The Collected Stories of Colette (9 page)

“. . .”

“Look, I can get my digs in, too. Last winter, she almost had me come at eight in the morning, but she decided against it. She must have realized that the métro is running at that hour, and the buses, and that would be too convenient for me. She’s got one sharp tongue, I’m telling you. She knows French every bit as well as any cabdriver. The blood’s risen in my face at the insults she’s given me at times. Once, I got up my courage and said to her, ‘Madame, tomorrow it’ll be fifty francs instead of forty.’ ‘– And why is that?’ she says to me. – ‘Forty francs for the massage and ten for the big words.’”

“. . .”

“You’re so well behaved when you’re being amused. You don’t move any more than my fat daddy, as I call him, my retired colonel, when I massage his poor wrists. He’s the one who comes after my Greek lady. And all the rest of the day goes on like that, hour after hour, till eight o’clock at night. And mind you, if one of my clients cancels, I feel the earth go out from under my feet, I’m left ruined, I’m lost, do you believe it? At night I finish up with my English lady, and when I get to her place, I massage her, you might say, in a daze, I’m so worn out with exhaustion. That’s when you really hear me moaning that I’m tired! A pretty blond lady, my English lady, and well built and everything. But she’s got her touchy spots, too.”

“. . .”

“She belongs to a special religion, and she wanted me to join too. ‘Antoinette,’ she says, ‘you must become Christian Scientist.’ —‘It sounds hard, just hearing the name,’ I say. —‘On the contrary,’ says milady, ‘it is a religion which guarantees all its adopts . . . adepts . . . perfect happiness. Look here, you who are forever tired, repeat vigorously:
I am not tired
, and by applying your mind firmly to convince yourself of it, you can suppress entirely the impression of tiredness. Just as, when you’re sad, all you have to do is repeat vigorously—’ ‘Fine, Madame! fine, Madame,’ I interrupt, ‘I understand, I’ll try it.’ Why would I go and contradict a good client? . . . Last night, I get to my English lady’s and I find her all upset. ‘Oh, Antoinette,’ she says to me, ‘my barrette, my beautiful barrette with the two big diamonds and the gray pearl, I’ve lost it! You don’t know how upset I am.’ ‘Well, Madame,’ I say, ‘now more than ever is the time to repeat vigorously to yourself,
I have not lost my barrette, I have not lost my barrette, I have not lost my barrette!
’”

“. . . ?”

“She didn’t say anything, but she gave me the evil eye. Phew! We’re done, blabbing all the while. You’ve got pins and needles, don’t you? You’re supposed to. And now I’m off . . . My bag! What did I do with my bag? Oh, my Lord! my bag, my iodine cream is in it! A client who waits for my iodine cream like the Mass! My bag, my iodine cream, my keys, my purse, my . . . Ah, here it is! Phew! That’s better.”

“. . .”

“No, not your knee—me! Good night, Madame, I’m in a hurry . . .”

Characters:
My corset maker, a stout lady, asthmatic, who looks as if she’s never worn a corset. Me, quasi-mute and revolted
.

The scene is a very small salon. Photographs on the mantelpiece, signed. On the wall, a chromolithograph of a vaguely feminine shape of wormlike thinness, with this caption:
The Peri Corset 327 permits sitting and standing positions.

My corset maker: “Well, hello, Madame. I’d almost given up hope of seeing you this season! I was saying to myself, ‘Will she be unfaithful to me again?’”

“. . .”

“Yes, I know you travel a lot. Travel is the death of the figure. Women buy corsets here and there, even in department stores, and that’s how they lose their shape! You’ve come at a very bad time; with all these ladies leaving for the summer, I don’t know which way to turn.”

“. . .”

“Oh, my, you’ve gained weight since last year!”

“. . .”

“You certainly have gained weight! Look, here . . . and here . . . How could you let yourself get like this? And with fashions nowadays, you’re not thinking about that!”

“. . .”

“Oh, I’m not pleased with you, not pleased at all! . . . Now get yourself undressed: I’ve prepared a linen pattern for you on my new model, my 327 . . .”

“. . .”

“Why, yes, it’ll look good on you . . . And what is this? All you’re wearing right now is two garter belts!”

“. . .”

‘It probably is more convenient! But I wonder what you would do if you were like a lot of these ladies with fat lower stomachs. Fat stomachs don’t just disappear like money!”

“. . .”

“Oh, how can you say that? Ah, you’re just the same! You’re going to make me blush . . . It’s like these women who go on diets; they have to, for fashion’s sake, don’t they? They listened to me, they lost weight; only they have too much skin; it makes sense, doesn’t it? They have too much skin on their stomach, especially on the stomach, and under the arms too, at the level of the breasts. It’s a job, a real artist’s job to arrange it all and put it back in order. Madame X, you know, that beautiful woman who has a 225,000-franc sable coat? She’s a new client of mine. She is superb, you wouldn’t recognize her anymore. A figure! hips! like this. Look. And she used to be so stout! Well, she has too much skin, it’s perfectly natural. But with my 327, she’s divine!”

“. . . ?”

“When she undresses? Ah, well, that’s her business. Who isn’t in that position, nowadays?”

“. . .”

“What do you mean, idiotic? But I’ll tell you about fifty, I’ll tell you about a hundred who are no more idiotic than you and me! You come here, with your bohemian ways, but you’ll never change anything, with your little garter belts, which just leave you looking heavy and eccentric! I’ve had other clients who wanted to be unfashionable, but they came around in the end! They can’t fight it . . . Say, you don’t have varicose veins?”

“. . .”

“It’s strange. I’ve never seen as many as I have this year.”

“. . .”

“That’s what you think, that it’s our fault? Varicose veins come all by themselves. I’m not saying this for that poor Madame Z. You know her? She’s ruined with varicose veins. Varicose veins like irrigation pipes! You won’t repeat it? Good Lord! You’ve gotten so fat!”

“. . .”

“Not at all, it is not in my head! You don’t fight it, you accept it calmly. You’re not as energetic a woman as Madame P.”

“. . . ?”

“What does she do? She
chases down
her fat. At first she had rather large hips, ‘Madame Adele,’ she says to me, ‘I don’t want my hips anymore! Do something!’ So, I lengthen her corsets with a yank, and I tighten them at the bottom, hah! . . . Little by little the fat moves, descending down the thigh. But it was making a roll on the thigh. I lengthen the corset again with a yank and tighten, hah . . . So that Madame P. ended up having her rolls of fat way low, down where it can barely be seen. She is delighted . . . It’s the same for the bust.”

“. . . ?”

“A bust is no longer wanted. Princess gowns, flat furs, all this has dethroned the bust. These ladies have done everything they could: they’ve
distributed
it, to the left and to the right, they’ve sent it back a little under the arms. But is there anything as vile as a fold of skin at the armpit? We do better than that today!”

“. . . ?”

“Well, you grab hold of the breast, like this . . . Don’t be afraid! I’ll explain it to you with a bit of cloth. You grab hold of the breast, here, like this, and fold it, at the bottom, as you press it back as far as you can on the sides. Over that, you put a little brassiere: my 14A, gorgeous! Strictly speaking, it’s not a brassiere, it’s a small piece of elastic fabric for keeping the breast in position. And over all that, you put my corset, my large 327, the wonder of the day. And there you are, with a divine silhouette; no more hips, stomach, or rear than a bottle of Rhine wine, and especially, the chest of a youth. Having the chest of a youth, that’s what matters. But it took some doing to get it that way. Well, Madame, I have competitors who’ve invented a lot of little things: a stretch fabric, an elastic band to compress and tighten the two halves of the rear end, the crotch clasp, but I can say that I was the first to make practical, and truly aesthetic, the arrangement of the ‘folded breast’!”

At the hat shop. With the arrival of a client, the saleswoman rushes up: twenty-five years old, with the eyes of a young tyrant, a tower of blond hair on the top of her head. Her hands, her figure, her mouth, her feet, all are thin to excess, witty, and aggressive
.

“Ah, Madame! At last; you’ve come back to us! I had almost given up hope. I was saying to myself, ‘That’s it! She must have gone to Harry’s to have some Berlin-style hats made for herself!’ But . . . what is that you have on your head?”

“. . . ?”

“Yes, that thing with the blue wing on the side and the velour all around it?”

“. . . ?”

“What, you made it yourself? All by yourself. Why, that’s incredible, it’s miraculous! If I may indulge in a little joke, you have a future in fashion. Would you do our
maison
the honor of entering it as trimmer?’

“. . . ?”

“The trimmer? She’s . . . well, heavens, she’s the one who puts the linings inside the hats, who . . . well . . . who does a lot of little things. Give me your lovely little ‘creation’; oh, I’ll give it back to you! Here, I’ll give it back . . . let’s see . . . tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Exactly, the car is making a delivery tomorrow in your suburb.”

“. . . ?”

“Yes, well, in your neighborhood, I meant. It’s so far! I’m just a poor little Parisian girl who never has time to leave her post, you understand. The boulevard shop in winter, Deauville in the summer, the Biarritz shop in September, Monte Carlo in January . . . Oh, not everybody can live in Auteuil. Quick, come with me, I have a nice corner in the little fitting room facing the street. It’s poorly lit? You don’t like being with your back to the light? But it’s the best place for trying on hats! Your silhouette is projected on the window, and with hats, it’s primarily a question of silhouette, this season; one disregards the details. And, you see, you’re between Mademoiselle X, the ‘little diva,’ who’s trying on hats for her tour right now, and Princess Z, who’s just back from the south.”

“. . .”

“Yes, that one, the fat old lady. In the shop, we call her the ‘Pink Pompon.’”

“. . . ?”

“Because whenever she doesn’t like a hat, she always says, ‘I think it’s missing something, here, in the hollow . . . a little nothing, a little flower . . . a bouquet of pompon roses!’ Mademoiselle X, that one there, to your left, she’s not what you’d normally call pretty, but she has such a good heart!”

“. . . ?”

“Oh, a heart of gold. Look, the lady who’s with her, yes, that sort of little shark in black, is a poor friend she’s taken in. She takes her with her everywhere, to her couturier’s, to her jeweler’s; she stays here for hours trying on twenty-five different hats under her poor friend’s nose—to distract her.

“Let’s see now, how about if we talk a little more seriously now? I’ve gotten it into my head that I could really do a job on you today. It’s days like this when my mind is set on business. Okay, for starters, pull this little cloche down over your beautiful hair for me! . . . You haven’t changed color?”

“. . .”

“Excuse me, it’s a reflection from the outside light. I was saying to myself: it has more gold in it than usual. You might have gotten the urge to change, just for a change. And then there are some people who go gray very early. On the side, on the side, completely covering one ear! There! . . . What do you think of it?”

“. . . !”

“I can see it’s not a hit. Besides, you’re right, it’s not your style. On you, it looks a little . . . a little too ladylike. It’s funny, I just sold the same hat to Mrs. W. She is ravishing in it, Mrs. W, with her long neck, and especially here, you see, her chin, her cheeks, so fresh and the ear . . . Let’s say goodbye to this style here for a minute; one lost, ten found. Look at that, what was I telling you! This is what we’re after. Way down, all right?”