Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [24]
At first, Gabrielle worked hard at this leisure, something alien to both her nature and her upbringing. Etienne was too active to cultivate the art of languor, and marveled at her ability to read in bed until noon. But Gabrielle was doing more than simply reading popular fiction, she was learning. Since childhood, this highly intelligent young woman had found no one to guide her. Admitting later that her early reading matter was “rubbish,” she added, “The very worst book has something to say to you, something truthful. The silliest books are masterpieces of experience.”3 Indeed, Gabrielle said that she “learned about life through novels . . . There you find all the great unwritten laws that govern mankind . . . From the serial novels to the greatest classics, all novels are reality in the guise of dreams.”4 Permitting herself the time, previously in such short supply, to luxuriate in her dreams, Gabrielle devoured her cheap romances, the only imaginative fodder that had so far come her way. One wonders if this orgy of immersion in fantasy may also have signaled something about the inadequacy of her relationship with Etienne.
Meanwhile, Gabrielle was that rare thing: a person who changes little over time. One could say that as a child she was an old soul: she was already grown. In this way, her character would not really change much; it was precociously well formed. As a result, growing up for Gabrielle did not come, as it does for most people, through events, which bring personal change. Her particular voyage of self-discovery came through her environment, the situation in which she found herself. And of this, as of people, she was always an unusually good observer.
What was outside her—the world outside her—that was what Gabrielle had to learn. Her unusual mentality in turn provided her with a ruthless attention to the texture of the present. This would become an invaluable asset in her life’s work, for fashion is, as much as anything, about illuminating and articulating the present moment. In years to come, Gabrielle would articulate this precisely when she said, “Fashion should express the place, the moment . . . fashion, like opportunity, is something that has to be grabbed by the hair.”5
Life at Royallieu was to prove an important catalyst for this singular young woman. Immersing herself in her new environment, she began a process of separation from the impoverished world of her origins, projecting herself onto a far more expansive stage. Indeed, without Etienne Balsan and Royallieu, we might never have heard of Gabrielle Chanel. Later, she said of those early days at Royallieu: “I was constantly weeping. I had told him a whole litany of lies about my miserable childhood. I had to disabuse him. I wept for an entire year. The only happy times were those I spent on horseback, in the forest.”6 This is undoubtedly an exaggeration, but clearly what Gabrielle described hinted at some kind of emotional crisis during that first year, and in his own way, Etienne must have been supportive. Certainly, whatever she might say of her friends in the future, Gabrielle would never criticize him.
And on whatever basis the intimate life of Royallieu was organized, for a brief period, the courtesan Emilienne d’Alençon and Gabrielle amicably shared Etienne and his home.
Emilienne knew she would eventually be deposed as one of the most fêted