“You’re the most eccentric person on earth.”
But Cocteau, who knew me better, said:
“I don’t dare tell people how you live, rising at seven o’clock, always in bed by nine, no one would ever believe it. And you don’t care about a thing!”
I don’t like eccentricity except in others.
I had the first carpets dyed beige. It reminded me of the soil. All the furnishings immediately became beige. Until the day came when the interior designers begged for mercy.
“Try white satin,” I told them.
“What a good idea!”
And their designs were shrouded in snow, just as Mrs Somerset Maugham’s shop in London became buried in naive innocence and white satin. Lacquerware, Chinese blues and whites, expensively designed rice papers, English silverware, white flowers in vases.
I have never forgotten how astonished Henry Bernstein was the first time he came to avenue Gabrieclass="underline"
“How lovely it is here!”
(Since then, Antoinette Bernstein’s delicate hand has put on the market this new decorative art which, from the Gymnase theatre to the Ambassadeurs, has made its way to all levels of society.)
Eccentricity was dying out; I hope, what’s more, that I helped kill it off. Paul Poiret, a most inventive couturier, dressed women in costumes. The most intimate lunch party became a Chabrillan2 ball, the most modest tea party looked like something from the Baghdad of the Caliphs. The last courtesans, admirable creatures, who have done so much for the glory of our arts, Canada, Forsane, Marie-Louise Herouet, Madame Iribe, would come by, to the sound of the tango, wearing bell-shaped dresses, with greyhounds and cheetahs at their side.
It was delightful, but easy. (A Scheherazade is very easy, a little black dress is very difficult.) One must beware of originality; in dressmaking, you immediately descend to disguise and decoration, you lapse into stage design. This princess, who is so happy with her green scarf printed in all the signs of the zodiac, will only astonish those who don’t know; as paradoxical as it may seem, it has to be said that extravagance kills the personality. All the superlatives are devalued. An American delighted me with this compliment:
“To have spent so much money without it showing!”
Most of all, I bought books: to read them. Books have been my best friends. Just as the radio is a box full of lies, so each book is a treasure. The very worst book has something to say to you, something truthful. The silliest books are masterpieces of human experience. I have come across many very intelligent and highly cultivated people; they were astonished by what I knew; they would have been much more so if I had told them that I had learnt about life through novels. If I had daughters, I would give them novels for their instruction. There you find all the great unwritten laws that govern mankind. In my region of the country people didn’t speak; they were not taught through the oral tradition. From the serial novels, read in the barn by the light of a candle stolen from the maid, to the greatest classics, all novels are reality in the guise of dreams. As a child, I instinctively read catalogues like novels: novels are merely big catalogues.
“I never give you presents,” Boy Capel said to me.
“That’s true.”
The following day I opened the casket he sent me: it contained a tiara. I had never seen a tiara. I didn’t know where to put it. Should I wear it round my neck? Angèle said to me: “You wear it on your head; it’s for the Opera.”
I wanted to go to the Opera, in the way a child demands to go to a show at the Châtelet theatre. I also discovered that men sent flowers.
“You could send me flowers,” I said to Capel.
Half-an-hour later, I received a bouquet. I was delighted. Half-an-hour later, a second bouquet. I was pleased. Half-an-hour later, another bouquet. This was becoming monotonous. Every half-hour the bouquets kept arriving in this way for two days. Boy Capel wanted to train me. I understood the lesson. He trained me for happiness.
Thus did our happy days pass at avenue Gabriel. I hardly ever went out. I dressed in the evening to please Capel, knowing very well that there would shortly be a moment when he would say: “why go out, after all, we’re very comfortable here”. He liked me among my surroundings, and there’s a girl-from-the-harem side of me which suited this seclusion very well.
The outside world seemed unreal to me; I never got into the habit of moving about in it; like children, I had no sense of social perspective; the mental picture I had of Paris resembled a fifteenth-century panel in its unworldliness. One day, for example, I went to the Chambre; I was in the diplomatic gallery, in the seats reserved for the British Embassy. A young speaker was attacking Clemenceau in a cutting, sarcastic and extremely discourteous tone of voice. My reactions were those of the denizens of the gods faced with this treacherous tirade; I shouted out in a loud voice: “Shame on you, insulting the saviour of the nation!” A commotion, everyone glared at me, the usher stormed up, etc.
Capel brought to Clemenceau’s home, where he was always welcome, the mindset of a businessman who was not hampered either by precedents or hierarchy. He provided simple solutions and good practical advice, which was not always followed. Clemenceau took a fancy to him, in the way that old men do when they are in a hurry; he could not do without him, and he begged him to accept the job of military attaché, which he could arrange quite easily with the British government. Capel, who did not want to fall out with Spears, refused.
When peace came (in those days peace came after war), Capel was killed in a motor accident. I shall not embellish this memory … His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything. “He was much too good to remain among us,” wrote Clemenceau. Boy was a rare spirit, an unusual character, a young man who had the experience of a fifty-year-old, a gentle, playful authority, and an ironic severity that charmed people and won them over. Beneath his dandyism, he was very serious, far more cultured than the polo players and big businessmen, with a deep inner life that extended to magical and theosophical levels. He wrote a great deal, without ever publishing anything; writings that were often prophetic; he had foreseen that the 1914 war was only the prelude to another great conflict that would be far more dreadful. He left a void in me that the years have not filled. I had the impression that, from the beyond, he was continuing to protect me … One day, in Paris, I had a visit from an unknown Hindu gentleman.
“I have a message for you, Mademoiselle. A message from someone you know … This person is living in a place of happiness, in a world where nothing can trouble him any longer. Receive this message of which I am the bearer, and whose meaning you will certainly understand.”
And the Hindu man passed on the mysterious message; it was a secret that no one, other than Capel and I, could have known.
What followed was not a life of happiness, I have to say, however surprising it may seem. What kind of person was I then? After days spent working at rue Cambon, all I thought of was staying at home, similar in that respect to many busy Parisians, too busy to go out in the evening. (That is something that surprises people from the countryside, foreigners, and Americans especially: many French people do not live in the street or in cafés; they live at home.)
If I have known how to make the people around me happy, I don’t have a sense of happiness myself. Scandal upsets me. I am reticent in various ways. Just as I don’t care to leave my home, I don’t like being interrupted, I don’t like changing my ideas. I loathe people putting order into my disorder, or into my mind. Order is a subjective phenomenon. I also loathe advice, not because I am stubborn, but, on the contrary, because I am easily influenced. Besides, people only offer you playthings, medicaments and advice that work for them. Neither do I like to attach myself to anyone, for as soon as I grow fond of someone, I become cowardly (it’s my way of being good); and cowardice offends me. As Colette, in the words of Sido, says so profoundly: “Love is not an honourable sentiment”. I love to criticise; the day I can no longer criticise, life will be over for me.