by Colette
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Colette
Title Page
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Copyright
About the Book
* * *
In this final novel in Colette’s famous series it is Claudine’s friend Annie who tells the story in the form of a private diary. Claudine is happily settled with her adored husband Renaud, spending her time giving wise and worldly advice to despairing Annie whose life with the boring and dominating Alan is set to dramatically change. With the help of Claudine, Annie’s life is immeasurably shaken as she takes the steps to empower her own life, a life away from her husband.
Through Colette’s incredible series of novels Claudine emerges as a portrait of an intelligent, modern woman whose life is always honest, passionate and intensely moving.
About the Author
* * *
Colette, the creator of Claudine, Chéri and Gigi, and one of France’s outstanding writers, had a long, varied and active life. She was born in Burgundy in 1873, into a home overflowing with dogs, cats and children, and educated at the local village school. At the age of twenty she was brought to Paris by her first husband, the notorious Henry Gauthiers-Villars (Willy), writer and critic. By dint of locking her in her room, Willy forced Colette to write her first novels (the Claudine sequence), which he published under his name. They were an instant success. But their marriage (chronicled in Mes Apprentissages) was never happy and Colette left him in 1906. She spent the next six years on the stage – an experience, like that of her early childhood, which would provide many of the themes for her work. She remarried (Julie de Carneilhan ‘is as close a reckoning with the elements of her second marriage as she ever allowed herself’), later divorcing her second husband, by whom she had a daughter. In 1935 she married Maurice Goudeket, with whom she lived until her death in 1954.
With the publication of Chéri (1920) Colette’s place as one of France’s prose masters became assured. Although she became increasingly crippled with arthritis, she never lost her intense pre-occupation with everything around her. ‘I cannot interest myself in anything that is not life,’ she said; and, to a young writer, ‘Look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you’. Her rich and supple prose, with its sensuous detail and sharp psychological insights, illustrates that personal philosophy.
Her writing runs to fifteen volumes, novels, portraits, essays, chroniques and a large body of autobiographical prose. She was the first woman President of the Académie Goncourt, and when she died was given a state funeral and buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
ALSO BY COLETTE
Fiction
Claudine Married
Claudine at School
Claudine in Paris
Chéri
The Last of Chéri
Gigi and the Cat
Chance Acquaintances
Julie de Carneilhan
The Ripening Seed
The Vagabond
Break of Day
The Innocent Libertine
Mitsou
The Other One
The Shackle
Non-Fiction
My Apprenticeships and Music-Hall Sidelights
The Blue Lantern
My Mother’s House and Sido
The Pure and the Impure
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE
Colette
TRANSLATED BY
Antonia White
PREFACE
I have told in Mes Apprentissages how, some two years after our marriage, therefore about 1895, Monsieur Willy said to me one day:
‘You ought to jot down on paper some memories of the Primary School. I might be able to make something out of them . . . Don’t be afraid of racy details.’
This curious and still comparatively unknown man, who put his name to I know not how many volumes without having written a single one of them, was constantly on the look-out for new talents for his literary factory. It was not in the least surprising that he should have extended his investigations as far as his own home.
‘I was recovering from a long and serious illness which had left my mind and body lazy. But, having found at a stationer’s some exercise-books like the ones I had at school, and bought them again, their cream-laden pages, ruled in grey, with red margins, their black linen spines, and their covers bearing a medallion and an ornate title Le Calligraphe gave my fingers back a kind of itch for doing “lines”, for the passivity of a set task. A certain watermark, seen through the cream-laid paper, made me feel six years younger. On a stud of a desk, the window behind me, one shoulder askew and my knees crossed, I wrote with application and indifference . . .
‘When I had finished, I handed over to my husband a closely written manuscript which respected the margins. He skimmed through it and said:
‘“I made a mistake, this can’t be of the slightest use . . .”
‘Released, I went back to the sofa, to the cat, to books, to silence, to a life that I tried to make pleasant for myself and that I did not know was unhealthy for me.
‘The exercise-books remained for two years at the bottom of a drawer. One day Willy decided to tidy up the contents of his desk.
‘The appalling counter-like object of sham ebony with a crimson baize top displayed its deal drawers and disgorged bundles of old papers and once again we saw the forgotten exercise-books in which I had scribbled: Claudine à l’école.
‘“Fancy,” said Monsieur Willy. “I thought I had put them in the waste-paper basket.”
‘He opened one exercise-book and turned over the pages:
‘“It’s charming . . .”
‘He opened a second exercise-book, and said no more – a third, then a fourth . . .
‘“Good Lord,” he muttered, “I’m an utter imbecile . . .”
‘He swept up the exercise-books haphazard, pounced on his flat-brimmed hat and rushed off to a publisher . . . And that was how I became a writer.’
But that was also how I very nearly missed ever becoming a writer. I lacked the literary vocation and it is probable that I should never have produced another line if, after the success of Claudine à l’école, other imposed tasks had not, little by little, got me into the habit of writing.
Claudine à l’école appeared in 1900, published by Paul Ollendorff, bearing Willy’s sole name as the author. In the interval, I had to get back to the job again to put a little ‘spice’ into my text.
‘Couldn’t you,’ Willy said to me, ‘hot this – these childish reminiscences up a little? For example, a too passionate friendship between Claudine and one of her schoolmates . . . And then some dialect, lots of dialect words . . . Some naughty pranks . . . You see what I mean?’
The pliancy of extreme youth is only equalled by its lack of scruples. What was the extent of Willy’s collaboration? The manuscripts furnish a partial answer to a question that has been asked a hundred times. Out of the four Claudine books, only the manuscripts of Claudine en ménage and Claudine s’en va have been saved from the destruction which Willy ordered Paul Barlet to carry out. Paul Barlet, known as Paul Héon – secretary, friend, Negro and extremely honourable man – suspended the execution, which had begun to be carried out, and brought me what remained, which I still possess.
Turning over the pages of those exercise-books is not without interest. Written entirely in m
y handwriting, a very fine writing appears at distant intervals, changing a word, adding a pun or a very sharp rebuke. Likewise one could also read (in Claudine en ménage and Claudine s’en va) two more important re-written passages pasted over the original which I am omitting in the present edition.
The success of the Claudine books was, for the period, very great. It inspired fashions, plays, and beauty-products. Being honourable, and above all indifferent, I kept silent about the truth, which did not become known till very much later. Nevertheless, it is today for the first time that the Claudine books appear under the single name of their single author. I should also be glad if, henceforth, La Retraite sentimentale – a pretty title suggested by Alfred Vallette – were considered as the last book in the Claudine series. The reader will find this far more satisfactory from the point of view of both logic and convenience.
COLETTE
ONE
HE HAS GONE! He has gone! I keep saying those words to myself; now I am writing them down on paper to find out if they are true and if they are going to hurt me. As long as he was there, I did not feel as if he were going. He bustled about methodically. He kept giving precise orders and insisting: ‘Annie, be sure not to forget . . .’ then breaking off to say: ‘Goodness, how miserable you look! Your distress distresses me more than the prospect of going away!’ Did I really look so miserable? I was not suffering, because he was still there.
Hearing him pity me like that made me shiver inwardly. Shrunk into myself, I kept wondering fearfully: ‘Am I really going to be as unhappy as he says? This is terrible.’
At this moment it is all too true. He has gone! I am afraid to move, to breathe, to live. A husband ought not to leave his wife – not when it is this particular husband and this particular wife.
Before I had turned thirteen, he was already the master of my life. Such a handsome master! A red-haired boy, with a skin whiter than an egg and blue eyes that dazzled me. When I lived with my grandmother Lajarrisse – she was all the family I had – I used to look forward and count the days to his summer holidays. At last the morning would arrive when she would come into my nunlike little grey and white bedroom (they whitewash the walls down there because of the fierce summer heat and they stay fresh and clean in the shadow of the shutters) and say, as she entered: ‘Alain’s bedroom windows are open, cook saw them when she came back from town.’ She would announce this calmly without suspecting that those mere words made me curl up into a tight little ball under my sheets and draw my knees up to my chin . . .
Alain! At twelve years old I loved him, as I do now, with a confused, frightened love that had no trace of coquetry or guile in it. Every year we were inseparable companions for close on four months because he was being educated in Normandy at one of those schools modelled on English lines where the boys have long summer holidays. He would arrive all white and golden, with five or six freckles under his blue eyes, and push open the garden gate as if he were planting a flag on a conquered citadel. I used to wait for him in my little everyday frock . . . not daring to dress up for him in case he noticed it. He would take me off with him and we would read or play. He never asked for my opinion; he jeered at me a good deal; he issued decrees. ‘This is what we’re going to do. You’re to hold the foot of the ladder and stretch out your pinafore so that I can throw the apples into it.’ He would put his arm round my shoulders and look about him menacingly as if to say: ‘I dare anyone to take her from me!’ He was sixteen and I was twelve.
Sometimes – I made that gesture again, humbly, only yesterday – I would lay my sunburnt hand on his white wrist and sigh: ‘How black I am!’ He would give a proud smile that displayed his square teeth and reply: ‘Sed formosa, Annie dear.’
I have a photograph here, taken in those days. I am dark and slight, as I am now, with a small head dragged back a little by the heavy black hair and a pouting mouth that seems to be pleading ‘I won’t do it again’. Under the very long lashes that grow in one dense perfectly straight sweep, the eyes are of such a liquid blue that they embarrass me when I look at myself in the glass – they are so ridiculously light against a skin as dark as a little Kabyle girl’s. However, since Alain found them attractive . . .
We grew up very virtuously, without any kissing or erotic behaviour. That was not due to me! I would have said ‘Yes’ without even uttering a word. Sometimes, when I was with him towards evening, I found the scent of jasmine too oppressive and my throat felt so constricted I could hardly breathe . . . Since words failed me to tell Alain: ‘This jasmine, this twilight, this down on my own skin that caresses my lips when they brush it . . . they’re all you . . .’ I would press my lips together and lower my lashes over my too-light eyes in an attitude so habitual to me that he never once suspected anything . . . He is as upright and decent as he is handsome.
At twenty-four, he announced: ‘Now we’re going to get married,’ just as eleven years earlier he would have announced: ‘Now we’re going to play Indians.’
He has always known so infallibly what I ought to do that without him I am lost. I am like a useless mechanical toy that has lost its key. How am I to know now what is right and what is wrong?
Poor weak, selfish little Annie! Thinking of him makes me feel sorry for myself. I implored him not to go away . . . I said very little because his affection, always reserved, dreads emotional outbursts. ‘Perhaps this legacy doesn’t amount to much . . . We’ve got enough money as it is, and it’s a long way to go on the off-chance of finding a fortune . . . Alain, suppose you commissioned someone else . . .’ His astonished eyebrows cut me short in the middle of my tactless suggestion, but I plucked up courage again. ‘Well then, Alain, couldn’t you take me with you?’
His pitying smile deprived me of all hope.
‘Take you with me, my poor child? You . . . delicate as you are . . . and . . . I don’t want to hurt your feelings . . . such a bad traveller? Can you see yourself enduring the voyage to Buenos Aires? Think of your health, think . . . and I know this is an argument that will convince you . . . of the trouble you might be to me.’ I lowered my lids, which is my way of retiring into my shell, and silently cursed my Uncle Etchevarray, a hothead who disappeared fifteen years ago and of whom we had heard nothing till now. Tiresome idiot, why did he take it into his head to die rich in some unknown country and leave us . . . what? . . . Some estancias where they breed ‘bulls that sell at up to six thousand piastres, Annie’. I can’t even remember what that adds up to in francs.
The day of his departure is not over yet and here I am in my room, secretly writing in the beautiful notebook he gave me for the purpose of keeping my ‘Diary of his journey’. I am also re-reading the list of duties he drew up for me with his usual solicitous firmness. It is headed Timetable.
June. Calls on Madame X—, Madame Z—, and Madame T— (important).
Only one call on Renaud and Claudine. Too fantastically unconventional a couple for a young woman to frequent while her husband is away on a long journey.
Pay the upholsterer’s bill for the big armchairs in the drawing-room and the cane bedstead. Don’t haggle because the upholsterer works for our friends the Gs. People might gossip.
Order Annie’s summer clothes. Not too many ‘tailored’ things; light, simple dresses. Will my dear Annie not obstinately persist in believing that red and bright orange make her complexion look lighter?
Check the servants’ account books every Saturday morning. See that Jules does not forget to take down the tapestry in my smoking-room and that he rolls it up sprinkled with pepper and tobacco. He’s not a bad fellow but slack and he’ll do his jobs carelessly if Annie doesn’t keep a sharp eye on him.
Annie will take a daily walk in the Avenues and will not read too much nonsense. Not too many ‘realistic’ novels or any other kind.
Warn the ‘Urbaine’ that we are giving notice on July 1st. Hire the Victoria by the day during the five days before you go off to Arriège.
My dear Annie will give me much
pleasure if she frequently consults my sister Marthe and goes out with her. Marthe has a great deal of good sense and even common sense under her rather unconventional exterior.
He has thought of everything! Don’t I have, even for one minute, any shame about my . . . my incompetence? Inertia would be a better word perhaps . . . or passivity. Alain’s active vigilance overlooks nothing and spares me from the slightest practical worry. By nature I am as indolent as a little Negress but, in the first year of our marriage, I did attempt to shake myself out of my silent languor. Alain made short work of destroying my noble zeal. ‘Leave it alone, Annie, the thing’s done. I’ve seen to it myself.’ ‘No, no Annie, you don’t know, you haven’t the remotest idea . . .!’
I don’t know anything . . . except how to obey. He has taught me that and I achieve obedience as the sole task of my existence . . . assiduously . . . joyfully. My supple neck, my dangling arms, my too-slender, flexible shape . . . everything about me, from my eyelids that droop easily and say ‘yes’ to my little slave-girl’s complexion, predestined me to obey. Alain often calls me that, ‘little slave-girl’. Of course he says it without malice, with only a faint contempt for my dark-skinned race. He is so white!
Yes, dear ‘timetable’, that will continue to guide me in his absence and until his first letter arrives, yes, I will give notice to the ‘Urbaine’. I will keep an eye on Jules, I will check the servant’s account books, I will pay my calls, and I will see Marthe frequently.
Marthe is my sister-in-law, Alain’s sister. Although he disapproves of her having married a novelist, albeit a well-known one, my husband is aware of her lively, scatter-brained intelligence and her intermittent clear-sightedness. He readily admits: ‘She’s clever.’ I am not quite sure how to assess the value of that compliment.
In any case, she knows infallibly how to handle her brother and I am sure Alain has not the least suspicion how she plays up to him. How artfully she glosses over the risky word she has allowed to slip out, how deftly she glances off from a dangerous topic of conversation! When I have annoyed my lord and master, I just remain completely miserable, without even pleading to be forgiven. Marthe just laughs in his face, or tactfully admires some remark he has just made or is amusingly scathing about some particularly odious bore – and Alain’s scowling eyebrows relax.