(Published by Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
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Gigi and The Cat are two novellas from the French novelist Colette.
Gigi is a 15 year old girl born into a family of what were high class Parisian courtesans (“We never marry in our family”). She is looked after by her grandmother, although her mother – an unmarried opera singer – also resides in their humble home. To her grandmother Gigi is still an uncouth child; to her grand-aunt, a pupil of the arts of enticing and accompanying men.
A family friend and millionaire Gaston becomes a frequent visitor to the ladies home, to find refuge from his playboy lifestyle and the press and society who follow his love life with avid interest (that of ladies overdosing on opium to regain his favour). In this sanctuary he rediscovers Gigi as the blossoming woman – seemingly innocent of the scheming ways of women. Gaston decides to take Gigi as his companion and puts it to her Grandmother. The family agree to the proposal and inform the girl. Gigi however has something else in mind.
The Cat opens with a young man poised on the edge of bethrothment and the beginning of married life. He leaves his mother’s home and his beloved cat for an apartment and beautiful new wife. The cat pines for its master’s loss so he brings it to live in the marital home. He understands his cat implicitly and is totally comfortable in its presence, a position not shared with his wife.
His wife Camilles jealousy of the cat Saha grows ’til she attempts to take the feline’s life. The cat lives and the discovery of the crime causes the couple to separate.
Gigi is the better known of these two stories and it taps into every adolescent girls daydream; to be swept off their feet by an older, wealthy, desirable man and to have the power of manipulating men and getting exactly what you want. It is a fairy tale and like all fairy tales if you were to take away the historical or fable context then you are left with what would be a contemporarily dubious story – a 15 year old girl been sold into prostitution by her grandmother to a 33 year old man for the price of the odd goose! But of course this is not a contemporary tale, it is a turn of the century Pretty Woman and will be enjoyed as such by any reader.
The Cat however reflects something more ageless and less escapist. Here we are shown the struggles of the newly married couple, not those with big worries about money, fidelity or ideals but one with the little niggly feelings of “maybe this just isn’t right? maybe Im not happy? maybe I want things to go back to the way they were?”. It’s a way of looking for a way to back out of coupling, entwining and getting back to yourself. Hooked around the device of love for a pet it shows both unconditional complete love and conditional convenience of marriage.
Of the two Gigi is a pretty story but The Cat is something more complex. 
