Read the Review. Sido's health was failing. She was seventy-six years old in ; she had had a double mastectomy and she was afraid to die without seeing Colette. She felt that her daughter was so taken up by her life that she no longer needed Sido's advice, her support, that she had nothing to share with her anymore. She felt betrayed. Colette would promise to come, then change her plans. Sido felt that someone was upsetting Colette's life.
For the first time she did not get straight answers to her direct questions. Delays were followed by excuses and promises were not kept. Sido showed some impatience: "So you are putting me off until April — and then only to grant me a few hours! Quoting Voltaire, she suggested that she and Missy should "cultivate their garden," because that was the only way to live in peace.
April went by and Colette did not come. Sido asked ironically if she had postponed her visit indefinitely. She waited patiently through May, convincing herself that a letter announcing Colette's visit was on the way. It never came. In June she hoped to receive a letter announcing Colette's arrival. She did not come. She wrote that she was very sad and that if she were to see Colette no more, she would rather die.
Colette promised to come. By June she had not yet appeared; she was in Geneva — with whom? Sido was so anxious to know what was going on that she would sit in her small drawing room all morning, watching for the postman from the window. She received a postcard; Colette was not coming. The news upset her so much that she went into her garden and pulled up weeds to stop thinking — exercise keeps the imagination from spinning. She had learned at last why her daughter had no time for her, for Colette had written about her sudden and absorbing love affair with Henry de Jouvenel and sent her a letter from Jouvenel himself.
Was he in Geneva also? Now that the secret was out, she hoped that Colette would show up. Sido was relieved to know the truth, and decided to go to Paris since her daughter would not come to her. She stayed three days. Colette was taken aback to see her so thin, so frail, and so cheerful, for her cheerfulness seemed feverish. She had brought a gift for her daughter, rosebuds wrapped in a damp cloth.
