COLETTE (1873-1954). L.A.S., [Paris late May 1925], to Margu - Lot 73

COLETTE (1873-1954). L.A.S., [Paris late May 1925], to Marguerite Moreno; 7 pages in-4 on blue paper. Beginnings of her affair with her future husband Maurice Goudeket. She tells "Ma chère âme" about the week's dramas and her rivalry with Andrée Bloch-Levalois, Maurice Goudeket's mistress whom Colette has just met and with whom she is infatuated: "This unfortunate woman, sensing what is going on, entered into the skin of a harpy and showed her unchained passion for this boy. She pursued him and pursued me everywhere, into every telephone, into every home, at all hours of the day and night, she questioned my maid, my secretary, my Marchand friends [...] The boy had resolved to talk yesterday". But Colette took the initiative and "calmed things down with great composure, without shouting or shouting matches". She recounts the exchanges during the sinister dinner that followed, which left her jealous rival on the back foot. "But, good God, it was for the boy's sake that I showed such patience! The boy is exquisite. I'd rather not add anything. What muscular grace there is in certain softenings, and how quickly one is touched to see the inner fire split the envelope. Don't you think there are few men who know, without raising their voice or changing their tone, how to say... what needs to be said?" Colette then gives news of her friends (including Meg Villars) and says she can no longer tolerate being watched: "I am not, and I deplore this, a child, and nothing in my character authorizes, under the guise of a very recent friendship, that anyone in the world should treat me in this way"...