Colette's France by Gilmour Jane

Author:Gilmour, Jane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hardie Grant Books
Published: 2013-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Summers at Rozven were a welcome break for Colette from the demands of her life as a journalist and literary editor at Le Matin in Paris. But even here, she continued to work. After mornings spent on the beach or walking along the cliff tops, she would retreat to her room to work.

As I stood on the terrace at Rozven, looking out over this private world of sea and sand, I was struck by how little it has changed since Colette’s time here. The house has not been encroached upon in any way. It still sits sentinel over the beach and little bay, without another house in sight. A solitary couple were walking along the beach and I overheard them talking about the fact that the house had once belonged to Colette.

I had contacted the current owner, who unfortunately was not able to meet us at Rozven. Feel free to walk up to the house from the beach, he had said. As we were walking down the track to the house, I noticed that the gate was open and we could see that the gardener was at work tending the rose bushes. We walked down the drive and introduced ourselves. He welcomed us and invited us to wander in the garden at our will.

The grey stone of the building was covered with an autumn-tinted vine. From the front terrace, a little gate through a stone wall led to the protected back garden with its roses and flowers. Was this where Colette had her kitchen garden? I imagined so. The closed shutters of the house called out for children and laughter, for the presence of Colette and her entourage of friends. ‘Don’t forget your sandshoes,’ she would write to friends about to visit from Paris, ‘the sand and rocks are hot.’

It is easy to understand the attraction this Breton coast held for Colette. The expanse of the bays, the rapid rise of the tides, the grey-green colour of the sea under a cloudy sky, the wind whipping up the spray—they are all as Colette described them.

Later that day, we stood on the sea ramparts at Saint-Malo in the gusty wind, looking out on the watery landscape, reflecting on the centuries of seafaring that had been the heart and soul of the town. Colette had always been fascinated by the accounts of adventurers—of distant lands, exotic plants and animals—and a globe was never far from her reach.

It is a landscape to inspire dreams, a landscape that never lost its fascination for Colette. She recalled it nostalgically in her novella Bella-Vista, published in 1937.

The sulphurous smell of seaweed, a few broken shells, the wave which rose and fell without any strength, suddenly made me long for Brittany, for her tides, the big waves of Saint-Malo, which rolled in from afar and held captive, in their green-tinged swell, constellations of jellyfish and five-pointed starfish, and hermit crabs, tossed up by the waves. I longed for the rapid rise of the tide, plumed with spray,

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