In Colette’s letters to her lover, Missy / Max, (“Lettres à Missy”, edited by Samia Bordji and Frédéric Maget), Colette often signed off by promising to be good, and sending her kisses and love to Missy and “the children” (their cats and dogs). I wonder if when Colette said she was being “good”, she was reassuring Missy / Max that she was being faithful.
As well as having more sexual relationships than was socially acceptable in the early 1900s, Colette also had many lovers. During her six-year relationship with Missy / Max, Colette had at least three affairs: a renewed secret liaison with Willy (her first husband); a fling with Auguste Hériot (a handsome, rich young man, who had previously been Polaire’s lover); and a serious affair with Henri de Jouvenel, whom she left Missy / Max for and who became her second husband.
Colette argued that having lovers was part of her “gourmandise” (greedy nature), it was something she did “par folie, par emballement, par… gourmandise” (through madness, enthusiasm… greediness) (p.207). Some writers are greedy for the altered states of alcohol or drugs; Colette was famously greedy for good French food and sex.
However, Colette’s self-indulgence didn’t extend to indulgence towards others. In 1911 (the last year of their relationship), Colette was furious when Missy /Max told her that she had had a young blonde in their house at Rozven, and had cut her hair. The editors of “Lettres” question whether this blonde ever existed, or if Missy /Max invented her as revenge for Colette’s affairs (p.29). Whether the blonde existed or not, the trick certainly worked: after her rage, Colette begged Missy / Max for forgiveness, and begged her not to be unfaithful, not to do what she herself had done (p.207).
It’s interesting that all of Colette’s affairs were with men, whereas when she was married to Willy, she had affairs with women. Perhaps this was part of Colette’s sensual nature, her greed for life: wanting to experience everything, not wanting to miss out on or regret anything… which one might also interpret as “the grass is always greener on the other side”!
