The Collected Stories of Colette (32 page)

Tonight both dogs are waiting for nothing but the end of their turn. No sooner is the curtain down than a pitched battle ensues. Harry returns to the scene just in time to part the pair of them, flecked with pink nips, their ribbons in tatters.

“It’s something quite new for them, Madame, something they’ve picked up while they’ve been here,” he cries in a fury. “As a rule they’re very good friends, they sleep together in my hotel bedroom. But here, why it’s only a small town, you see. You can’t pick and choose here. The innkeeper’s wife said to me, ‘I’ll put up with one dog, but I’ll not take two!’ So, as I like to deal fair, I let first one, then the other of my two bitches spend the night in the theater, in a padlocked basket. They cottoned on to the rotation right away. And now, every night, they go through the high jinks you’ve just witnessed. All through the day they’re as meek as lambs; as the hour approaches to buckle one in, it’s a fight to decide which won’t be the one to stay behind in the locked basket; they’d tear each other to shreds, they’re so jealous! And you’ve not seen the half of it! It’s a proper show to watch the performance of the one I’m taking back with me, when she starts yapping her head off and scampering around the basket as I shut the lid on the other! I don’t like to be unfair to animals, not me! I’d do anything rather than what I have to do here, but since there is nothing else for it, how can I?”

I did not see Manette tonight, as she took her leave, arrogant and radiating joy; but I did see the imprisoned Cora, rigid with repressed despair. Her lovely golden fleece was crumpled against the wicker sides of the basket, and through the bars at the top poked her long, gentle, fox-like nose.

She listened to the receding sounds of her master’s footsteps and Manette’s tinkling bell. When the iron door finally closed behind them, she drew in a long breath to let out a howl; but she remembered that I was still there, and all I heard was a deep human sigh. Then she proudly closed her eyes and settled down for the night.

“Really, there are a great many children in this show, I find; do you not agree, Madame?”

This remark is flung at me, in supercilious and superior tones, by a large blond lady—
Spécialité, Valses lentes
—who for the moment is bundled in a crepon kimono costing seven francs fifty, the sort of kimono invariably found in all music hall dressing rooms. Hers is pink, with storks printed on it; mine is blue, sprinkled with small red and green fans; and that of the dove trainer is mauve, with black flowers.

The stout, discontented lady has just been jostled by three kids no taller than fox hounds, dressed as Red Indians, who were rushing off to remove their makeup. But her bitter words were directed at a silent creature, a sort of unhappy governess dressed all in black, slowly pacing up and down the corridor.

Having spoken, the stout lady gives a slight cough, in a most distinguished manner, and retires to her dressing room, but not before throwing a last contemptuous glance at the governess, who shrugs her shoulders and smiles vaguely at me.

“She intended that remark for me. She finds there are too many children in the show! Very well, what about me in that case, I’m to start by removing my own child, I suppose!”

“What, you can’t mean that you’re dissatisfied? ‘Princess Lily’ is surely a success?”

“Yes, and don’t I know it! My daughter is quite devastating, isn’t she? Yes, she’s my daughter, my real daughter . . . Wait a second and I’ll button you up at the back, you can’t possibly manage it yourself! Besides, I’m in no hurry myself. My daughter’s gone to the hairdresser to have her ringlets set. I’d so much like to stay with you for a while. All the more, on account of her and me having had words just now.”

In the mirror behind me I can see a plain humble face with moist eyes.

“She certainly answered me back just now! I tell you, Madame, that child fair takes me to pieces, for all that she’s only thirteen. Oh, she don’t look her age, I know, but then she’s dressed to look so much younger on the stage. I’m not telling you all this to deny her, or to say anything against her.

“No flattery intended, but I’d be the first to agree that nothing could look sweeter or prettier than she does when she plays her piece on the violin in that white baby frock of hers. Or when she sings her Italian song—you’ve seen her, have you, in that little Neapolitan boy’s costume? And her American dance, have you seen that, too?

“The public can soon tell the difference between a dainty number like my girl’s and one like those three little miseries who’ve just gone rushing off. They’re so scraggy, Madame, and they look so scared, too. Those frightened eyes they roll at the smallest mistake they make in their work! As I was saying only the other day to my Lily, ‘They make a pitiful sight!’ ‘Phooey!’ she gives me for answer, ‘they’re not interesting.’ I know well enough it’s that competitive spirit in her that makes her say things like that, but all the same she comes out with remarks that knock the stuffing out of me.

“I’m telling you all this, but you’ll keep it to yourself, you won’t let it go any farther, will you? I feel a bit nervy today because she’s answered me back just now, me, her mother!

“Oh, I can’t say I bless the man who put Lily on the stage! Fine gentleman though he is, and a good writer of plays. I used to work for his lady, by the day, embroidering fine linen. His lady was very kind to me, and allowed Lily to come and wait for me there when she came out of school.

“One day, it must be nearly four years since, the gentleman I was speaking of was on the lookout for a clever child to take a little girl’s part in one of his plays, and for a lark he asked me for my Lily . . . It was soon settled, Madame. My little girl had them all flabbergasted from the start. Poise, memory, proper intonation, she’d got all that and more. I didn’t take it too serious at first till I heard they’d pay Lily up to eight francs a day. There was nothing you could say against that, was there?

“After that play came another, and then another. And every time I’d say, ‘After success like that, it’s the last time Lily will act,’ they all got after me. ‘Now stop all this nonsense! Just drop that damned embroidery job of yours! Can’t you see you’ve got a gold mine in that child! Not to mention you’ve no right to stifle a talent like hers.’ And so on and so forth, till I hardly dared breathe . . .

“And during that time, you should have seen the progress my little one made! Hobnobbing with the celebrities, and saying ‘My dear’ to the manager himself! And grave as a judge with it all, which made everyone split their sides.

“Then came the time, two years ago, when my daughter found herself out of a job. ‘Thank the Lord,’ I says to myself, ‘now we can have a rest, and settle down on the nice little sum we’ve put by from the theater.’ I consult Lily, as was my duty; she’d already made a big impression on me with her knowing ways. Can you guess what she answered? ‘My poor mamma, you must be crazy! I shan’t always be eleven, unfortunately. This is not the time to go to sleep. There’s nothing doing in the theater this season, but the music hall’s there, all right, for me to have a go!’

“As you may imagine, Madame, she didn’t lack encouragement from these, and those, and especially the others, none of whose business it was! Gifted as she is, it didn’t take her long to learn to dance and sing. Her chief worry is that she’s growing up. I have to measure her every fortnight: she’d like so much to stay small! Only last month she flew into a rage because she’d put on two centimeters in the last year, and reproached me for not having made her a dwarf from birth.

“It’s terrible, the manner of speaking she’s picked up backstage, and her bossiness, too! She soon gets the upper hand, I being so weak. She argued back at me again today. She’d been that la-di-da in her answers that for a moment I saw red and got on my high horse. ‘And so what! I’m your mother, I’d have you know! And supposing I took you by the arm and put a stop to you going on with the theater!’

“She was busy making up her eyes; she didn’t even turn around, she just started to laugh. ‘Stop me going on with the theater? Ha! ha! ha! And I suppose you’d go on in my place and sing them “Chiribibibi” to pay the rent!’

“Tears came to my eyes, Madame: it’s hard when one is humiliated by one’s own flesh and blood. But it’s not altogether that I feel so bad about. It’s . . . I’m not sure how to explain what it is. There are times when I look at her and think, ‘She’s my little daughter, and she’s thirteen. She’s been four years in show business. Rehearsals, backstage tittle-tattle, unfair treatment on the part of the manager, rivalry between the stars, jealousy of her comrades, her posters, the bandleader who bears her a grudge, the call boy who was too late—or too soon—with her bell, the claque, her costume maker . . . That’s all she’s had in her head and on her lips for the last four years. All these past four years I’ve never once heard her talk like a child . . . And never, never, never again shall I hear her talk like a child—like a real child . . .”

[
Translated by Anne-Marie Callimachi
]

1

The stagehands called her “a choice piece”; but the Schmetz family—eight acrobats, their mother, wives, and “young ladies”—never mentioned her; Ida and Hector, “Duo Dancers,” said severely, “She brings shame on the house.” Jady, the “
diseuse
” from Montmartre, made use of her most rasping contralto to exclaim, on seeing her, “Well, what d’you know about that number!” and was quizzed in reply with imperious disdain, and the flashy deployment of a long ermine stole.

For the public this outcast was billed as “La Roussalka”; but for the entire caf’-conc’ personnel she became, on the spot, “Poison Ivy.” Within the span of a mere six days the austere backstage staff of the Élysée-Pigalle were at their wits’ end, and deplored her superfluous presence. Dancer? Singer? Pah! Neither the one, nor t’other . . .

“She displaces air, that’s all!” Brague assured everyone.

She sang Russian songs and danced the
jota
, the
sevillana
, and the tango, revised and corrected by an Italian ballet master—Spanish
olé!
with a Frenchified flavor!

No sooner was Friday’s band call over than the whole house was eyeing her askance. La Roussalka chose to rehearse in a carefully considered Liberty gown and hat, hands in muff, indicating the
jota
with discreet little jerks of her hobble-skirted posterior, stopping abruptly to shout, “That’s not it, Jesus! That’s not it,” stamping and screaming “Brutes!” at the members of the band.

Mutter Schmetz, who sat mending her sons’ tights in the circle, could hardly be kept in her seat. “That, an
ardisde!
That, a
tanzer!
Ach! she is nozzings but a
dard
, yes?”

And La Roussalka continued, “with enough brazen cheek to gobble up her parents,” to employ Brague’s energetic metaphor, bullying the property man, cursing the electrician, demanding a blue flood on her entrance and a red spot on her exit, and goodness knows what else!

“I’ve played all the big houses in Europe,” she yelled, “and I’ve neverrr seen a joint so disgrrracefully rrrun!”

She rolled her r’s in a most insulting manner, as if she were chucking a handful of pebbles straight in your face.

During this rehearsal one saw nothing but La Roussalka, and heard nothing but La Roussalka. In the evening, however, it was discovered that there were two of them: opposite La Roussalka, dark, ablaze with purple spangles and imitation topazes, danced a soft, fair-haired child, graceful, light as air. “This is my sisterrr,” La Roussalka declared, though no one had asked for enlightenment. Further, she had an offensive way of clinching matters, on her “worrrd of honorrr,” that shocked even her most candid listener.

Whether sister, servile poor relation, or a little dancer hired for a pittance—nobody knew or cared. She appeared, a mere chit of a girl, to be dancing in her sleep, docile as a lamb, pretty, with huge, vacant, brown eyes. At the end of the
sevillana
, she rested a moment against a flat, mouth agape, then noiselessly returned to the cellar, while La Roussalka started on her tango.