Photo: H. Manuel, Paris.
ANATOLE FRANCE
Photo: Gerschel, Paris.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
could not agree, and a divorce soon followed. Colette Dumas was a pretty, wild kind of creature, gifted with a charm quite her own, and absolutely devoid of what is commonly called moral sense. She had never been baptised, and she was never brought up, but simply grew as she liked, mostly in her father’s study, where she heard expounded the whole time the theories after which she tried later on to shape her own life. There was no harm about her, but, alas, no principles ever ruled her conduct, and a more lovely little animal never existed. The poor girl discovered later on that life was not the comedy she had been led to think it, and before she died a few years ago she must have often regretted the false education that she had received, and lamented the views which she had taken of existence, which to her youthful eyes had appeared in the light of one great enjoyment.
Her sister Jeannine was quite a different character, as sedate as Colette was hasty, and with strong common sense instead of passionate cravings after the impossible. She was married to an officer belonging to the old aristocracy, and she knew very well how to adapt herself to her new existence in the provincial town where she settled, and where, like all happy people, she had no history.