The Secret Woman by Colette.jpeg)
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In this sensual, compact story a husband and wife encounter each other at a masked ball: each having lied to the other about their attendance. Only the husband realises, jealously tailing his wife – dressed like an “eel-like Pierrot” in a “smock with vast sleeves” – as she enjoys the liberation afforded by her attire. Colette writes sinuously about voyeurism and disguise, the wife fleetingly rendered an “unknown woman… restored to her irremediable solitude and immodest innocence by a little mask and a concealing costume”.
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