The Collected Stories of Colette by Colette Read Free Book Online Page A

ear . . . “The skin of an old hen,” thinks Chéri fiercely. He cannot take his eyes off the neck or the pearls. He can sense an image, a memory taking shape, coming to him, still hazy, from the depths of his indolent memory. He suffers vaguely; something grows within him painfully. He would like to turn his eyes away or close them. This withered skin, these pearls . . . “What is it?” he asks himself impatiently.
    His eyelids close suddenly and his entire body relaxes, as if allowed to rest. The dread image is coming to life, and in place of Léa’s neck, in place of the triple, iridescent chain, Chéri can see a young, amber-colored neck, smooth, bent in sadness, adorned with a thin strand of pearls. And the nape of the neck, the necklace, the soft cascading hair, undone, all shudder to the rhythms of impassioned sobs . . .
    The image, the whispering of the sobs accompany Chéri, descend with him to sleep, where a dream timid with tenderness and remorse sketches itself out, a dream in which his hand, protective for the first time, touches the necklace it has fastened there, on the silky young neck, the thin necklace of tiny little pearls . . .
    [ Translated by Matthew Ward ]

DIALOGUES FOR ONE VOICE
    Literature

    “Godmother?”
    “. . .”
    “What are you doing, Godmother? A story for the papers? Is it a sad story?”
    “. . . ?”
    “Because you look so unhappy!”
    “. . .”
    “Ah, it’s because you’re late? It’s like a composition: you have to turn in your work on the day they tell you to? . . . What would they say if you turned in your notebook without anything in it?”
    “. . . ?”
    “The men who judge it at the paper!”
    “. . .”
    “They wouldn’t pay you? That’s so boring. It’s the same thing for me; but Mama only gives me two sous for each composition. She says I’m mercenary. Well, work hard. Can I see your page? That’s all you have? You’ll never be ready!”
    “. . . !”
    “What! you don’t have a subject? Don’t they give you an outline, like us at school, for French composition? That way at least you have a chance!”
    “. . .”
    “What I’d like is for Mademoiselle to let us write whatever comes into our heads. Oh boy, if I was a writer!”
    “. . . ?”
    “What would I do? I’d write a hundred thousand million things, and stories for children.”
    “. . .”
    “I know there’s lots of them; but they’re enough to make you sick of being a child. How many more am I going to get as presents? You know, too many people take us for idiots! When I see in a catalogue: ‘For Young Readers,’ I say to myself, ‘Well, that’s just great! more grownups knocking themselves out to come down to our level, as they say!’ I don’t know why grownups use a special tone to come down to our level. Do we children get to write books for grownups?”
    “. . .”
    “That’s fair, isn’t it? I’m for what’s fair. For example, I want a book for teaching you things to be a book for teaching you things, and a book for fun, I want it to be fun. I don’t want them mixed up. For years, you saw, in children’s books, a car drive up, and there was always a man in the story to pass along to you his opinion about the progress of machines . . . Now you’re sure to see a dashing aviator descend from the sky, but he talks about the conquest of the air . . . and of the . . . the glorious dead who lead the way. You see, there are constantly things breaking in on the story in children’s books, things that smell of a grownup giving a lesson. It’s no use for Papa to repeat, ‘A child must understand everything he reads . . .’ I think that’s grotexque . . .”
    “. . .”
    “Grotesque? Are you sure? Grotexque is prettier.”
    “. . . ?”
    “I think it’s grotexque because grownups never seem to remember about when they were little. I think things that I don’t understand everything about are terrific. I like