The Graceful Watcher

another) of a justice which is so rare that it is in itself beautiful to consider: in both cases, we have a first rate genius who, having lived, worked, loved, suffered, and been all but broken by its first fifty years, is then rescued by an heroically disinterested love which secures and arranges everything so that, from then on, the genius can work without external disorder. (What if Shakespeare had had such luck at fifty?)

For it is no accident that Colette’s most original works—La Naissance du Jour and Ces Plaisirs, the series of novellas from La Lune de Pluie to Le Képi, the half dozen volumes of memoirs from to Le Fanal Bleu—were all written after her hectic life had been set in order by Maurice Goudeket’s love. Close to Colette is a further gesture of this love; and if its discretion sometimes seems frustrating, we must remember that, like everything else M. Goudeket did, it is there to guard, enhance and frame what he loved best.

another) of a justice which is so rare that it is in itself beautiful to consider: in both cases, we have a first rate genius who, having lived, worked, loved, suffered, and been all but broken by its first fifty years, is then rescued by an heroically disinterested love which secures and arranges everything so that, from then on, the genius can work without external disorder. (What if Shakespeare had had such luck at fifty?)

For it is no accident that Colette’s most original works—La Naissance du Jour and Ces Plaisirs, the series of novellas from La Lune de Pluie to Le Képi, the half dozen volumes of memoirs from to Le Fanal Bleu—were all written after her hectic life had been set in order by Maurice Goudeket’s love. Close to Colette is a further gesture of this love; and if its discretion sometimes seems frustrating, we must remember that, like everything else M. Goudeket did, it is there to guard, enhance and frame what he loved best.