Colette: “Where the Sea Was Already a Little Paler Than the Sky”

Photographer Unknown, (Human Significance)

‘Let them die,’ he said again. ‘It’s less dangerous. I can swear on my word of honor that I never gave a present or made a loan or an exchange of anything except … this …’

He waved both hands in a complicated gesture which fleetingly indicated his chest, his mouth, his genitals, his thighs. Thanks no doubt to my fatigue, I was reminded of an animal standing on its hind legs and unwinding the invisible. Then he resumed his strictly human significance, opened the door, and easily mingled with the night outside, where the sea was already a little paler than the sky.”

—Colette, The Pure and the Impure, 1932

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