colette (1873-1954). Lot n° 43

16 L.A.S. "Colette" (a "Colette de Jouvenel", [Verdun 1914- 1915, and Paris n.d.], to Annie de PÈNE; 52 pages and various formats (the 1st in pencil, qqs cracks to the central folds), an envelope. Nice set of letters to her friend Annie de Pène, notably from Verdun during the War. [Désirée Poutrel, known as Annie de PÈNE (1871-1918), woman of letters and journalist, whom Colette evokes in Le Fanal bleu, was first married to Charles Battendier (of whom she had a daughter, a writer and journalist known as Germaine Beaumont, 1890-1983), then separated from him to live with the journalist Gustave Téry. She met Colette around 1910 and became a close friend. Colette would say that she was "like a precious refuge, at the beginning of the 'great war'", welcoming Colette into the women's "phalanstery", along with Musidora and Marguerite Moreno. Annie de Pène died prematurely of the Spanish flu in 1918. In these letters, Colette refers in particular to the War, and to her husband Henry de Jouvenel ("Sidi"), whom she joined at Verdun; but also to her friend and confidant Léon Hamel, to Confidences de femmes (1914) and to Annie's reports in L'Œuvre, and to the editor of that newspaper, Annie's companion, Gustave Téry]. [Verdun, mid-December 1914]. She has still "not seen much of Sidi, but enough to see that he is as 'very pretty' as a first class pharmacist, and that I have not been too much of a demerit in his eyes. [...] But what a fright at the Verdun station! The gendarme wanted to get us back on the train - simply. He threatened to come and get us here in four days, but... we'll get by. Louise Lamarque did not sleep a wink on the train: "We passed on a gun track. Beautiful lightning in the night and beautiful deaf "boom". Don't be afraid, only one shell fell near the track all day. They are fighting very hard," Sidi tells me, "a few miles from here. [Shortly before Christmas]. "My little Annie, what's the matter that my letters don't reach you? I have written to you... of all colours, you might say. And how worried I am about you being ill. [About Christmas]. "Annie, if you heard Sidi's plans for the future, you would be torn, right down the middle, between admiration and scandal. I refuse to write them down, but I will tell them to you in the last detail. She would like to have "new springs put on my big bed base in place of the anaemic ones [...] But this borders on the chapter of sauciness". She talks about her cat, which made a stain on the letter, with "emerald eyes, a little blue. [...] Hamel will tell you that I went to "see the battle" on the Citadel square. It is already beautiful to see, so close, the source of the pink gleams, and the round auroras in the mist, which light up and go out in the same tenth of a second. The sound is magnificent, varied, as varied as a storm, near, far, dry or round. Apart from "that", well, there's only that we don't talk about the war, here, and that we don't care about it. The people of Verdun would twist themselves into knots if they saw Paris at the hour when "La Libertél'intran" shines... Saturday [early January 1915]. She is going to leave. "Sidi assures me that I will be able to come back here three weeks later... She talks about black pudding, butter, truffles and gastronomic successes: "I only dream of taking lessons with you. Tell me, will you teach me beef in red wine, and crackers? I'd have some exciting class time with you, if you'd like. We'll talk about it all on Thursday. And I'm already planning some crazy movie nights, and some incomparable hours at the Little Casino. The General Governor of the Place de Chaville, if he doesn't accompany us, will issue us a theatre permit, there and back. If you had heard Sidi laughing on your paper of L'Œuvre! I say on, because he laughed on it as one would wallow on a cushion"... [February]. "O Annie, how bad this butter is! I didn't have time to warn you, and I should have, for I had tasted, at Potin's, what an ultra-salty nectar they were preparing for our soldiers. If they eat it, they will be forced to get drunk. And since when, I ask you, have three days of parcel post harmed good butter, well wrapped [...] Le Matin? But throw yourself, claws out, on Beaurain, on my behalf, and all the mail for Verdun will be at your feet! Your last two letters made us happy, Sidi only wants letters from you. (That way, in Paris, I'll be relayed: even days for Annie, odd days for me! She learns to play chess with Sidi: "I had only this proof of love to give him: I give it to him. Does Hamel know how to play? Tell him that I learned, with joy, that the Hardtmuth house still exists, simply renamed and that I will be able to repair my pens there. But you don't understand, p