COLETTE, (Sidonie-Gabrielle)

Nationality: French. Born: Saint-Saveur en Puisaye, 28 January 1873. Education: Local school to age 16. Family: Married 1) the writer Henry Gauthier-Villars ("Willy") in 1893 (divorced 1910); 2) Henry de Jouvenal in 1912 (divorced 1925), one daughter; 3) Maurice Goudeket in 1935. Career: Actress and revue performer, 1906-27; columnist, Le Matin, 1910-19; literary editor, Le Matin, 1919-24; drama critic, La Revue de Paris, 1929; operated a beauty clinic, Paris, 1932-33; drama critic, Le Journal, 1934-39; drama critic, L'Eclair; drama critic, Le Petit Parisien. Awards: City of Paris Grand Médaille, 1953. Member: Belgian Royal Academy, 1936 (president, 1949); Goncourt Academy; Honorary Member, American Academy, 1953. Chevalier, 1920, Officer, 1928, Commander, 1936, and Grand Officer, 1953, Legion of Honor. Died: 3 August 1954.

Publications

Collections

Works. 17 vols., 1951-64.

Oeuvres complètes. 16 vols., 1973.

Collected Stories, edited by Robert Phelps. 1983.

Oeuvres, edited by Claude Pichois. 1984—.

Short Stories

La Femme cachée. 1924; as The Other Woman, 1971.

Bella-Vista. 1937.

Chambre d'hôtel. 1940; in Julie de Carneilhan and Chance Acquaintances, 1952.

Gigi et autres nouvelles. 1944; translated as Gigi, 1952.

Stories. 1958; as The Tender Shoot and Other Stories, 1959.

Novels

Claudine à l'école, with Willy. 1900; as Claudine at School, 1930.

Claudine à Paris, with Willy. 190l; as Claudine in Paris, 1931; asYoung Lady of Paris, 1931.

Claudine amoureuse, with Willy. 1902; as Claudine en ménage, 1902; as The Indulgent Husband, 1935; as Claudine Married, 1960.

Claudine s'en va, with Willy. 1903; as The Innocent Wife, 1934; asClaudine and Annie, 1962.

Minne; Les Egarements de Minne. 2 vols., 1903-05; revised version, as L'Ingénue libertine, 1909; as The Gentle Libertine, 1931; as The Innocent Libertine, 1968.

Le Retraite sentimentale. 1907; as Retreat from Love, 1974.

Les Vrilles de la vigne. 1908.

La Vagabonde. 1911; as The Vagrant, 1912; as Renée la vagabonde, 1931; as The Vagabond, 1954.

L'Entrave. 1913; as Recaptured, 1931; as The Shackle, 1963.

Les Enfants dans les ruines. 1917.

Dans la foule. 1918.

Mitsou; ou, Comment l'esprit vient aux filles. 1918; as Mitsou; or, How Girls Grow Wise, 1930.

La Chambre éclairée. 1920.

Chéri. 1920; translated as Chéri, 1929.

Le Blé en herbe. 1923; as The Ripening Corn, 1931; as The

Ripening, 1932; as Ripening Seed, 1956.

Quatre saisons. 1925.

Le Fin de Chéri. 1926; as The Last of Chéri, 1932.

La Naissance du jour. 1928; as A Lesson in Love, 1932; as Morning

Glory, 1932; as The Break of Day, 1961.

La Seconde. 1929; as The Other One, 1931; as Fanny and Jane, 1931.

Paradises terrestres. 1932.

La Chatte. 1933; as The Cat, 1936; as Saha the Cat, 1936.

Duo. 1934; translated as Duo, 1935; also translated with The Toutounier, 1974; as The Married Lover, 1935.

Le Toutounier. 1939; as The Toutounier, with Duo, 1974.

Julie de Carneilhan. 1941; translated as Julie de Carneilhan, inJulie de Carneilhan and Chance Acquaintances, 1952.

Le Képi. 1943.

Plays

En camerades (produced 1909). In Oeuvres complètes 15, 1950.

Claudine, music by Rodolphe Berger, from the novel by Colette (produced 1910). 1910.

Chéri, with Léopold Marchand, from the novel by Colette (produced 1921). 1922; translated as Cheri, 1959.

La Vagabonde, with Léopold Marchand, from the novel by Colette (produced 1923). 1923.

L'Enfant et les sortilèges, music by Maurice Ravel (produced1925). 1925; as The Boy and the Magic, 1964.

La Décapitée (ballet scenario), in Mes Cahiers. 1941.

Gigi, with Anita Loos, from the story by Colette (produced 1951).1952; in French, 1954.

Jeune filles en uniform, Lac aux dames, Divine (screenplays), in Au Cinéma. 1975.

Screenplays:

La Vagabonde, 1917, remake, 1931; La Femme cachée, 1919; Jeunes filles en uniform (French dialogue for German film Mädchen in Uniform), 1932; Lac aux dames, 1934; Divine, 1935.

Other

Dialogues de bêtes. 1904; augmented edition, as Sept dialogues de bêtes, 1905; as Douze dialogues de bêtes, 1930; as Barks and Purrs, 1913; as Creatures Great and Small, 1951.

L'Envers du music-hall. 1913; as Music-Hall Sidelights, 1957.

Prrou, Poucette, et quelques autres. 1913; revised edition, as La Paix chez les bêtes, 1916; as Cats, Dogs, and I, 1924; also translated in Creatures Great and Small, 1951.

Les Heures longues 1914-1917. 1917.

La Maison de Claudine. 1922; as The Mother of Claudine, 1937; asMy Mother's House, 1953.

Le Voyage égoïste. 1922; in part as Journey for Myself: Selfish Memoirs, 1971.

Rêverie du nouvel an. 1923.

Aventures quotidiennes. 1924; in Journey for Myself: Selfish Memoirs, 1971.

Renée Vivien. 1928.

Sido. 1929; translated as Sido, with My Mother's House, 1953.

Histoires pour Bel-Gazou. 1930.

La Treille Muscate. 1932.

Prisons et paradis. 1932; in part in Places, 1970.

Ces plaisirs. 1932; as Le Pur et l'impur, 1941; as The Pure and the Impure, 1933; as These Pleasures, 1934.

La Jumelle noire (theatre criticism). 4 vols., 1934-38.

Mes apprentissages. 1936; as My Apprenticeships, 1957.

Chats. 1936.

Splendeur des papillons. 1937.

Mes cahiers. 1941.

Journal à rebours. 1941; in Looking Backwards, 1975.

De ma fenêtre. 1942; augmented edition, as Paris de ma fenêtre, 1944; in Looking Backwards, 1975.

De la patte à l'aile. 1943.

Flore et Pomone. 1943; as Flowers and Fruit, edited by RobertPhelps, 1986.

Nudités. 1943.

Broderie ancienne. 1944.

Trois…six…neuf. 1944.

Belles Saisons. 1945; as Belles Saisons: A Colette Scrapbook, edited by Robert Phelps. 1978.

Une Amitié inattendue (correspondence with Francis Jammes), edited by Robert Mallet. 1945.

L'Étoile vesper. 1946; as The Evening Star: Recollections, 1973.

Pour un herbier. 1948; as For a Flower Album, 1959.

Oeuvres complètes. 15 vols., 1948-50.

Trait pour trait. 1949.

Journal intermittent. 1949.

Le Fanal bleu. 1949; as The Blue Lantern, 1963.

La Fleur de l'âge. 1949.

En pays connu. 1949.

Chats de Colette. 1949.

Paysages et portraits. 1958.

Lettres à Hélène Picard, edited by Claude Pichois. 1958.

Lettres à Marguerite Moréno, edited by Claude Pichois. 1959.

Lettres de la vagabonde, edited by Claude Pichois and RoberteForbin. 1961.

Lettres au petit corsaire, edited by Claude Pichois and RoberteForbin. 1963.

Earthly Paradise: An Autobiography Drawn from Her Lifetime of Writing, edited by Robert Phelps. 1966.

Places (miscellany; in English). 1970.

Contes de mille et un matins. 1970; as The Thousand and One Mornings, 1973.

Journey for Myself: Selfish Memoirs (selection). 1971.

Lettres à ses pairs, edited by Claude Pichois and RoberteForbin. 1973.

Au Cinéma, edited by Alain and Odette Virmaux. 1975.

Letters from Colette, edited by Robert Phelps. 1980.

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Bibliography:

Colette: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography by Donna M. Norell, 1993.

Critical Studies:

Madame Colette: A Provincial in Paris, 1952, and Colette: The Difficulty of Loving, 1973, both by Margaret Crosland; Colette by Elaine Marks, 196l; Colette by Margaret Davies, 1961; Colette by R.D. Cottrell, 1974; Colette: A Taste for Life by Yvonne Mitchell, 1975; Colette: Free and Fettered by Michèle Sarde, translated by Richard Miller, 1981; Colette: The Woman, The Writer edited by Erica M. Eisinger and Mari McCarty, 1981; Colette by Joanna Richardson, 1983; Colette: A Passion for Life by Genevieve Dormann, translated by David Macey, 1985; Colette by Allan Massie, 1986; Colette by Nicola Ward Jouve, 1987; Colette: A Life by Herbert Lottman, 1991; Colette by Diana Holmes, 1991; Colette and the Fantom Subject of Autobiography by Jerry Aline Flieger, 1992; A Charmed World: Colette, Her Life and Times by Claude Francis, 1993; Colette by Joan Hinde Stewart, 1996.

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Colette's reputation as a writer rests squarely on her novels, although she achieved much more besides: she acted, danced, performed in music-hall and mime; she wrote prolifically for the theater, the cinema, newspapers, children, and (autobiographically) for posterity. Her various collections of short stories and novellas form an important part of her fictional output and have been widely translated. Five major collections of stories were published in her lifetime.

Colette was married three times. After separating from her first husband she had a long and very public lesbian relationship with the Marquise de Belboeuf, known as "Missy." She divorced her second husband as well as the first, before marrying in 1935 a man nearly 17 years her junior. She had a happy childhood, had a daughter by her second husband, and retained throughout her life a strong affinity with animals. All these elements, in conjunction with her intensely varied career, influenced her work. Her short stories were often written as first-person narratives, and in many the narrator was called "Colette." Triggered though they sometimes were by incidents and memories from her life and acquaintanceship, the stories combine fact as well as fiction. Ordinary people are made to appear extraordinary beneath their everyday failings and normality. The drama underlying the apparently conventional surface is carefully and casually observed, and frequently the moral, if not the intellectual, superiority of the female protagonist is a hidden theme.

The 22 stories that make up La Femme cachée (The Other Women) are very largely narrated in the third person, unlike many of the longer stories and novellas Colette was later to write. Restricted to about 1500 words, the stories' brevity does not imply, however, a simple reliance on the traditional final twist for effect. About a third of the stories concern married couples and the surprises, compromises, and intimate understanding that come with marriage. Frequently they are told from the wife's point of view. "The Hand," for instance, describes a newlywed couple entwined in bed. The wife savors the almost scandalous excitement of being with a husband she scarcely knows, but with whom she is in love. Admiring him in the half-light, she suddenly is repelled by the crab-like convulsions of his hand, but in the morning kisses his "monstrous hand" and embarks on that universal, deceitful but diplomatic course of married life.

The psychological adjustment that has to be made after the death, divorce, or departure of a partner is another theme that Colette analyzes with great sensitivity. The loneliness following such a break in a relationship, whether marital or lesbian, is conveyed in such stories as "Habitude," where two women "broke up in the same way as they had become close, without knowing why." The partnership is never treated as odd or abnormal, and its ending could be that of any heterosexual couple. In "The Judge" a widow is unnerved in an attempt to mark her change of status by her manservant, who clearly but silently disapproves of a new and too youthful hairstyle. The disintegration of her confidence compels her to make another appointment with her stylist the next day.

The title story of Belle-Vista concerns one of those "blank pages" that Colette considered important, the times in a woman's life when she is not dominated by passion, and so can observe veiled aspects of human nature. The hotel Bella-Vista seems to be run by a pair of women, but one turns out to be a transvestite who has, moreover, made the servant pregnant. There is only one other guest when the narrator is staying there, a sinister character who disappears after throttling a cage of parakeets. The narrator feels a simultaneous attraction and repugnance; she wants to leave the hotel, but recognizes the perverse fascination of danger.

"Chambre d'hôtel," the first of the two novellas that make up the volume of the same name (translated as Chance Acquaintances), is based on an anecdote connected with Colette's music-hall career. The melodramatic elements of the story push it beyond bare credulity on occasion, but the tension in the narrator's wish to be part of events recall a similar tug in "Bella-Vista." The second novella, "The Rainy Moon," relates a story in which coincidences, mysterious behavior, and connections are linked with the occult. The unnamed narrator finally sees the woman who has been trying to rid herself of her estranged husband, in the distance, dressed in mourning.

"The Tender Shoot" concerns a man of 50 years who falls for a young peasant girl. She is perfectly willing to satisfy him sexually, but is determined to keep the situation from her mother. Not surprisingly, they are discovered taking refuge from a storm in the girl's house, and the mother harangues her daughter not on grounds of morality or virtue, but on account of her seducer's age and physical condition. The two women unite to pelt him with stones as he runs from the house. "The Képi," in the same volume, shows a different side of the coin in the fragile links in the male-female age gap. Here, the 45-year-old Marco, a woman who earns a sparse living ghostwriting, answers a personal advertisement and she meets and falls in love with a young lieutenant. The affair awakens her sexuality, but one day in bed she playfully puts on his képi. This severe military cap merely emphasizes her age, and the relationship comes to a swift end.

"Gigi" first appeared in the weekly magazine Présent in 1941, and subsequently as the title story of the last of Colette's fictional works, in 1944. It was staged and later made into a film with Audrey Hepburn. The story's source was a real incident told to Colette 15 years earlier, but the author moves it back to the more romantic end of the nineteenth century, the era of the brilliant demimondaines. Unlike many of Colette's other short stories, it is witty, charming, and ends happily and unambiguously. It is also stylishly unsentimental. The adolescent Gigi comes from a family of women who had made their way as courtesans: "I understand that we don't marry," she says to her great aunt. She is aware of such things, but is utterly without guile. When the same future is planned for her with a rich, 33-year-old man whom the family has long held in affection, Gigi insists she will not comply with the arrangement. She changes her mind; he realizes what she means to him, and asks permission to marry her. The ironic parallel to a normal girl's upbringing and expectation of marriage is made to Gigi's education: she is taught how to eat lobster, choose jewels, and move gracefully. The severity of the rules on both sides of the social divide are equal.

"The Sick Child," in the same collection, describes the hallucinatory imaginings of the boy as he escapes the restrictions of his bed. In sleep, or in the final crisis of his illness, he embroiders a world into which his wasted legs cannot carry him, flying on the lavender scented air that his mother uses to sweeten the room. He survives, and bids farewell to the make-believe dreams of his other self.

To a visitor in the last years of her life, Colette claimed, "Perhaps the most praiseworthy thing about me is that I have known how to write like a woman." Her themes of childhood, nature, and love, in their many forms, are indeed those of a female writer, and although autobiographical elements often underpin the fiction, her writing should not be interpreted only on this level. Her work can be equally appropriate to both sexes.

—Honor Levi

See the essays on "The Other Woman" and "The Rainy Moon."