and becomes 
 angry when it seems bad. ' The simpletons, the im- 
 beciles, what have they sent me here ?' he murmurs. 
 • What do they expect that I can do with it ? ' And 
 he pushes it all with his foot into one corner where 
 one puts things that are good-f(jr-nothing, and where 
 perhaps my warm bread will go, but that is all the
 
 1 82 COLETTE. 
 
 harm it will do. As for the pocket and the bagpipes, 
 I have never heard anything about them, and I do not 
 wish to trouble myself with them. My little old man 
 suffices for the work, we intend to enjoy ourselves, 
 and if he knits his brows a little in the days of green 
 fruits, he has had the politeness never to say anything 
 to me about it ; so why should I change ? ■" 
 
 The bread no longer smoked, the crust cracked 
 open as it cooled, and the cream smelt better than 
 ever : Mile. Colette took it up again delicately with 
 the ends of her fingers and finished eating it without 
 another word, persuaded that she had convinced me 
 of the existence of her little man. There is her 
 logic. 
 
 After all, after hearing her relate her life, her origi- 
 nalities are explained. I questioned her yesterday 
 upon her childhood, seeking in her past some trace 
 of a governess, a professor, or some direction of 
 some kind, and as I could find nothing that re- 
 sembled it : — 
 
 " Who did bring you up then ? " I asked at last. 
 
 " Me? wh)', no one ! " she replied. " I have grown 
 up just in my own way. Thank God ! it was the 
 compensation of my soHtude." 
 
 And she made a little gesture with her hand to 
 indicate how any one grows up according to his own 
 will. 
 
 How is that for an education? This little girl 
 growing up like tlie wild oats, between her dog and her
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 183 
 
 old nurse, more of a slave still than her dog, and with 
 twenty-four hours each day in which to do all sorts 
 of foolish actions to her satisfaction ! I understand 
 now the act which procured for me the enviable 
 advantage of her acquaintance. There is no previous 
 consideration in what she does, she has no thought 
 of the action beyond the necessary time to accom- 
 plish it, — she knows of no other obstacle. 
 
 There were, however, some melancholy hours in 
 her existence, which she related to me without 
 reserve. The aunt — who, you must know, is a 
 frightful old woman — has just given me a glimpse 
 of her humor, and on account of a sally which she has 
 just made upon us, our whole little society was thrown 
 into agitation, and the trace of it still remains. 
 
 It was about two hours ago, I was looking at " Un " 
 whom iMlle. Colette was making execute the most 
 varied tricks in his repertoire, not disdaining to take 
 part herself from time to time in the exercises, when 
 the door opened quickly, and a woman entered. 
 Tall, dry. bony, of an ugliness which would have dis- 
 credited "Croquemitaine," if she had ever put her- 
 self into opposition with him to make the comparison ; 
 she announced herself in a voice which instantly 
 brought her young niece to her feet, and which made 
 the dog leap before his mistress as if to guard her. 
 showing all his teeth. 
 
 "Monsieur, I am Mile. d'Epinc!" said she to me. 
 
 "Very well named," thought I to myself; then
 
 1 84 COLE TTE. 
 
 aloud — '' Mademoiselle, I have the honor of present- 
 ing to you my respect ! " I replied. 
 
 But she did not trouble herself about my respect ! 
 
 " A month ago," she continued, " you arrived at 
 my house, falling from no one knows where, and as 
 I thought that you are now at the end of your so- 
 journ, I wished to see you once before your depart- 
 ure." 
 
 " Arrived " seemed to me strong, " sojourn " still 
 stronger, and you will admit that there could be no 
 clearer way of showing me the door, but before I 
 could answer a word. Mile. d'Erlange had started 
 up: — 
 
 " Say at our house ! " she cried, '•' and, indeed, at 
 my house, for M. de Civreuse is in my wing, you 
 know it well ! and as to the manner in which he has 
 ' fallen ^ here, as you seem to have forgotten it, I will 
 bring it back to your memory. 
 
 " I wounded Monsieur in the head by throwing 
 something out-doors just as he was passing on the 
 road, without a thought of us, I assure you ! and 
 Benoite and I brought him into the kitchen half dead. 
 Then, while she was preparing the room, and as I was 
 keeping watch over him downstairs, I vowed, kneel- 
 ing beside him, to watch over him, to cure him, and 
 finally to obtain my pardon. 
 
 " Do you remember it now, aunt, and all these 
 things which I have told you once already?" 
 
 " I remember only this," she cried with fury, walk-
 
 COLETTE. 185 
 
 ing towards the young girl; '-once already, indeed, 
 have I opposed this role of nurse that you are filling 
 here under such highly improper circumstances, and 
 this time I shall know how to make you leave it ! " 
 
 "Why have you not taken it upon yourself then?" 
 replied Mile. Colette. " There is more than one 
 place beside this bed, I think ! " 
 
 " A bed that I would have left before this evening, 
 be assured of it, Mademoiselle ! " cried I in my turn, 
 " and which I would never have consented to occupy 
 a single instant, had I been more than half dead, if 
 I had had a suspicion that I was received against 
 the will of any one here ! " 
 
 I was beside myself. Insolent words burned upon 
 my lips, and I do not know in truth what held me 
 back from uttering them at that moment. 
 
 She did not answer a single word to my protesta- 
 tion, however, and turning towards her niece, she 
 said : — 
 
 " You shall be forced to obedience by one wiser 
 than yourself ! " 
 
 Then judging that her work was accomplished, she 
 went towards the door with her great swinging step, 
 like a dismantled frigate which is being drawn upon 
 the sands, its useless hulk bumping upon every 
 rock. 
 
 But she was not half-way across the room when a 
 fourth person appeared upon the scene, — it was my 
 doctor who came in like an arrow, witii frowning
 
 1 86 COLETTE. 
 
 brows and contracted lips, and who took her by the 
 arm and stopped her without ceremony. 
 
 "Who speaks of obedience in the chamber of a 
 sick man, when the doctor is not present ? " said he, 
 rudely. 
 
 He had listened behind the door and did not con- 
 ceal it. 
 
 "You," continued he, turning towards Mile. Co- 
 lette, " you are in your place here. Do not stir. I 
 am the one who has placed you here ; I am the one 
 who keeps you here ; I take it upon my shoulders ! 
 
 " You, Monsieur," said he to me, " you have not 
 forgotten our lirst conversation, I think ; you know 
 how I understand responsibility ! 
 
 " I have your word and you will not leave Erlange 
 until I myself release you. 
 
 " And you, Mademoiselle," added he, looking at 
 the old maid whom he had not released, " I am going 
 to have the honor of offering you my arm to conduct 
 you to your room, and I will relate to you on the 
 way some particulars about fractures, of the effects of 
 which you seem to be ignorant, and which I am very 
 sure will interest you." 
 
 And drawing away the abashed Mile. d'Epine, 
 upon whom he smiled pleasantly, he made her cross 
 the entire room. Upon the threshold he stopped : — 
 
 " And note," added he, turning and looking at us, 
 " that Mile. d'Erlange was half mistaken just now. It 
 is not one wing that belongs to her, it is the entire 
 chateau, ruins and all ! " — Then they went out !
 
 COLE TTE. 
 
 187 
 
 To say that I was raging internally would be weak ; 
 my hand w^as sketching vague windmills, and 1 was 
 eager to lay the blame upon some one. But, however 
 bearded my adversary might be, the sex to which she 
 laid claim placed her beyond attack, and yet I have 
 seen grenadiers who would have passed for dandies 
 in comparison with her breadth of shoulders! Be- 
 sides, the thought of Mile. Colette came back to me, 
 the tirade had been yet more rude to her. 
 
 I turned towards her, expecting to find her in tears, 
 but she was far from it : with flashing eyes and head 
 held proudly erect, she seemed like a Bellona in her 
 wrath. 
 
 " The wicked woman ! the wicked woman ! "' cried 
 she, stamping. 
 
 Then impetuously throwing herself into a chair : — 
 
 " For eighteen years have I lived near her ! " she 
 said with a burst. 
 
 " Why, is she always like this ? " I asked. 
 
 " Always ! " 
 
 " But what is the matter with her ? " 
 
 " How can one tell ? " she replied, shaking her 
 head. " Verjuice in the blood, perhaps ! " 
 
 I suppose there are some women who grow bad 
 dispositions just as some herbs grow nettles. She is 
 among the nettles, evidently. 
 
 '• And apart from my presence here, what is there 
 usually which can enrage her against you ? " 
 
 She made no reply, looking at me with an unde-
 
 1 88 COLETTE. 
 
 cided air, with the shadow of a smile which raised 
 one corner of lier moutli, and began to draw out me- 
 chanically the long hair of her dog. I watched her, 
 waiting for her to speak, and I felt so struck by the 
 contrast between this charming face and the hard 
 and broad visage of the great woman who had just 
 gone out, that I exclaimed without reflecting : — 
 
 " Is it then because you are eighteen years old, and 
 that she . . .?" 
 
 The smile became more pronounced, and Mile. 
 d'Erlange looked at me through her lashes, saying : — 
 
 '■'■ Mon Dieul she was once of that age, but yet" 
 . . . She became silent again, her eyelids were com- 
 pletely lowered now, and her lashes commenced to 
 beat upon her rosy cheeks like a silken fan. Em- 
 barrassment is rare with her, but it is very becoming, 
 and without hesitation I gave vent to my thoughts. 
 
 " She has been of that age indeed, that is evident ; 
 but her spring-time has not had the beauty of yours : 
 that is it ! " 
 
 How I allowed myself to utter this madrigal, I can- 
 not tell ! but Mile. Colette had just defended me so 
 bravely, that she desefv'ed that I should come to her 
 rescue in my turn. She, however, took this as the 
 simple enunciation of a fact, began to laugh frankly, 
 and raised her eyes with a little gesture which sig- 
 nified : '"It is that; this time, you are right!" 
 Then without transition and entirely at her ease, she 
 allowed the flood of her recollections to flow, relating
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 189 
 
 to me those episodes of her childhood which were 
 connected with her aunt, as well as her fright as a 
 little girl before her, all without acrimony, but with a 
 comical and mischievous sprightliness which gave 
 a living touch, and a burlesque relief to the portrait 
 of this peculiar guardian. '' Egotism and jealousy ! " 
 two things most characteristic of the animal sum up 
 this woman, and I am going to give you a trait which 
 describes her. 
 
 A gourmand by nature, she arranges that the rather 
 limited resources of the household may never deviate 
 from the ordinary course of others, but the menu 
 always carefully prepared is never more delicate than 
 on fast days. On these mornings they cook some 
 little choice dish, and on sitting down to the table 
 Mile. d'Epine says to her niece : — 
 
 " My stomach is not strong enough to endure fast- 
 ing, Colette ; you will abstain for both of us." 
 
 And the niece eats her sardines or her vegetables 
 amidst the odor of her aunt's doves, who piously 
 offers this compromise to heaven, praying it to accept 
 the substitution. 
 
 I hope sincerely that this act may prepare for her a 
 day in purgatory, and that she may then perceive 
 that her hopes were not well founded ; but purgatory 
 is far away, and until that time comes w^ho will draw 
 this girl from between her claws, and above all, who 
 will atone to her for the past, for the lack of affection- 
 ate care and education?
 
 lC,o COLETTE. 
 
 I tell you, Jacques, it is an imprisonment that is 
 going on here, and that is precisely what the aunt 
 wishes. 
 
 It is but a secondary matter that she refuses the 
 roasted chickens to her niece, and that she takes the 
 softest coverlets and the feather beds to sleep upon 
 herself, and that all her care is for herself alone, but 
 she intends to make this young mind a perfect blank, 
 and to imprison her so closely within these four walls 
 that no one will ever suspect that there is one who 
 laughs in these ruins. 
 
 What would you call this crime, if you deny that it 
 is an imprisonment, and how would you punish it ? 
 
 For myself, I intend to defeat it and without delay ; 
 and the day after I leave here, I shall at once enter 
 upon the work ! Even if I must notify the press, 
 assemble a family council, or call in the aid of the 
 police. I will bring it about in some way, and the 
 door of this cave shall be thrown down. ... To 
 whom should the role of righting the wrong belong, if 
 not to those who scorn the world and who know it 
 as it is ! 
 
 In exchange for the watchfulness and care which 
 she has bestowed upon me, Mile. Colette shall have 
 her liberty, and I am the one who will open her cage 
 for her ! Vive Dieul Jacques, you hear me, and I 
 swear it ! 
 
 A half hour later the doctor returned, and here is 
 the discussion which followed : —
 
 COLETTE. IQI 
 
 '• Doctor, I wish to go away ! " 
 
 " Monsieur, let us not bring up that matter again, I 
 beg you ! " 
 
 " Give me back my promise ! " 
 
 " Never, while I live ; you are at the most delicate 
 and critical point ; do not spoil a beautiful fracture 
 for me." 
 
 "It is impossible for me to remain here after the 
 scene that has just taken place, you know it well ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, I tell you that the woman is mad ! 
 Must I sign a certificate for Charenton for her, to put 
 your mind at rest ? " 
 
 And as I insisted : — 
 
 " Monsieur," said he, dryly, I am old enough and of 
 enough strength of character to take upon myself the 
 responsibility of my actions ; and I desire you to 
 send to me all those who are disposed to find fault 
 with my doings." And he turned his back upon 
 me, while Mile. Colette continued to exclaim : — 
 
 '■'• But since you are at my house ! But since you 
 have been told that you are at my house ! " 
 
 The poor little one did not see very far. 
 
 Finally the doctor has promised, upon his honor, 
 to set me free at the end of ten days ; and I have 
 promised in return not to attempt any escape until 
 that time. But to sum up all, I am furious. I have 
 tried in vain, the position is a false one. At every 
 noise at the door I tremble like a .schoolboy who 
 has broken a rule, and willingly would I dismiss
 
 IQ2 COLETTE. 
 
 Mile. d'Erlange from her attendance upon me, only 
 she does not put any evil construction upon it ; it was 
 a scene, that is all ; she has witnessed many others, 
 and she continues her ordinary manner of life, with- 
 out any concern.
 
 XXI. 
 
 April 20. 
 
 It is finished, all the beautiful days are going and 
 in spite of all that I can do, without knowing why or 
 how, all my reveries end in tears ! 
 
 It is without wishing it and even without perceiv- 
 ing it. I seat myself upon my divan as formerly, I 
 think of the same things still : but what gave me 
 pleasure yesterday, what made me laugh so gayly 
 while I buried my head in the cushions that no one 
 might hear me, makes me sad to-day. I bury my 
 face still in the same place, but when I raise my head 
 the silk is wet, and it is only then that I perceive that 
 I am crying. 
 
 What a frightful scene my aunt made, and how 
 oppressed with grief my heart has been ! I was so 
 afraid that M. Pierre would be angry ! 
 
 The doctor, happily, has smoothed it all over; but 
 there remains a little constraint, a little annoyance : it 
 may be that he bears a grudge against us in spite of 
 everything, and this thought gives me such pain ! 
 
 He will pass only one week more here ! Man 
 Dieul I would never have believed that he would 
 have been so quickly cured ; it is too short ! That is 
 to say, the sickness is not too short, but the sojourn! 
 I thought that he would remain still longer at Er- 
 O 1 93
 
 194 COLETTE. 
 
 lange, and above all, . . . Indeed, I did not think 
 that it would end so. . . . Now, all is over ; no- 
 body cares for Colette ; once gone, he will think of 
 her no longer, and she will remain all alone, much 
 more alone than ever now, for it is darker in a place 
 where light has once shone, when the source of light 
 has been taken away. 
 
 I am nearly discouraged, still this tenacious folly, 
 which I have in my heart, hopes on. For what, and 
 why? It cannot say; but it constantly repeats to 
 me that it sees its revenge yonder. ... I am 
 afraid that it is indeed yonder ! 
 
 At least M. de Civreuse shall suspect nothing; 
 when near him I am gayer than ever, and moreover 
 without eifort. It is so nice in this great room ! I 
 tell all only to my confidants, — my cushion and my 
 note-book : and when I have finished with the first, 
 I carry it to the fireplace, I lay it up to dry, and I take 
 the second. . . . The margins are unrecognizable ; 
 without thinking. I write two initials there, always 
 the same ones, long, broad, interlaced, separated, and 
 now upon my left hand I have put his entire name : 
 one letter upon each nail and two upon the last, the 
 thumb nail. 
 
 It was droll, and at first I laughed ; then this beast 
 of a little tear, which always comes without warning, 
 fell, and the ink spread, and so it was all blotted out ! 
 
 But yesterday I chose my ground better ; I ran 
 into the depths of the park, and upon the bark of a
 
 "I EXGRAVEU WITH MY LITTf.K I)A<;r;i;i{ THE NAMK WIIKH 
 OCCUPIES -MV IlEAKT."
 
 COLETTE. jo- 
 
 great fir-tree, the one near which I have often 
 dreamed and up -which I climbed last autumn, in 
 order to see adventures coming, I engraved with my 
 little dagger the name which occupies my heart. 
 There is no other way of relating to a tree what one 
 thinks, and I was very glad to have it know. 
 
 When I returned, M. Pierre remarked my moist 
 gown and wet boots. 
 
 •'You have been out?" he asked me. 
 
 And I replied : — 
 
 " Yes, I have just taken a run ! " 
 
 If he knew for what ! . . . 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 " My friend, you are crazy ! " . . . 
 
 Why does the beginning of that letter, which 
 Henry IV wrote more than three hundred years ago 
 to his faithful Sully, come back to my mind to-day ? 
 By analogy, without doubt, and because that upon this 
 point at least, you resemble to-day that pearl of minis- 
 ters. 
 
 Seriously, Jacques, your letter this time has made 
 me angry ! Corbleii! I am old enough to reason, I 
 think, I know what I feel, and what I want, and your 
 pleasantries have not an atom of common-sense. 
 
 My pulse is excellent, my head free, and my heart 
 cool, whatever you may say ; and there is no con- 
 cealed object in view in the campaign whicli I medi- 
 tate for the welfare of my youthful hostess.
 
 196 COLETTE. 
 
 " To mix yourself up in things which do not con- 
 cern you," you say to me. "To draw down upon 
 yourself a crowd of annoyances and to cause yourself 
 to be shown your place by the notary of the village, 
 who will politely send you about your business — all 
 that, for a person who is totally indifferent to you ; 
 how is it probable, and how can you think that it is 
 possible for me to believe it? Above all, when I 
 know that the person in question is a young and 
 pretty creature ! Pshaw ! confess it, and marry her, 
 it is the simplest way ! " 
 
 My poor Jacques, you solve things with blows from 
 a stick, as one breaks nuts. Your "simplest way" 
 is actually heroic, and besides, you do not under- 
 stand the^case. 
 
 I do not work for reward, my friend ; I do it for 
 honor, for love of art, like an ancient knight, and you 
 must confess, that if all those brave paladins, who 
 formerly defended " the widow and the orphan," had 
 been forced, or indeed, authorized to marry all the 
 prisoners they delivered in a year, each one of them 
 would have possessed a veritable harem, and morality 
 would have blotted out the institution in less than si.x 
 months ! 
 
 Consider that I am just commencing my tour of 
 the world, and do not make my sword into a piece of 
 furniture after my first affair ; it dances in its scab- 
 bard with joy at the idea of all the pleasing things 
 it can yet accomplish, and to hang it up in domestic
 
 COLETTE. jg7 
 
 peace would appear horrible to it ! Moreover, if she 
 seems to you such, an inestimable prize, this blonde, 
 why do you not come to her, and sue for her favor 
 yourself ? 
 
 In confidence, if you wish to know all, Mile. Co- 
 lette likes you already! She feels it, she has told me 
 so, and were it not for fear of your usually impulsive 
 actions, I should have spoken to you before of these 
 friendly feelings. Now you know all about it, make 
 haste, and I will present you ! 
 
 From henceforth let us leave this subject, I pray 
 you, for it irritates me. There is not even one more 
 week remaining for me to pass here ; do not make 
 me lie to this excellent doctor, and fly some fine 
 evening from this tiresome struggle ; and if you are 
 not seeking a quarrel, for mercy's sake ! leave me in 
 peace and pursue me no longer with your sentimental 
 previsions ! 
 
 I do not deny that an imagination still enthusiastic, 
 a heart still susceptible, and a mind in which illu- 
 sions were still fresh, would be affected here. These 
 strange surroundings, this intimacy, these beautiful 
 eyes I 
 
 But I am no longer twenty years old ; it is not my 
 fault, Jacques ; it will be nine years to-morrow since 
 I left that period, and there are two things whicii one 
 never finds again: youth and illusions. If you can 
 give them back to me, by the faith of the disenchanted, 
 I will fall at your feet.
 
 ig8 COLETTE. 
 
 Our last days are passing pleasantly ; Mile. d'Er- 
 lange is gayer than ever, and no constraint is possible 
 near her. 
 
 Between you and me, I confess that this careless 
 spirit and this hilarity surprise me a little. 
 
 Mon Dieu I I am neither a coxcomb nor a lady- 
 killer, but I appreciate myself at my just price, and I 
 am worthy of an emotion perhaps ; I can recall a 
 golden youth when 1 held my place honorably. 
 Without doubt they are less exacting at Paris than at 
 Erlange. 
 
 Take note, that I am charmed that this is so ; the 
 contrary would have annoyed me, saddened me. 
 burdened me with remorse, and I only speak of it to 
 you as a somewhat singular fact. For you will agree 
 that it is singular that a young girl who is alone, who 
 is bored, and who suddenly sees her first romance 
 come to her in the shape of a man, young and pass- 
 able, should receive it thus ; we can put into the 
 basket with so many others the legend that declares 
 that the hearts of young girls are so inflammable. 
 For the rest, I would wiUingly believe that this ex- 
 uberance which distinguishes Mile. d'Erlange serves 
 her as a sort of diversion, and that so many exterior 
 manifestations leave her inmost thoughts in the 
 greatest placidity, with a little insensibility of heart 
 perhaps, which would be very well explained by her 
 childhood without joy or tenderness. 
 
 Whatever it may be, it is better that it should be
 
 COLETTE. ip(j 
 
 SO. and we are enlivening our last afternoons witli the 
 noble game of checkers. 
 
 This does not pass, however, without some storms 
 animating the seances, for Mile. Colette does not 
 like to be beaten, and after the first lesson during 
 which I had thought it my duty to treat her gently, 
 as this was her first attempt, I returned to my habit- 
 ual play, and I won five times out of six. 
 
 Her patience, which is short, vanished quickly 
 under these conditions, and she became angry. 
 At first she reddened, then she frowned a little, 
 tapped the table nervously, and finally, when the 
 case appeared desperate to her, mixed the game all 
 up with one stroke of her hand. I leaned back then 
 with majesty upon my cushions and gazed obstinately 
 at the beams of the ceiling, until she capitulated, 
 which was very soon. She arranged the pieces again, 
 pushed the game near me, and murmured in a low- 
 voice : — 
 
 "It was too uninteresting so ! " — Then, persuaded 
 that this explained everything, she extended to me 
 her closed hands tliat I miglit draw and see who 
 should begin, and all went on again nearly in the same 
 order. 
 
 Invariably at the commencement, I propose to give 
 Iier some pieces, and invariably she refuses with an air 
 of cold dignity, evidently finding her sweeps with her 
 liand much more to lier mind than this favor, and 
 warmly insisting at the commencement of each game
 
 200 COLETTE. 
 
 that I shall play with her as with any other person, 
 seriously, and without helping her. 
 
 I obey her, and at the end of five minutes, she 
 stamps her feet ; that's logic ! 
 
 Just now, we were engaged in the struggle ; I saw 
 her running blindly into danger, and twice in succes- 
 sion in spite of myself, I swept off four victims at one 
 blow. Judge of her state of mind ! Her teeth bit 
 her lower lip so severely that it became white, and 
 she embraced all her positions with a glance as des- 
 perate as that of a swimmer who is losing ground. 
 
 Prudently, I was already withdrawing my fingers, 
 foreseeing some formidable catastrophe ; but things 
 turned in another way, suddenly her forehead became 
 clear, she loosened the rough pressure of her teeth, 
 and with her finger upon one of her men, she pro- 
 ceeded to conduct him diagonally across the board, 
 disarranging my own men in the passage, but without 
 violence and without having the least appearance in 
 the world of suspecting that she was acting contrary 
 to rules. At the other side of tbe board she stopped, 
 and very gravely said to me : — 
 
 " There you are ! " 
 
 " How so? What are you doing?" I demanded. 
 
 " Why," she replied with magnificent self-assurance, 
 "I make a king! I should never have done it if I 
 had gone on in that wav, so have I taken another ! " 
 
 There is always this same disregard for all barriers 
 and all conventionalities, and this mercurial nature
 
 COLETTE. 201 
 
 would not be out of place in a tribe of free Indians, 
 ... I see her in her tent, with feathers in her hair, 
 some flowering vines about her shoulders, and rival- 
 ling her wild goats in her leaps, and baptized by the 
 enthusiastic tribe with the symbolical name of '• The 
 Singing Bird ■" or " The Flying Arrow." 
 
 In the meanwhile, ^'The Flying Arrow" continues 
 her office of kind mistress of the house, and taxes 
 her brain to amuse me. 
 
 Eight days ago, I got up. Aided by Benoite, 
 w^hose robust shoulder served me for a cane, I 
 reached the arm-chair which had been placed near 
 the window, I rested my splints upon another chair 
 opposite to me, and guided by iMlle. Colette, I made 
 the acquaintance of the court-yard and the princi- 
 pal points of the chateau. ''Here," she said to me, 
 'Ms the library, here the dining-room, here the chapel, 
 and there," — showing me some ruins this time, — 
 '' there were some salons, a large hall, an oratory, 
 and some endless galleries." 
 
 The whole, the ruins and all that remains intact, is 
 superb; it is of the pure style of Louis XIII, elegant 
 and severe at the same time, and there are sculptures 
 which make me dream, and upon which I sincerely 
 compliment the chatelaine of the place, who judges 
 them and appreciates them with her customary origi- 
 nality. 
 
 When I have said that I have made the acquaint- 
 ance of Fran9oise, the third friend of Mile. Colette,
 
 202 COLETTE. 
 
 you will agree that the time has come for me to leave 
 Erlange. 
 
 It was a superb day yesterday, very dry and clear ; 
 the window was partly open in spite of the sharp 
 and biting air, and 1 breathed in the freshness with 
 delight. Suddenly I saw my young nurse crossing 
 the court-yard ; she raised her head in passing, sent 
 me a little salute with her hand, and ran to a door 
 which opened upon the court. 
 
 " I wish to show you Fran9oise ! " she cried to 
 me. 
 
 And she came out an instant after with a great 
 broken-winded beast, half blind, with projecting 
 flanks, enormous withers, standing very high upon 
 four spindle legs, and with a coat of yellowish 
 white. 
 
 Very indifferent to this ugliness, she caressed her, 
 spoke to her, and stuffed her with bread and sugar, 
 all this with such rapidity that the teeth of the 
 old beast could not masticate all that was presented 
 to her. Then when she had finished : — 
 
 •'Even now she does not trot badly, you shall 
 see ! " she said to me. 
 
 She threw a cloth upon the mare's back, led her 
 near a flight of stone steps, sprang upon the massive 
 croup like a sylph, and exciting her by her voice, 
 started her at a trot. But the nag stumbled over all 
 the pavings, jerked back her great head with fear, 
 and, with her smoking nostrils, she resembled the
 
 .jL^.:./9^:-':s^:^o. 
 
 ■'•j/^ 
 
 l^,;rtK, 
 
 :!£■ 
 
 i^ 
 
 
 /• 
 
 "She sent me a little Sallte wnii iii;i( Hand."
 
 COLETTE. 20^ 
 
 beast of the Apocalypse, carrying some spirit, in her 
 irresolute course. 
 
 '• You will break your neck at that game ! " cried I 
 to Mile. d'Erlange. 
 
 " Nonsense ! '' she replied, " we understand each 
 other too well." 
 
 At the tenth turn she allowed herself to glide so 
 rapidly to the ground, that 1 thought she had fallen ; 
 then she led her friend back with the same expres- 
 sions of tenderness which she had lavished upon her 
 when she brought her out. 
 
 This is the way that she talks to animals, and I am 
 no lonjjer astonished that there is nothing left for 
 men, she expends all her heart there. 
 
 According to all probabilities, I shall write to you 
 no more until 1 go down to the village. I expect 
 to remain there at the inn some days, long enough to 
 come up here again, to thank my hostess and to 
 go to my doctor's house, and to inform you of my 
 plans. 
 
 Turn over the page then, we are at the end of the 
 adventure, and until I see you again, farewell. I 
 have lost so many boats now that it does not matter 
 if anotlier goes without me, and I have a desire to 
 come and shake hands with you again in your retreat 
 before my departure.
 
 XXII. 
 
 April 28. 
 
 All is over; M. de Civreuse went away yesterday, 
 and I no longer recognize myself here. 
 
 Yet I have known Erlange silent and empty before ; 
 I know how my steps resound in the corridors and 
 how my voice echoes from the wainscotings ; but all 
 is changed now. 
 
 It was only loneliness formerly, now it is sadness, 
 and the two things weigh very differently. 
 
 From time to time I try to act as if I did not care, 
 I play a comedy with myself. I run about, I put 
 everything in order, I sing little gay airs, then I seat 
 myself beside my dog, I take his head upon my knees 
 and begin to talk to him as I used to do; only, even 
 with him, I surprise myself in the very act of telling 
 lies. 
 
 '' Six weeks to heal a fracture, do you see, ' Un,' 
 it is dreadful ! " I said to him just now ; " never could 
 we have believed that it could take as long as that, 
 could we ? " 
 
 And it is not tme. it is not at all true, for I had 
 reckoned upon twice that length of time for the 
 present, and upon more later on. 
 
 Benoite follows me with an anxious eye. She sus- 
 pects a little emotion or at least dreads it, and she 
 
 204
 
 COLETTE. 205 
 
 would willingly have me always near her; but that 
 is not what I wish ; I pretend to be busy in putting 
 the things back into my room, and I escape. 
 
 In reality, I do nothing at all, and I leave every- 
 thing as it was yesterday, for I no longer dare to go 
 back to my old room. There are so many remem- 
 brances lying in ambush there, almost everywhere, 
 and they jump out so quickly when I enter, that I have 
 no desire to sleep there now. I should be afraid that 
 all those apparitions would discover my secret, and 
 would go away and relate it to M. Pierre, who would 
 perhaps laugh ; so I wish to come here only to 
 dream. In the library I weep, I am regretful, I be- 
 come angry, I do whatever the impulse suggests ; then 
 when I feel myself reasonable, it is the hour of rec- 
 reation, I direct my steps to the familiar room, I seat 
 myself in my usual place, I look at the empty bed, 
 the easy-chair near the window with no one in it, and 
 I give myself up to recollections ! 
 
 Often also I feel myself overcome with anger. 
 After all, what has this man come here for ? why has 
 he entered into my head and heart like this since he 
 wished nothing of me ? And what is it that sends 
 you just that taste of happiness which you long for, 
 which allows you to appreciate it, to look at it, and 
 which, at the moment when you believe that you can 
 close your hands upon it, snatches it quickly away ? 
 
 Is that what is called Providence ? 
 
 But yet one must be just ; M. de Civreuse has done
 
 2o6 COLETTE. 
 
 nothing to attract my attention, and it is indeed his 
 coldness, I believe, which has so charmed and be- 
 witched me. 
 
 Grave as he was, yet he smiled sometimes, and 
 there is a special magic in the smile of cold people. 
 It is like the sun in winter, or like that aloe flower 
 which M. Pierre told me about once, which blooms but 
 once in a hundred years, and whose rarity makes it 
 valuable. Why is it that I must busy myself with so 
 rare a flower? 
 
 Our last day passed better than any other, and I 
 would be unwilling to swear that even he did not feel 
 some slight emotion. 
 
 In the morning, on entering at my customary hour, 
 I found near his easy-chair a table covered with 
 papers, a box of colors, and a bundle of pencils and 
 brushes. Benoite gave him a glass of water, and as 
 soon as she had gone out he said to me quickly : — 
 
 " Would you be willing to permit me to make your 
 portrait upon this album in two strokes of the pencil? 
 I have just sketched this side of the chateau, but my 
 souvenirs of Erlange would be incomplete if my nurse 
 was not upon the first page." 
 
 I replied " yes," and drew near to see what he was 
 holding, while asking him : — 
 
 "How shall I pose? Standing, sitting, in profile, 
 or full face?" 
 
 ^ 
 
 And at the same time I tried all positions. . . . 
 He began to laugh, and after having reflected a 
 moment : —
 
 COLETTE. 207 
 
 '' If you are willing," he said, " you might seat 
 yourself in this great easy-chair in front of the fire- 
 place, as you were the evening of my first awakening 
 here." 
 
 *' Minus the gown, however ! " 
 
 " Minus the gown, unfortunately ! " 
 
 "Unfortunately? Do you wish me to go and put 
 it on?" 
 
 "Oh! I would not dare.'' . . . 
 
 " But it will only take a second! " 
 
 And I was far away before he could finish his 
 sentence. 
 
 As I had told him, an instant after I returned. 
 Only, the skirt of this ancestor with whom I was un- 
 acquainted was very much too long for me ; al- 
 though I raised it with both hands, my feet caught in 
 the hem, so that I advanced stumbling ; and as at the 
 end I let it go in order to make M. de Civreuse a 
 stately courtesy, it happened that my feet somehow 
 caught in it, and I fell heavily upon my knees. 
 
 M. Pierre uttered an exclamation, a kind of cry, wa 
 foi^ which gave me pleasure, and he made an impet- 
 uous movement as if to spring to his feet. 
 
 "Your knee!" cried I, "do not stir!" — Then I 
 rose lightly, and seated myself in my chair. But he 
 was anxious. 
 
 "You are not hurt, you are very sure of it?" he 
 said to me. "What an absurd idea it was for me to 
 have you put that on! Truly, you are not hurt? " I
 
 2o8 COLETTE. 
 
 replied: "No," my heart beating quickly, not from 
 my fall, but on account of that anxious voice which 
 was questioning me, and at the end of a quarter of 
 an hour, which he gave me to allow me to recover 
 myself, he began upon his work. 
 
 He painted on and on, raising his eyes and looking 
 at me with a persistence which troubled me greatly, 
 and making me rest, that is, move about, every fifteen 
 minutes. Luncheon interrupted us; but at two 
 o'clock it was completed. He called me to him then, 
 and I could not help crying out at seeing the leaf 
 which he presented to me : — 
 
 '• It is I ! Ah ! but it is so pretty ! " 
 
 The fact is that this little rose-colored lady who 
 smiled at me from the easy-chair, this great dark fire- 
 place where the andirons stood out so clearly, the 
 sculptured wainscotings, all made a veritable picture, 
 and I fell into deep admiration of it. 
 
 "Which is pretty ?" asked M. de Civreuse of me, 
 mockingly enough ; " you or the water-color ? " 
 
 " The portrait, of course ! " 
 
 He looked at me a moment, smiling, then in a 
 voice very different from any I had heard him 
 use : — 
 
 " The portrait is you, for happily it resembles you. 
 Change nothing in your exclamation." 
 
 I became silent ; it was the second time that I had 
 heard a compliment from his mouth, and it affected 
 me more than I could have wished. Moreover, I was
 
 COLETTE. 209 
 
 dving to liave. like him, some souvenir of this de- 
 lightful time, which I felt was slipping through 
 my fingers, and I sought nervously what to say and 
 how to express myself. 
 
 " But if I also should make your portrait?" I com- 
 menced jokingly. 
 
 " Then." he replied seriously, " I should be charmed, 
 and 1 will keep as still as a statue." 
 
 " But I do not draw very well," I stammered, very 
 much confused at being taken at my word. " I have 
 never made any portraits but 'Un's'." 
 
 "Ah, well !" said he, '"I shall find myself in ex- 
 cellent company ! " 
 
 He handed me a board, a sheet of paper, some 
 charcoal and pencils, and posed for a three-quarters' 
 face. 
 
 " Do I look well so ? " he asked. 
 
 "Perfectly," I replied. 
 
 I was altogether disconcerted, and he had put out 
 of my head all that I would have said. 
 
 Mechanically, however, I commenced, looking at 
 him as I had seen him look at me, and finding him 
 as handsome as I could have wished him to find 
 me. 
 
 But at the end of a quarter of an hour I was 
 tired out, nervous, and unable to continue. The 
 face upon my paper resembled anything that one 
 might desire to call it — a judge's wig, a scarecrow 
 or a negro king, and I recalled my attempts of the 
 p
 
 2IO COLETTE. 
 
 preceding winter, when I had amused myself in draw- 
 ing my dog, and when in spite of all my efforts I had 
 given my favorite the head of a sheep, the fur of a 
 bear, and four slender legs which would not have 
 supported a King Charles. 
 
 Upon any other occasion I should have laughed ; 
 but I was counting the minutes and always think- 
 ing of his departure, and that put my mind in a 
 turmoil, and I felt the tears coming to my ^yes. This 
 was what I had sworn should not happen, and I 
 ran to the fireplace and was going to throw my 
 paper into the fire, saying : — 
 
 " It is impossible ; I do not know how to do it! " 
 
 But M. de Civreuse stopped me. 
 
 "My portrait!" cried he; "show me my portrait. 
 I have the right to see it ! " 
 
 Without any resistance I brought it to him ; lie 
 took it and contemplated it gravely, then, still with 
 the same seriousness : — 
 
 " Will you permit me to retouch it for you ? " said 
 he. 
 
 I bent my head, and with a dash of his handker- 
 chief he effaced it all. Then, with four strokes of a 
 pencil he made a profile which was a caricature of 
 himself, so ridiculously accurate that it was impossi- 
 ble to look at it without laughing. 
 
 He wrote underneath in his large hand : '• The 
 respectful homage of the patient to the author," and 
 handed it to me.
 
 COLETTE. 2\\ 
 
 At the same time the doctor entered. My heart 
 became suffocated ; I understood that this was the 
 end of it all ; and as I went out of the room, I heard 
 the carriage -which had been ordered for M. de Civ- 
 reuse, rolling into the court-3-ard. I fled to my 
 refuge, and there with my drawing in my hand, I ex- 
 amined it more carefully. Only instead of laughing, 
 as I had a moment before, my tears began to fall 
 upon the misshapen nose and upon the bristling 
 mustache which M. Pierre had made. And yet it was 
 symbolical, for the caricature was like him, resembling 
 my hero as the reality resembled my dream. 
 
 A moment after the doctor called me. M. de 
 Civreuse was standing in the centre of the room, sup- 
 ported by two black crutches, which had a horrible 
 effect upon me. It seemed to me that I had made 
 him lame for the rest of his days ; I felt that 1 was 
 becoming pale, and involuntarily I turned towards 
 the doctor extending both my hands. 
 
 '•• It is only for a few days," he said, smiling, for 
 he understood my fear. 
 
 The splints which had replaced the plaster cast 
 two weeks ago were upon the floor. 
 
 "Let us burn them together!" said M. de Civ- 
 reuse. showing them to me. 
 
 I collected tliem, as he wished, and approached the 
 fire with him. 
 
 He managed his crutches well, but the dull noise 
 upon the floor troubled me so that I no longer knew
 
 2 1 2 COLE TTE. 
 
 what I was doing. The doctor had gone out to call 
 Benolte, and I threw upon the logs the first piece, 
 then the second. 
 
 At the third, I took courage, and raising my eyes 
 to M. de Pierre, I contrived to pronounce very low 
 but without trembling : — 
 
 " Do you pardon me ? " 
 
 ''Ah! Mademoiselle," cried he, "I hoped that 
 there would never be a question of that kind be- 
 tween us ! " 
 
 I thanked him with a motion of my head, and 
 continued my work without saying anything more. 
 I was on my knees before the fire, almost at his 
 feet, while he, standing, leaning against the mantle, 
 towered above me to his full height. . . . How 
 different it was from that I had imagined it would 
 be one day ! 
 
 However, Benoite entered. She came to say 
 farewell to the traveller, and advanced making a 
 courtesy, complimented him on his appearance, 
 wished him better luck, and hoped that God would 
 bless him ! 
 
 He allowed her to go on until the end ; then, laying 
 aside his crutches and leaning his bad knee upon 
 the seat of an easy-chair : — 
 
 " It is not with mere words that I can thank you 
 for all your devotion," said he, gayly ; " you must 
 allow me to kiss you." 
 
 And taking my poor old nurse, stupefied at his
 
 COLE TTE. 2 1 X 
 
 words, by the shoulders, he kissed her upon both 
 cheeks, in a very frank and friendly way, . . . 
 Then, as the doctor called from below : " Hurry, 
 Monsieur, or we shall not get there before nightfall!" 
 he turned towards nie : — 
 
 " Our excellent doctor has been willing to charge 
 himself with my adieus to Mile. d'Epine," he said; 
 "I should not have liked to impose this trouble upon 
 you!" He hesitated a little, then more slowly, as 
 though picking his words, he added : " Permit me. 
 Mademoiselle, to express to you my most sincere 
 gratitude, not only for your care, but also for the grace 
 and cheerfulness with which you have enlivened the 
 monotony of the sick room. It was doubly kind in 
 you to do this." 
 
 I extended to him my hand, incapable of speaking, 
 for there was a peculiar tightness in my throat as if 
 some invisible person were squeezing it with all his 
 might. He took my hand, hesitated a moment as he 
 had done before speaking, then very rapidly he bent 
 down and pressed his lips upon it. . . . I had never 
 before experienced such a sensation, and it was so 
 strange and unexpected that the tears came to my eyes. 
 
 When I looked up again, he was near the door, 
 and Eenoite followed him with his travelling-bag. 
 He descended the stairs hastily and very adroitly, got 
 into the carriage without saying a word, and as tlu- 
 horse started, he leaned his head out, took off his hat 
 and said very gravely : —
 
 214 COLETTE. 
 
 " Farewell, Mademoiselle! " 
 
 I felt as if some one was sealing my heart in 
 stone just as they enclose novices in coffins when 
 they take the veil' at the convent, and I thought 
 of the drift in which one winter's day I very 
 nearly fell asleep forever. Why was I not left 
 there ? 
 
 As long as the carriage was in sight, I remained 
 upon the threshold ; then when it had disappeared : — 
 
 " Come in and warm yourself ! " said Benoite, who 
 was looking at me. 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " I am coming." 
 
 But I fled to the depths of the park, near the pine- 
 tree where I had engraved his name some days before. 
 
 The new sap which was just beginning to run 
 escaped through the cuts, and each of the letters of 
 his name wept. I leaned my head against the cold 
 bark ; at the right and at the left all the thickets, still 
 white in places, were closed ; I was alone ! I pressed 
 myself against these friends, who so lent themselves 
 to my grief, and in silence wept like them. 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 I am writing to you now from the village inn ; I 
 have been here two days already. 
 
 I cannot say that it is as good as my nest at Er- 
 lange, or that I have a bed with twisted columns and 
 a Louis XIII fireplace. The small beams of my 
 chamber are smoky and the walls are whitewashed.
 
 COLETTE. 21- 
 
 so well whitewashed, indeed, that all my clothes 
 bear traces of it, and my sleeves are like those of a 
 miller well covered with the signs of his work when 
 he comes forth from his mill. 
 
 But what would you have ! A traveller must ex- 
 pect that, and one cannot have at each stage of his 
 journey a seignioral hostelry. 
 
 What is better is, that my knee grows daily stronger. 
 I use my crutches with the dexterity of a disabled 
 soldier, and I would go out oftener if a string of 
 gamins did not form themselves into an escort as 
 soon as I put my nose outside. 
 
 A happy country is this village, where a cripple 
 can be the subject of such curiosity, and where they 
 crowd up to see me pass on my crutches ! The 
 species is rare, it appears. 
 
 To amuse myself, I sketch at hap-hazards. The 
 end of a clock tower here, a cloud there, and a 
 sheep grazing upon the cloud. It is the height of 
 fantasy, but my sketches are not for the e.xposition, 
 and I will not offer to it what would please it better 
 perhaps, that is, the portrait of Mile. d'Erlange, a 
 head, quarter the natural size, and which is not 
 badly done, via foil Have I told you that I asked 
 her to pose for me, and that slie was very willing to 
 put on the grandmother's gown for the occasion, the 
 one which she had worn the first evening I spent 
 with her? Evidently not, since I left off writing to 
 you three days before my departure.
 
 2i6 COLETTE. 
 
 Ah, well ! Monday morning when I was to leave 
 Erlange, I remembered my intention to try to sketch 
 this fantastic head, and 1 have succeeded in it bet- 
 ter than I could have hoped. It was very quickly 
 done, for this water-color is only a rough sketch ; 
 but I believe that she would lose in grace all that she 
 would gain in finish, and so I leave it as it is. One 
 sketches a smile ; one does not fix it by ^ + B, above 
 all a smile like that ; the resemblance is good ; tak- 
 ing into account the colors, and modesty apart, it is 
 a little masterpiece ! 
 
 You shall see it ; it is worth the trouble of a journey, 
 and I will bring it to you in order to have your 
 opinion of it. 
 
 Half laughingly and half seriously, Mile. d'Erlange 
 wished to pay me a like courtesy, and she made the 
 most frightful little daub that you can imagine, which 
 leads me to think that she never liked drawing, since 
 she practises it in this way. 
 
 And it is thus that our last hours passed, talking 
 and laughing as if the wheels of the carriage which 
 awaited me were not sounding upon the pavement of 
 the court-yard. 
 
 Upon a log, "solemn and expiatory," we burned 
 together the splints w^hich imprisoned me for so 
 many days, and the farewells commenced. Un- 
 questionably, the most affected of us three was Be- 
 noite, whom I kissed squarely upon both cheeks, and 
 who would have shed a little tear, I think ; but what
 
 COLETTE. 217 
 
 can one do in the midst of individuals of our calibre ? 
 Our cold-bloodedness froze her. 
 
 Then I took leave of Mile. Colette with a very 
 courteous little compliment, very pretty, which she 
 received, however, without saying a word. 
 
 Then she extended her hand, and slash went the 
 coachman ! 
 
 Do you regret now the declaration which you liad 
 proposed for the last word, and do you see the ab- 
 surdity of the situation : a man speaking of love, 
 heating himself, supplicating, laying his soul bare 
 to obtain at the moment of farewell a word or a 
 look, and be received by bursts of laughter from a 
 foolish head and a dry heart. For she would have 
 laughed, I will wager ! 
 
 In truth, never was I more satisfied that I had out- 
 grown the time and the taste for protestations of 
 that nature ; and my heart was very calm, very peace- 
 ful, like that of a brave warrior retired from glory, 
 who has obtained his discharge. This made me 
 sleep without dreaming, even upon a straw mattress, 
 and it is something to be assured of a good sleep. 
 
 My adieus to Mile. d'Epine will be made by proxy. 
 The doctor is the one who devotes himself to the 
 task ; and as for " Un," I do not speak of him to you, 
 for did not some one say long ago that, " ce quHl y a 
 de niieux dans l''Ji07>ime, c'est le cJiien ! " 
 
 With this I leave you! It is the hour when the 
 cattle stray about the village while their stables arc
 
 2 1 8 COLE TTE. 
 
 made ready ; it is ray amusement to see tliem pass, 
 and I get from them some superb sketches. . . . 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 You do not believe me, do you, Jacques? You 
 have seen what is the matter, and you know that for 
 a month I have lied to you, to my mind, to my heart, 
 to everything indeed, even to this love which en- 
 tirely possesses me, and which I conceal, as if this 
 happiness not to be equalled of loving madly was a 
 thins: to be ashamed of. 
 
 Yes, I love her ! I adore her ! and the bravado 
 which I sent this morning is the last. Are you 
 glad ? 
 
 My letter had but just gone when I called back 
 the child who carried it ; I wished to stop it, to take 
 it back ; my pride was lowered to the ground, and 
 vanished so completely that I could not find a trace 
 of it, and I wondered what this idiotic feeling was, 
 which had prevented me for some weeks from con- 
 fessing that I loved, because forsooth I had formerly 
 vowed a hatred to the entire human race, because I 
 had closed my heart by writing above it: '■'■ De pro- 
 fiindis I " and because this sudden defeat brought 
 about by a young girl hurt my pride ! 
 
 It is always upon the garland of flowers in the fairy 
 tales that the sharpest swords are broken ! This 
 time it is an eighteen-year-old smile, which has 
 made havoc of all my distastes, and of all my distrust.
 
 COLETTE. 2ig 
 
 And I, like a fool, instead of rejoicing at it, wished 
 to continue to doubt, because this pedestal of disdain 
 and scepticism flattered my vanity, and increased my 
 height in my own eyes ! 
 
 I disgust you ! But you see clearly, Jacques, that 
 I am ready with all expiations, and that if my heart 
 is in the skies, my forehead is on the ground. . . . 
 What more can you desire ? 
 
 Yes, I believe that youth has come back, for I feel 
 that I am twenty years old once more this evening, 
 and that my illusions are here also ! I believe in 
 everything, even in good ! but I believe above all in 
 love, and you need not complain of it, for it con- 
 tains everything, wisdom and folly. 
 
 In good faith, my friend, do you believe that for 
 two days 1 have been drawing sheep upon clouds 
 and countrywomen in their striped skirts ? The 
 truth is that I have just now torn up the twentietli 
 letter that I have written to her since yesterday, and 
 I shall commence another immediately ; and if I do 
 not succeed in placing before her the follies whicli 
 my heart suggests, and in language sufficiently plain 
 and emphatic, I shall go up this evening to Erlange ; 
 I shall kneel before her in the great room where I 
 have known her. and tell her that I adore her. 
 
 You speak of my crutches ! My crutches ! Jacques, 
 I have made a great bonfire of them, a fire upon which 
 I have thrown all my doubts and all my past days, 
 that I may remember only to-day and to-morrow ;
 
 2 20 COLETTE. 
 
 and as for this mountain, do you not think that the 
 wings of my love are sufficient to surmount it ? 
 
 How I should like to have you know her ! Have 
 I really described her to you in my moroseness, and 
 have you understood that these follies and this child- 
 ishness of which I complained are perhaps what I 
 love best in her ? It needed just this originality 
 and this freshness to awaken again my youth and 
 my benumbed life, like new perfumes which resemble 
 no others, and which penetrate even the most 
 deadened senses. 
 
 It is a wild and charming flower which has grown 
 there for me between the earth and the sky, and 
 grown for me alone, which has loved until now only 
 the stars and dreams, which the mountain breeze 
 alone has caused to bloom, and which unites in itself 
 all the graces of the woman with the freshness of 
 Nature herself. 
 
 With her hand in one of mine, and thine in the 
 other, the world is filled for me, and my happiness is 
 so great that there is only one thing which can be 
 compared to it, and that is infinity ! 
 
 Think of me this evening, Jacques ; I am going 
 to climb up the mountain, I can no longer remain 
 down here ; I am tliirsty for the air of Erlange ! If 
 it is necessary for me to write instead of speaking, ah, 
 well ! I will find some corner in the ruins in which 
 to shelter mvself. and to trace some words of
 
 COLETTE. 22 T 
 
 love; does it require more than this moonlight for 
 
 that! . . . 
 
 I send YOU her portrait, I wish you to see her: 
 to-morrow the original will be mine, or you may keep 
 this forever, for this would be my greatest legacy. . . .
 
 XXIII. 
 
 April 30. 
 
 MON DiEu! my happiness is too great, too sudden, 
 it cruslies me ! Help me to know how to bear it ! 
 This was my cry at the first moment, and then 
 half an hour later I no longer knew that I had wept ; 
 and my joy had so permeated my being that I no 
 longer remembered that it had not always been there ! 
 
 Yesterday. I think it was nearly ten o'clock in the 
 evening, I was sitting all alone in M. de Civreuse's 
 room; — I call it so still, — and doing nothing, with 
 my hands upon my knees, I was dreaming. 
 
 Benoite had been gone a long time ; there was not 
 a breath about me, and I felt so alone that the sound 
 of my own movements made me tremble with fear. 
 
 Suddenly, without, upon the road from the village, 
 the stones began to roll, and I heard distinctly the 
 footstep of a man. 
 
 My heart began to beat so loudly that I counted 
 its pulsations. " Some delayed countryman." said I 
 to myself. "A peddler who is returning home." 
 But when he was under my window, the man stopped, 
 and my emotion became so great that I grasped the 
 wood of my chair so tightly that the print of it was 
 left upon the palms of my hands. 
 
 222
 
 COLETTE. 
 
 223 
 
 " It is he ! " I said to myself. 
 
 He I who ? M. de Civreuse, who went away day 
 before yesterday upon his crutches ! It was impos- 
 sible ! And yet, at the end of a moment, a voice low 
 but vibrating came up to me, a -voice that I knew 
 so well, and I heard some one say : — 
 
 " Do not be afraid ! " 
 
 If he had demanded my life. I could have neither 
 spoken nor moved. I remained a second in suspense, 
 then a stone, as large as a nut, came through one 
 of the little window-panes, and rolled to my feet. 
 
 Around this was folded a paper, and recovering 
 from my shock, I took it. 
 
 The writing of M. de Civreuse covered both 
 sides, and this is what I read : — 
 
 "Colette, forgive me for the folly of this note, 
 and forgive me above all for the foolish way in which 
 I send it to you ; but, are we not both very unlike 
 the rest of the world ? 
 
 " Besides, Erlange is an enchanted castle at this 
 hour in the evening ; everything is closed, and there 
 is no place where I should dare to knock. 
 
 "■ Benoite sleeps, I am sure, and there burns here 
 only one lamp, which I know so well, for it is towards 
 this point, of which my heart makes a star, that I 
 have walked for two hours. 
 
 " Had it been placed at a greater distance and even 
 higher, I should have gone up to it to-night, for I 
 could not have waited for the day to come, because of
 
 2 24 COLETTE. 
 
 this word which I am just going to say to you — it has 
 been in my heart and on my lips for a long time 
 already ; for six weeks I have repeated it very low 
 morning and evening ; I have murmured many times 
 that I adored you without your ever hearing it, and 
 now I am going to utter it so loud that it will pene- 
 trate not only your ears, but the very depths of your 
 being. 
 
 " I love you. . . . But I do not care to tell you 
 how I love you ; I wish to see your smile and to 
 look into your eyes while I say it, and I do not mean 
 to lose a single expression of your beauty. I have 
 learned what it costs to pass two days away from you ! 
 
 " Now do not say to me that you do not wish for 
 my love, and that you refuse this life and all of vhis 
 passion which I lay at your feet. . . . Have you 
 never thought then, my poor child, how easy it would 
 be for a resolute man to come on a night like this 
 in the midst of this solitude, and seize you and carry 
 you away so far that no trace of you could ever be 
 found again? 
 
 " Moreover, I firmly believe that there are some 
 things which are written in heaven for all eternity. 
 They are rare, but they are perfect, for God himself 
 has written them, and our marriage is among the 
 number. 
 
 "Colette, in this road where one day you threw 
 me on my knees, without meaning it, I now await your 
 reply, just as you found me one winter's morning.
 
 COLE TIE. 221: 
 
 "Forgive me for the window-pane which I am 
 going to break; it is tlie sacrificial window, I 
 believe, and I choose it purposely, for I have a super- 
 stitious feeling that it is by this road that my happi- 
 ness has come to me. . . . 
 
 '' When we go away together, if I have the joy of 
 taking you away, I shall carry with you that little 
 statue, which you know of. and to which I have 
 vowed a passionate gratitude, for without it, Colette, 
 I should have passed by ! " 
 
 As I read, an ardent joy filled my heart, and I 
 could not believe in the reality of this happiness. 
 Was it possible ? Was it indeed he ? Was this 
 really I ? What, he loved me ! He had loved me 
 for a long time ! My dream w-as accomplished, and 
 all my suffering would pass away like a shadow. 
 
 At the same time I was surprised at his long 
 silence. Why had he delayed ? And what reason 
 had he for leaving me to cry thus ? 
 
 Then with this happy emotion, the old self revived 
 in me, and all the mischievous follies which my tears 
 had drowned for two days, shook out their wings 
 and flew up together. 
 
 They were compassionate when I wept and had 
 drawn aside discreetly ; but this hour of joy was 
 theirs, they claimed it, and came flocking back, each 
 armed with the old tantalizing spirit. 
 
 " Say yes, immediately ! " counselled my heart piti- 
 fully. " Never ! " cried the others. " Do not forget 
 Q
 
 2 26 COLETTE. 
 
 our plans, Colette ; he must suffer, do not show yout 
 hand too quickly!" 
 
 So that I no longer knew which to listen to, and I 
 laughed with tears in my eyes, resembling those days 
 when the skies were uncertain, and the rain falls in 
 the midst of sunshine. . . . Fine weather or a 
 storm, one cannot tell which. 
 
 However, I walked to the window and opened it. 
 At the noise made by the fastening, a silhouette out- 
 lined on the darkness of the night made a quick 
 movement. I could see him only indistinctly, for I 
 was myself placed in the clear light and he was in 
 the shade. I imagined, however, that he was going 
 to speak and I leaned out ; but the strangeness of 
 an explanation at that distance struck me suddenly 
 so forcibly, that my gayety carried me away : — 
 
 "M. de Civreuse/' I cried, "are you upon your 
 knees ? " 
 
 He only replied : " Colette, answer me, I implore 
 you ! " 
 
 I had not reckoned upon this tone. As he wished, 
 it penetrated my inmost being ; and troubled, con- 
 fused, no longer finding a word to say, I began to 
 repeat mechanically the phrase I had in my mind a 
 moment before : — 
 
 " Because I have sworn to leave you there a long 
 time, because . . ." 
 
 '' Because ? " he repeated anxiously. 
 
 " Because I have waited such a very long time ! "
 
 COLETTE 22 7 
 
 But he did not hear ; I had spoken too low, and 
 moreover, my voice trembled too much. 
 
 He waited a second longer, then he called to me 
 in that same tone which had impressed me so 
 strongly. 
 
 I was incapable of replying and I saved myself by 
 crying : — 
 
 •• Wait ! " 
 
 In my note-book there yet remained two white 
 pages ; I tore one of them out, and in haste, without 
 reflecting, wrote this : — 
 
 '' Do not carry me off, M. de Civreuse, that would 
 bring you into trouble with the courts of justice. I 
 fear ; and besides, there is no retreat where any 
 one could keep me if I did not wish it ! 
 
 " I will tell you something that is surer than bolts : 
 it is that wherever you take me, there my heart will 
 be! 
 
 " Be certain that I shall not forget my St. Joseph ; 
 he has done for me far more than you think ; and 
 there is a certain old woman also to whom I am 
 under obligations, and of whom I will tell you, since 
 you like to be grateful. 
 
 " It is a story which I will relate to you some even- 
 ing in the moonlight like this, first because I like this 
 light, then, because if happiness came to you one 
 morning in winter, it has just come to me on an 
 evening in spring ! "
 
 2 28 COLETTE. 
 
 Pierre to Jacques. 
 
 Jacques, we are engaged ! give me your hand ; by 
 following me you will enter into Paradise ! 
 
 The cure of Fond-de-Vieux has consented to come 
 up here and marry us ; the workmen are in the 
 chapel and are restoring it in all haste ; it will be 
 ready in three weeks, and we shall have the flowers 
 of June to embalm the air. 
 
 How I have procured the consent of Mile. d'Epine 
 I no longer know, and I am not Certain that I did 
 not employ violence ; therefore she has revenged 
 herself, and under the pretense of the proprieties she 
 no longer leaves us alone. 
 
 As comrades and strangers, we were free ; as be- 
 trothed and very nearly married, she watches over us, 
 and this woman is my torment ! I thought at first 
 of breaking my other leg, but now I teach Colette 
 to speak Latin. . . . 
 
 It is not necessary for us to have a very extensive 
 repertoire, for the word we repeat is always the 
 same ! 
 
 On the evening of our marriage, faithful to one of 
 my plans, I shall carry her away, if not to the Indies, 
 at least higher up than Erlange. Goatherds some- 
 times pass by here, and I wish no one to look into 
 my Eden ! 
 
 In the autumn I think all will be ready. We 
 will restore our ruins, and you must choose your
 
 COLETTE. 229 
 
 apartments some of these days, in the crumbling 
 towers or elsewhere ; all is open to you. 
 
 There is only one place which nothing shall ever 
 change ; you guess it, and you will keep guard over it, 
 my friend, if you come to replace me sometimes during 
 my absence : it is the great room, wainscoted in oak. 
 where Benoite and my doctor brought me one day 
 unconscious.
 
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