nina hamnett the best tits in europe part 2

LAUGHING TORSO PART 2 

 About an hour later the noise of the trams woke 
him up and he appeared like " Venus rising from 
the Ocean and rose up in the middle of the street. 
Many nice old ladies and their daughters, who were 
studying Art, were having breakfast on the terrace 
of the Rotonde and the Dome and were shocked 
and surprised at this strange sight. above me posing as a nina character
Every Friday evening I went to Lavenue's, which 

 


 



is opposite the Gare Montparnasse.THeir mashed 
potatoes is the best that I ever tasted, and the director seems Tom Ford
 double! I love go for the tea, the sunday, the price is high, 10 euro, 
but is served by waiters in livery and gloves. I went with 
Madame Bing and three other Germans. One was 
a professor of mathematics. He did not like being 
accosted by strange ladies in cafes, so he would sit 
when he was alone, with a piece of paper stuck into 
the ribbon of his bowler hat with " Sourd-Muet " 
written on it. They talked of how the Germans 
were going to kill all the English very soon. I pro 
tested, but they said, 

 The high Marais family restaurant with typical charm of old Paris. 

Only at midday.

Easy to find because it is opposite the hotel by C. Lacroix. 

We eat homemade enchanted by "bohemian"atmosphere.

 " You will see, and quite soon 
too." 

Although they were very nice to me I think 
they got great pleasure in trying to frighten me. I 
knew nothing whatever about politics or the Euro 
pean situation and it did not worry me at all. 
Occasionally we would go to the downstairs' bar at 
the Cafe du Pantheon in the Boulevourd  Michelle  . There 
were many students and very many painted prosti 
tutes there. Sprigs of white lilac were sold and 
presented to the ladies. I was rather shocked and 
thought that the white lilac was much too pure and 
beautiful to be presented to such obvious harpies. 

On Friday nights the literary people assembled at 
the Closerie des Lilas. The great man there was 
Paul Fort, and everybody sat round and listened to 
him.  

LE LOIR DANS LA THEIERE 3 Rue de Rosiers Paris Tel. 0033 1 42729061 

What ambiance! "The dormouse in the teapo"t is always one of my 
favorite places. Better to go during the week for lunch or snack 
(fabulous cakes) because the weekend. There 'always line up for brunch. 
Average prices.

 He wore a large black hat and long hair and certainly

 looked like a poet. Alexandre Mercereau 
was there too;

 I knew him, but I never met Paul 
Fort. The poets did not really like the artists com 
ing there, but we sat in a corner and looked im 
pressed, so they got used to us. I wore a jumper 
made on the same pattern as those Henri and I wore 
in London, only it was of a large cubist design in 
blue, orange, and black. 

No one in Paris had seen anything quite like it and although Sonia Delaunay 
 

was already designing scarves, this was more start 
ling. 

It was made and designed for the Omega 
Workshops by Roger Fry. I have it on in the 
photograph of the dance in the Avenue du Maine, 
where Modigliani is standing in the background. 
In the Rue de la Gaite is the Gaite Montparnasse, a 
music hall rather like the " Old Bedford/' At the 
back of the stalls are boxes. We used to go once a 
week. 

The gallery cost fifty centimes. Modigliani 
came with us, too. About twelve of us went one 
night and sat in a row on a very narrow and hard 
plank in the gallery. Modigliani sat on the end and 
pusned and pushed. We all pushed together and he 
fell off the end, so in disgust he left us and went to 
the bar. There were very funny and very vulgar 
revues with the usual bedroom scenes and simple- 
minded jokes that made the French workpeople roar 
with laughter

.ETAMINE CAFE'  

13 Rue des  Ecouffes Paris Tel. 0033 1 44780962

A small cafe restaurant in the Marais where you eat well at honest 
prices. Tidy dishes, cozy atmosphere and slow food rhythms so do not 
plan on eating a mouthful of race .... But it's worth: starter + dish 
and dessert 15-16 euros in the evening! 

  The last time I was in Paris I went 
there, but it had all been redecorated in horrible 
colours in an attempt to be very modern. One day 
I met Archipenko, the sculptor. 

He sculpted 
statues in tin and wood and exhibited at the Salon 
des Independants.  

He painted his statues in bright 
colours and had a very fine sense of colour. He was 
a tall man with a reddish beard and deep set eyes. 
I went to his studio with a sculptor whom I knew. 
He had a wonderful musical instrument with about 
twenty strings that looked like a harp. It was in 
vented and made by a sailor and he had bought it 
and could play Russian tunes on it. Archipenko had 
pupils. There were two very beautiful German girls 

 who had come to study the abstract. They were 
very rich and the elder one kept a monkey and took 
a large studio. She drank ether and once went out 
for the evening leaving the bottle of ether by the 
stove. When she came home later she found one 
of the walls of the studio had been blown out. 

I had sent the money that I had to a bank in 
England and received a money order once a fort 
night. One day I went to the Post Office and found 
that the duplicate of the money order had not arrived 
and that I was penniless till Monday. A girl whom I 
knew said that she posed for an elderly American and 
would I take her job on for two days as she had to go 
to the country. He lived in the 

Boulevard Arago, 
He had a studio flat there. I was shown into the 
studio and the door was shut. I could hear the voices 
of rich-sounding women and felt like a housemaid 
who was looking for a situation. He put his head 
through the door and told me to undress. I took my 
clothes off and he eventually appeared. He 
grum bled at my figure and said there was not enough of it, 
I was furious and took a violent dislike to him. He 
made me sit in a most impossible pose which nearly 
broke my back, and did some dreadful drawings. He 
quite obviously disliked me as much as I disliked him. 
He then returned to his rich ladies and I dressed 
myself. He came back and gave me two francs-fifty. 
Two francs-fifty was half-a-crown in those days  and 
the usual fee. I sat for him the next day and then 
fortunately my money came. This was my first 
experience as a professional model. I had others 
later, but they were more agreeable. Aleister Crowley was in Paris and I saw him from 
time to time. He always went out at midday to say 
a prayer to the sun. One day I met him in the 
Boulevard Montparnasse. Suddenly he stopped in 
the middle of the street and addressed the sun. I 
did not know the prayer in question, so respectfully 
stood behind him until he had finished. In the 
Quarter was a very celebrated artist's model. She 
was very beautiful and everyone had enjoyed her 
favours except Crowley. Someone said to A. C., 
" You really must take her out to supper and see 
what she is really like." The next morning everyone 
was having breakfast in the Dome and Crowley 
appeared. They cried, " Hullo, A. C., what was it 
like? " and he said rather grimly,  It was rather 
like waving a flag in space.  ' 

One day Beatrice Hastings came to Paris. She 
had been a great friend of Katherine Mansfield's 
and was a very talented writer. She edited the New 
Age with Orage. It was about the most interesting 
and well-written paper in London before the War. 
She had an introduction to me. She was very 
amusing. I introduced her to Modigliani and we 
all spent the evening together at the Rotonde. 
They drank absinthe, as Beatrice had some money. 
They gave me one too, and I felt very daring, as I 
had never tasted it. After my first sip, which I 
thought horrible and reminded me of cough drops, 
Hunt Diederich appeared and threw the rest into 
the umbrella stand. I sat with Beatrice and Modig 
liani in the evenings, and one evening the young 
man with the pale face came in. I said to Beatrice, I think that young man looks very interesting and 
I should like to meet him.  To my embarrassment 
she darted over to him and brought him across. He 
seemed very shy and did not say very much. Zad- 
kine came in . later and asked us all back to his 
studio. Beatrice, I, and the young man went 
along. Zadkine had a studio in the Rue Rousselet. 
The young man and I sat on the roof among the 
chimney-pots until the morning. I thought him 
very interesting and romantic. We afterwards went 
and sat in a cafe opposite the Gare Montparnasse. 
The young man said his name was Edgar. He 
would not disclose his surname. He said that he 
was a Norwegian and understood Scandinavian, but 
refused to speak it. He talked perfect French and 
German. I was very much intrigued with him. 
He appeared to be always broke and said that he 
lived in La Ruche, near the Porte de Versailles. 
He talked of the wonderful furniture and library 
that he had there. I was not asked to visit him. 
One evening he came back to my studio in the 
Boulevard Edgar Qjiinet He stayed there with me. 
There was a small window very high up near the 
roof, and every night a black cat would jump up 
from the roof outside and sit there. When the moon 
was full it rose just behind the cat and silhouetted it. 
The evening he came the cat appeared, and seeing 
that I was not alone, vanished, and never came 
back again. 

The young man appeared to be a complete 
mystery. I was by this time desperately in love 
with him. Whether he liked me or not I have never been able to discover.

 Basil was not at all pleased 
about it and it disturbed him a good deal. 

Edgar stayed at my place sometimes and some 
times went to his mysterious residence. This was 
about the twenty-fifth of July 1914. One day I went 
to eat by myself in a small workmen's restaurant, op 
posite Wassilieff's studio, in the Avenue du Maine. I 
was suddenly seized with an indescribable feeling of 
horror. I turned cold and sick and laid down my 
knife and fork to stare at the blank wall opposite, 
unable to eat. I thought that something terrible 
was about to happen and imagined that it would 
take the form of a punishment for me for having had 
such a good time. 

Little did I think that that punishment would 
wreck not only my life but the lives of millions of 
others during the four bitter years ahead.