Alain and Camille, friends since childhood, marry with the blessing of their families. Alain is satisfied with the union, whose main attraction lies in the idealized beauty of the prudent and passive wife. But life together with the real Camille will reveal to him that the image he had of her inevitably contrasts with her real exuberance. The discovery of this intimate disagreement will leave him at the mercy of other desires, symbolized by the cat Saha, a sublime chimera that will dominate Alain's life and become a fearsome rival for Camille. . . Colette subverts the cliché s of the love triangle to investigate the constraints of devotion and the conflict between fantasy and experience.