Gigi and the Cat

by Colette

  ‘Oh, much the same as on previous occasions. She waited for her birthday present, then off she trotted. And, into the bargain, she must needs go and bury herself in such a wretched little hole in Normandy – so stupid of her! Any fool could have discovered that there were only two rooms at the inn, one occupied by Liane, the other by Sandomir, a skating-instructor from the Palais de Glace.’

  ‘He’s Polaire’s tea-time waltzing-partner, isn’t he? Oh, women don’t know where to draw the line nowadays. And just after her birthday, too! Oh, it’s so tactless! What could be more unladylike!’

  Madame Alvarez stirred the tea-spoon round and round in her cup, her little finger in the air. When she lowered her gaze, her lids did not quite cover her protuberant eyeballs, and her resemblance to George Sand became marked.

  ‘I’d given her a rope,’ said Gaston Lachaille. ‘What you might call a rope – thirty-seven pearls. The middle one as big as the ball of my thumb.’

  He held out his white, beautifully manicured thumb, to which Madame Alvarez accorded the admiration due to a middle pearl.

  ‘You certainly know how to do things in style,’ she said. ‘You come out of it extremely well, Gaston.’

  ‘I came out of it with a pair of horns, certainly.’

  Madame Alvarez did not seem to have heard him.

  ‘If I were you, Gaston, I should try to get your own back on her. I should take up with some society lady.’

  ‘That’s a nice pill to offer me,’ said Lachaille, who was absent-mindedly helping himself to the agents de change.

  ‘Yes indeed, I might even say that sometimes the cure may prove worse than the disease,’ Madame Alvarez continued, tactfully agreeing with him. ‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire.’ After which she respected Gaston Lachaille’s silence.

  The muffled sounds of a piano penetrated through the ceiling. Without a word, the visitor held out his empty cup, and Madame Alvarez refilled it.

  ‘Is the family all right? What news of Aunt Alicia?’

  ‘Oh, my sister, you know, is always the same. She’s smart enough to keep herself to herself. She says she would rather live in a splendid past than an ugly present. Her King of Spain, her Milan of Serbia, her Khedive, her rajahs by the half-dozen – or so she would have you believe! She is very considerate to Gigi. She finds her a trifle backward for her age, as indeed she is, and puts her through her paces. Last week, for instance, she taught her how to eat homard à l’Américaine in faultless style.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Alicia says it will be extremely useful. The three great stumbling-blocks in a girl’s education, she says, are homard à l’Américaine, a boiled egg, and asparagus. Shoddy table manners, she says, have broken up many a happy home.’

  ‘That has been known,’ said Lachaille dreamily.

  ‘Oh, Alicia is no fool! And it’s just what Gigi requires – she is so greedy! If only her brain worked as well as her jaws! But she might well be a child of ten. And what breathtaking scheme have you got for the Battle of Flowers? Are you going to dazzle us again this year?’

  ‘Oh Lord, no!’ groaned Gaston. ‘I shall take advantage of my misfortune, and save on the red roses this year.’

  Madame Alvarez wrung her hands.

  ‘Oh, Gaston, you mustn’t do that! If you’re not there, the procession will look like a funeral!’

  ‘I don’t care what it looks like,’ said Gaston gloomily.

  ‘You’re never going to leave the prize banner to people like Valérie Cheniaguine? Oh, Gaston, we can’t allow that!’

  ‘You will have to. Valérie can very well afford it.’

  ‘Especially since she does it on the cheap. Gaston, do you know where she went for the ten thousand bunches thrown last year? She had three women tying them up for two days and two nights, and the flowers were bought in the market! In the market! Only the four wheels, and the coachman’s whip, and the harness trappings bore the hallmark of Lachaume.’

  ‘That’s a dodge to remember!’ said Lachaille, cheering up. ‘Good Lord! I’ve finished the liquorice!’

  The tap-tap of Gilberte’s marching footsteps could be heard crossing the outer room.

  ‘Back already!’ said Madame Alvarez. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

  ‘The meaning,’ said the girl, ‘is that Aunt Alicia wasn’t in good form. But I’ve been out in Tonton’s “tuf-tuf”.’

  Her lips parted in a bright smile.

  ‘You know, Tonton, all the time I was in your automobile, I put on a martyred expression – like this – as if I was bored to death with every luxury under the sun. I had the time of my life.’

  She sent her hat flying across the room, and her hair fell tumbling over her forehead and cheeks. She perched herself on a rather high stool, and tucked her knees up under her chin.

  ‘Well, Tonton? You look as if you were dying of boredom. What about a game of piquet? It’s Sunday, and Mamma doesn’t come back between the two performances. Who’s been eating all my liquorice? Oh, Tonton, you can’t get away with that! The least you can do is to send me some more to make up for it.’

  ‘Gilberte, your manners!’ scolded Madame Alvarez. ‘Your knees! Gaston hasn’t the time to bother about your liquorice. Pull down your skirts! Gaston, would you like me to send her to her room?’

  Young Lachaille, with one eye on the dirty pack of cards in Gilberte’s hand, was longing simultaneously to give way to tears, to confide his sorrows, to go to sleep in the old armchair, and to play piquet.

  ‘Let the child stay! In this room I can relax. It’s restful. Gigi, I’ll play you for twenty pounds of sugar.’

  ‘Your sugar’s not very tempting. I much prefer sweets.’

  ‘It’s the same thing. And sugar is better for you than sweets.’

  ‘You only say that because you make it.’

  ‘Gilberte, you forget yourself!’

  A smile enlivened the mournful eyes of Gaston Lachaille.

  ‘Let her say what she likes, Mamita. And if I lose, Gigi, what would you like? A pair of silk stockings?’

  The corners of Gilberte’s big, childish mouth fell.

  ‘Silk stockings make my legs itch. I would rather . . .’

  She raised the snub-nosed face of an angel towards the ceiling, put her head on one side, and tossed her curls from one cheek to the other.

  ‘I would rather have an eau-de-nil Persephone corset, with rococo roses embroidered on the suspenders. No. I’d rather have a music-case.’

  ‘Are you studying music now?’

  ‘No, but my older friends at school carry their copy-books in music-cases, because it makes them look like students at the Conservatoire.’

  ‘Gilberte, you are making too free!’ said Madame Alvarez.

  ‘You shall have your case, and your liquorice. Cut, Gigi.’

  The next moment, the heir of Lachaille-Sugar was deep in the game. His prominent nose, large enough to appear false, and his slightly negroid eyes did not in the least intimidate his opponent. With her elbows on the table, her shoulders on a level with her ears, and her blue eyes and red cheeks at their most vivid, she looked like a tipsy page. They both played passionately, almost in silence, exchanging occasional insults under their breath. ‘You spindly spider! You sorrel run to seed!’ Lachaille muttered. ‘You old crow’s beak!’ the girl countered. The March twilight deepened over the narrow street.

  ‘Please don’t think I want you to go, Gaston,’ said Madame Alvarez, ‘but it’s half-past seven. Will you excuse me while I just see about our dinner?’

  ‘Half-past seven!’ cried Lachaille, ‘and I’m supposed to be dining at Larue with de Dion, Feydeau, and one of the Barthous! This must be the last hand, Gigi.’

  ‘Why one of the Barthous?’ asked Gilberte. ‘Are there several of them?’

  ‘Two. One handsome and the other less so. The best known is the least handsome.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Gilberte. ‘And Feydeau, who’s he?’

&nbs
p; Lachaille plopped down his cards in amazement.

  ‘Well, I declare! She doesn’t know who Feydeau is! Don’t you ever go to a play?’

  ‘Hardly ever, Tonton.’

  ‘Don’t you like the theatre?’

  ‘I’m not mad about it. And Grandmamma and Aunt Alicia both say that going to plays prevents one from thinking about the serious side of life. Don’t tell Grandmamma I told you.’

  She shifted the weight of her hair away from her ears, and let it fall forward again. ‘Phew!’ she sighed. ‘This mane does make me hot!’

  ‘And what do they mean by the serious side of life?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know it all off by heart, Uncle Gaston. And, what’s more, they don’t always agree about it. Grandmamma says: “Don’t read novels, they only depress you. Don’t put on powder, it ruins the complexion. Don’t wear stays, they spoil the figure. Don’t dawdle and gaze at shop windows when you’re by yourself. Don’t get to know the families of your school friends, especially not the fathers who wait at the gates to fetch their daughters home from school.”’

  She spoke very rapidly, panting between words like a child who has been running.

  ‘And on top of that Aunt Alicia goes off on another tack! I’ve reached the age where I can wear stays, and I should take lessons in dancing and deportment, and I should be aware of what’s going on, and know the meaning of “carat”, and not be taken in by the clothes that actresses wear. “It’s quite simple,” she tells me. “Of all the dresses you see on the stage, nineteen out of twenty would look ridiculous in the paddock.” In fact, my head is fit to split with it all! What shall you be eating at Larue this evening, Tonton?’

  ‘How should I know! Filets de sole aux moules, for a change. And of course, saddle of lamb with truffles. Do get on with the game, Gigi! I’ve got a point of five.’

  ‘That won’t get you anywhere. I’ve got all the cards in the pack. Here, at home, we’re having the warmed-up remains of the cassoulet. I’m very fond of cassoulet.’

  ‘A plain dish of cassoulet with bacon rind,’ said Inez Alvarez modestly, as she came in. ‘Goose was exorbitant this week.’

  ‘I’ll have one sent to you from Bon-Abri,’ said Gaston.

  ‘Thank you very much, Gaston. Gigi, help Monsieur Lachaille on with his overcoat. Fetch him his hat and stick!’

  When Lachaille had gone, rather sulky after a regretful sniff at the warmed up cassoulet, Madame Alvarez turned to her granddaughter.

  ‘Will you please inform me, Gilberte, why it was you returned so early from Aunt Alicia’s? I didn’t ask you in front of Gaston. Family matters must never be discussed in front of a third person, remember that!’

  ‘There’s no mystery about it, Grandmamma. Aunt Alicia was wearing her little lace cap to show me she had a headache. She said to me, “I’m not very well.” I said to her, “Oh, then I mustn’t tire you out. I’ll go home again.” She said to me, “Sit down and rest for five minutes.” “Oh!” I said to her, “I’m not tired. I drove here.” “You drove here!” she said to me, raising her hands like this. As you may imagine, I had kept the motor-car waiting a few minutes, to show Aunt Alicia. “Yes,” I said to her. “The four-seater de-Dion-Bouton-with-the-collapsible-hood, which Tonton lent me while he was paying a call on us. He has had a rumpus with Liane.” “Who do you think you’re talking to?” she says to me. “I’ve not yet got one foot in the grave! I’m still kept informed about public events when they’re important. I know that he has had a rumpus with that great lamp-post of a woman. Well, you’d better run along home, and not bother about a poor ill old creature like me.” She waved to me from the window as I got into the motor-car.’

  Madame Alvarez pursed her lips.

  ‘A poor ill old creature! She has never suffered so much as a cold in her life! I like that! What . . . ?’

  ‘Grandmamma, do you think he’ll remember my liquorice and the music-case?’

  Madame Alvarez slowly lifted her heavy eyes towards the ceiling.

  ‘Perhaps, my child, perhaps.’

  ‘But, as he lost, he owes them to me, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, yes, he owes them to you. Perhaps you’ll get them after all. Slip on your pinafore, and set the table. Put away your cards.’

  ‘Yes, Grandmamma. Grandmamma, what did he tell you about Madame Liane? Is it true she hopped it with Sandomir and the rope of pearls?’

  ‘In the first place, one doesn’t say “hopped it”. In the second, come here and let me tighten your ribbon, so that your curls won’t get soaked in the soup. And finally, the sayings and doings of a person who has broken the rules of etiquette are not for your ears. These happen to be Gaston’s private affairs.’

  ‘But, Grandmamma, they are no longer private, since everyone’s talking about them, and the whole thing came out in Gil Blas.’

  ‘Silence! All you need to know is that the conduct of Madame Liane d’Exelmans has been the reverse of sensible. The ham for your mother is between two plates: you will put it in the larder.’

  Gilberte was asleep when her mother – Andrée Alvar, in small type on the Opéra-Comique play-bills – returned home. Madame Alvarez, the elder, seated at a game of patience, enquired from force of habit whether she was not too tired. Following polite family custom, Andrée reproached her mother for having waited up, and Madame Alvarez made her ritual reply.

  ‘I shouldn’t sleep in peace unless I knew you were in. There is some ham, and a little bowl of warm cassoulet. And some stewed prunes. The beer is on the window-sill.’

  ‘The child is in bed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Andrée Alvar made a solid meal – pessimists have good appetites. She still looked pretty in theatrical make-up. Without it, the rims of her eyes were pink and her lips colourless. For this reason, Aunt Alicia declared, Andrée never met with the admiration in real life that she gained on the stage.

  ‘Did you sing well, my child?’

  ‘Yes, I sang well. But where does it get me? All the applause goes to Tiphaine, as you may well imagine. Oh dear, oh dear, I really don’t think I can bear to go on with this sort of life.’

  ‘It was your own choice. But you would bear it much better,’ said Madame Alvarez sententiously, ‘if you had someone! It’s your loneliness that gets on your nerves, and you take such black views. You’re behaving contrary to nature.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, don’t start that all over again. I’m tired enough as it is. What news is there?’

  ‘None. Everyone’s talking of Gaston’s break with Liane.’

  ‘That’s certainly the case: even in the green-room at the Opéra-Comique, which can hardly be called up-to-date.’

  ‘It’s an event of world-wide interest,’ said Madame Alvarez.

  ‘Is there any idea of who’s in the running?’

  ‘I should think not! It’s far too recent. He is in full mourning, so to speak. Can you believe it, at a quarter to eight he was sitting exactly where you are now, playing a game of piquet with Gigi? He says he has no wish to attend the Battle of Flowers.’

  ‘Not really!’

  ‘Yes. If he doesn’t go, it will cause a great deal of talk. I advised him to think twice before taking such a decision.’

  ‘They were saying at the Théâtre that a certain music-hall artiste might stand a chance,’ said Andrée. ‘The one billed as the Cobra at the Olympia. It seems she does an acrobatic turn, and is brought on in a basket hardly big enough for a fox-terrier, and from this she uncurls like a snake.’

  Madame Alvarez protruded her heavy lower lip in contempt.

  ‘What an idea! Gaston Lachaille has not sunk to that level! A music-hall performer! Do him the justice to admit that, as befits a bachelor of his standing, he has always confined himself to the great ladies of the profession.’

  ‘A fine pack of bitches! ‘murmured Andrée.

  ‘Be more careful how you express yourself, my child. Calling people and things by their names has never done anyone any good. Ga
ston’s mistresses have all had an air about them. A liaison with a great professional lady is the only suitable way for him to wait for a great marriage, always supposing that some day he does marry. Whatever may happen, we’re in the front row when anything fresh turns up. Gaston has such confidence in me! I wish you had seen him asking me for camomile! A boy, a regular boy! Indeed, he is only thirty-three. And all that wealth weighs so heavily on his shoulders.’

  Andrée’s pink eyelids blinked ironically.

  ‘Pity him, Mother, if you like. I’m not complaining, but all the time we’ve known Gaston, he has never given you anything except his confidence.’

  ‘He owes us nothing. And thanks to him we’ve always had sugar for our jams, and, from time to time, for my curaçao; and birds from his farm, and odds and ends for the child.’

  ‘If you’re satisfied with that!’

  Madame Alvarez held high her majestic head.

  ‘Perfectly satisfied. And even if I was not, what difference would it make?’

  ‘In fact, as far as we’re concerned, Gaston Lachaille, rich as he is, behaves as if he wasn’t rich at all. Supposing we were in real straits! Would he come to our rescue, do you suppose?’

  Madame Alvarez placed her hand on her heart.

  ‘I’m convinced that he would,’ she said. And after a pause, she added, ‘But I would rather not have to ask him.’

  Andrée picked up the Journal again, in which there was a photograph of Liane the ex-mistress. ‘When you take a good look at her, she’s not so extraordinary.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ retorted Madame Alvarez. ‘She is extraordinary. Otherwise she would not be so famous. Success and celebrity are not a matter of luck. You talk like those scatterbrains who say, “Seven rows of pearls would look every bit as well on me as on Madame de Pougy. She certainly cuts a dash – but so could I.” Such nonsense makes me laugh. Take what’s left of the camomile to bathe your eyes.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother. Did the child go to Aunt Alicia’s?’

  ‘She did indeed, and in Gaston’s motor-car, what’s more! He lent it to her. It can go at forty miles an hour, I believe! She was in the seventh heaven.’