Read The Collected Stories of Colette for Free Online

girl . . . a pretty, tender girl, a little dopey . . .”
    “Is it my wedding that’s bothering you, Léa?”
    She hesitates, then decides to say it: “Yes . . . Listen, my dear, you shouldn’t . . . I really wish . . .”
    How can she say what she’s thinking? Chéri files his nails; but beneath his distracted exterior he is waiting, he is listening for . . .
    “They’re going to make him the guardian, the support, the master,” she thinks to herself, “of a child so young and so weak. It’s terrible. She’ll think she’s marrying Prince Charming and the next day she’ll find herself face to face with an old coquette. Because really, it’s extraordinary, but of the two of us, he’s the old coquette. He’s the one who’s always scrubbing himself, plucking hairs, and sleeping with cucumber cream on his face, and not one night of lovemaking goes by for him without a good facial massage afterward! An old coquette doubling as a rich and greedy petty bourgeois, who quibbles over tips, who yells if the bathwater is too hot, and counts the number of bottles of champagne in the cellar; a fussy, idle, petty bourgeois . . . With me, it didn’t matter, because I’ve had so many of these naughty nurselings. I was the tree they blunted their nails on; I was the warm rug they curled up on to sleep. My God, the poor little girl! If only someone could stop it!”
    Léa looks at Chéri almost with anguish—she forgets to raise the corners of her lovely, tired mouth. She makes one more effort: “Listen, child . . . I assure you, don’t get married. You mustn’t get married . . .”
    It is exactly what Chéri was waiting for. He bursts out laughing and shakes Léa by the shoulders, with insulting hilarity. “Aha! You jealous . . .” he shouts at her.
    THE RETURN
    Half past midnight. Léa closes her book and thinks that it is time to sleep. She marks her place with a postcard from Chéri, which arrived the day before, in which he concisely expresses the boredom of being married. “I’ve had it! I’ve had it!”
    Tomorrow she will file the card away with Chéri’s other letters: a dozen telegrams, a few pneumatiques , two or three notes scribbled on hotel stationery . . . The telegrams composed pidgin-style, without needless tenderness or niceties: Chéri, like nearly all children of the rich, knows perfectly well that they cost by the word. His letters have a singular tone to them, sometimes that of one schoolboy to another, sometimes that of a child to an old and very dear nanny: “My darling Nounoune . . .” Léa smiles, thinking about it.
    “Poor thing . . . He was so used to me . . . What an orphanage that must be, him and his child bride!”
    She relaxes and reminisces, alone in her big bedroom of which, though it is somewhat démodé , she is quite fond. An elegant and tractable young woman up on the style of the day would like it to be more airy, with fewer cushions and fewer crimson curtains, but Léa holds on to her knickknacks and her big, heavy bed, made entirely of chased brass, which shines in the dark like a suit of armor.
    The lace bed linen and the sheets heavy with embroidery also give away Léa’s age, her fifty wise years, her bourgeois taste for fine, long-lasting linen. This sturdy luxury sits well on Léa, enthroned in its midst, plump and healthy, adorned only with cool, clean lawn, not the least tempted by the frills of soubrettes and the little bonnets described as “young-looking.”
    She looks approvingly at the order which reigns in the room: “It’s easy to see that Chéri doesn’t come around anymore,” she thinks.
    A serious ring of the bell in the courtyard gives her a start. She has just enough time to make out the sound of muffled footsteps and whispers; the door is pushed open roughly.
    “It’s me,” says an angry voice.
    There is Chéri standing under the chandelier. The overhead light chisels his high cheekbones and grazes his