nina hamnett. part 6

I wore a 
large grey hat pulled over my eyes which I never 
took off. I had to engage the models. A small girl 
and her brother came and sat for me and also a 
large and very fat woman. After several weeks I 
had thirty students, including five tough Australian 
soldiers, who were very serious and always kept 
cigarettes behind their ears. I used to ask them to 
tea, two at a time. They were very simple-minded 
and unspoilt. I knew another Australian at that 
time and he used to meet me after the class was 
finished, in Victoria Street, and take me out to a 
meal. I did not introduce him to my students as 
I thought it might create a bad impression of 
frivolity. My Australian wrote plays. He took me 
out to dinner, sometimes to Frascati's 

 and the 

in 







 

Monico. He never drank anything at all and I 
wondered why. One day I went to see a friend of 
mine whose hobby was collecting liqueurs. He had 
a hundred and fifty different bottles arranged on a 
shelf. I got to his flat about nine-thirty only to find 
my unfortunate Australian completely drunk. I 
asked him where he lived and took him out into the 
Strand to find a taxi. We found a horse cab and I 
took him home to his lodgings in Victoria where I 
put him to bed. This was not so easy as he was in 
uniform and had puttees on. I had never undone 
puttees before and this took some time. I eventually 
put him to bed and went home. I came the next 
morning and got him some whisky. He was one of 
those unfortunate people who, if they have one 
drink, cannot stop. I felt rather responsible about 
hint He knew hardly anyone in London. He got 
driink again the next day and remained so for 
about a week. I told him that he had better come 
and stay at my place and sober up. He did, and 
remained drunk for several more days. I went to a 
friend of mine who had a collection of drugs of all 
kinds. I asked if he could give me anything to stop 
the Australian from drinking. He gave me a small 
tabloid and told me to put it into his tea. I did this 
the following morning and went out thinking that, 
later on in the day, I would come home and prob 
ably find a corpse. I came home in the afternoon 
and found my patient very well indeed. He refused 
to touch a drink of any kind and, shortly after the 
War, I saw him off at Waterloo for Australia* He 
said that he would come back in four years to fetch 







 

me and to marry me. I believe he did come back 
but I was, unfortunately, in Paris. 






 

One day I was walking along Tottenham Court 
Road, and as I passed the National Cash Register 
Building, I stopped and read the news about the 
War. " Armistice " was written up in large letters. 
I was not sure what it meant, but I saw further on 
that hostilities would cease at 1 1.30. I thought that 
on such an occasion one must find someone to talk 
to. I went to my bank and got some money out and 
went to Shoolbreds, where I bought two bottles of 
champagne. I found Geoffrey Nelson, the painter, 
and we took a 'bus to Trafalgar Square. We then 
walked down the Strand where, out of every window, 
papers were being thrown. The street looked as if 
there had been a snowstorm. I went to lunch at 
the Eiffel Tower. There I found several people I 
knew, Aldous and Julian Huxley, Carrington, and 
the Sitwells. Before dinner I went to the Cafe 
Royal where everyone was drinking and celebrating. 
A friend of mine asked me to a party at his flat and 
I walked to the AdelphL It was almost impossible 
to find a taxi or a 'bus. As I was walking down 
Whitehall I saw a crowd of people, and at the top 
of an arc-light, on a ladder, was a man who was 
taking the black paint off. We all watched him and 
were quite dazzled when the light shone out again 
with its pre-war glory. Everybody cheered loudly 
and I went on to my party. It was a very fine party 
indeed. Diaghilev was there, Massine, Lydia 
Lopokova, the Sitwells, Henry Mond, who became 
Lord Melchett, and many more people. There was 
a pianola and we danced and I was accompanied 
home by David Garnett 




CHAPTER VIII PEACE 

AT my Art Glass I generally drew with the 
students. I taught three evenings a week and for 
two nights a week I joined the St. Martin's Art 
School and drew from the nude. They had a com 
petition once a year for landscapes done in the 
summer vacation and a Royal Academician came 
and judged them. One evening I was drawing 
and the Professor came to me and told me that 
the R.A. could not turn up and would I judge 
the paintings? This flattered me as I did not 
realize that anybody knew who I was at all. The 
work was not very good, but one picture I liked 
very much; it was of a gipsy encampment and painted 
in the style of the Douanier Rousseau.

 I gave it the 
first prize. This I knew would cause some distur 
bance. I found that the young man who had painted 
it was the nephew of Frank Brangwyn. I asked him 
how much he wanted for it. He only asked a small 
sum and I bought it from him. The St. Martin's 
School gave dances from time to time. They were 
very good and we brought bottles of whisky in suit 
cases. I have always had a passion for Art Schools, 
I don't know why! One doesn't learn very much 
at them unless one is lucky enough to find an interest 
ing professor like John Swan or George Lambert. 
There is an atmosphere of calm and seriousness that 
I like and find inspiring. One day I decided to move 
from Fitzroy Street; why, I can't imagine. I took 
the top floor of a house in Great James Street, 





Bloomsbury. It was very dark and depressing and 
I regretted very much that I had gone there. 

Towards the end of 1919 the Polish picture-dealer, 
who had given a contract to Modigliani, came to 
London. He had a large room that had been used 
as a dancing-school and had an exhibition of the 
young painters in Montpamasse. The most im 
portant one was Modigliani. There were Soutine 
and Kremegne and Zavado and Ortiz and many 
others. The Modiglianis were not at all expensive 
and the one of the boy, now in the Tate Gallery was, 
I think, forty pounds. I found this exhibition very 
inspiring and exciting and longed for Paris. Modig 
liani had had consumption when he was eighteen 
and what with his hectic life was in a very bad way. 
The art dealer returned to Paris x as news came that 
he was dying in the H6pital de la Charit6, where 
Alfred Jarry and so many other celebrated people 
have died. He died a few days later and telegrams 
were sent to London to put up the prices of his 
pictures. His wife, who was about to have a child, 
went to stay with her family, who were sale bourgeoisie 
and lived near the Panth6on. She slept in a room 
on the fifth floor. She was so despairing and miser 
able that, during the night, she jumped out of the 
window and was killed. Her family, who were re 
ligious, said that they could not have a suicide in 
the house. She was picked up by some workmen 
and brought to the studio in the Rue de la Grande 
Chaumi&re, in which I lived for several years after 
wards. Two friends of Modigliani's sat with her 
body in case mice or rats were about the place; 

 

they brought some wine and spent the night there. 
On the day that Modigliani died his cat jumped out 
of the studio window and was killed. Modigliani 
was given a fine funeral in P&re Lachaise, and I 
believe an enormous crowd followed the hearse. 
His wife had always said that she would like to be 
buried in the same cemetery as he was. Her 
family would not allow this and she was buried 
in the Cimetiere de Bagneux, 

where Oscar Wilde 
was originally buried. The friends of Modigliani 
and she went very early in the morning to the funeral 
and when the moment came when the funeral 
guests shake hands with the relations, they stood 
with their hands behind their backs as a protest. 
The art dealer's exhibition had finished in London 
by February. I don't think he sold many. He 
ought to have, as there were some interesting 
paintings. 

The Southern Syncopated Orchestra had arrived 
in London. I went to hear them. I had never 
heard negro spirituals sung before and they sang 
very well indeed. I met Mrs. Reavis, who sang 
beautifully and looked rather like a painting by 
Gauguin. I asked her to sit for me and she came 
one morning. I knew that Epstein admired coloured 
people and I asked him if he would like to come and 
draw too. He came round and did several very beau 
tiful drawings, which he left on the floor and I had 
framed. They were, of course, not signed, and a 
few years ago I sold them. 

 The man I sold them to 
asked me if I thought that Epstein would sign them; 
I said that I could not possibly ask him as he would 
 



 

probably be cross to think that I had kept them. 
Apparently Epstein was asked to sign them by the 
man to whom I sold them. He was quite pleased 
to do so and said, " These are drawings that I must 
have done about twenty years ago." I used to go 
two or three times a week, to hear the Negro 
Spirituals and talk to Mrs. Reavis, who was most 
charming and very beautiful. One day she told me 
that a coloured dance was being given, and that the 
President of Liberia and his family would be there. 
There was first of all a conference where speeches 
were made and they talked about the troubles of the 
coloured races. I went with a friend of mine and we 
with one other woman were the only white people 
present. The orchestra were aching to play and 
dance, and were getting rather bored with the 
speeches. It all ended in a great deal of dancing 
and a terrible lot of noise. I was introduced to the 
President of Liberia and his wife and family. They 
were very dark indeed, and the daughter, who was 
about nine or ten, had the funniest hair, there was 
hardly any of it and it was very short and woolly. 
What intrigued me was how she had managed to 
attach a large white bow of ribbon to it. 

I was beginning to be very bored with London 
and thought of returning to Paris as soon as I got 
paid by the Art School; this was once every six 
weeks, so I only had a very little money unless I 
sold some pictures. I made enquiries about getting 
a passport and found that it was quite easy for me. 
I had to have a Belgian one. I waited anxiously for 
the term to finish and decided to go to Paris as soon 
 

as I could. The Russian ballet was in London still. 
They were at the Coliseum. One evening I was 
walking up Whitehall after my class; the only 
person in sight was a short man in a khaki uniform. 
On his head he had a gold band to which was 
attached a sort of white curtain. He stared at me 
in rather an embarrassed way. I could not imagine 
who or what he was. I turned round and saw that 
he turned up Downing Street. I thought that I 
would go to the gallery of the Coliseum and see the 
ballet. When I got there, to my great surprise, in 
a box was the little man in khaki, surrounded by 
Arab chiefs. The little man was Colonel Lawrence 
of Arabia. The ballet was very good indeed. They 
played the " Good Humoured Ladies/ 5 which was 
more French than Russian, but the decor and 
Massine's choreography were very fine; although 
the dancing was good, very good in some places, 
none of it was up to the standard of the dancers 
before the War in Russia and Covent Garden. 

I had met, a few months previously, a very nice 
man, who had been a prisoner of war in Germany. 
He painted pictures and spoke quite perfect French. 
He took me out quite often and was very kind to me. 
I often wondered why he ever had taken to painting. 
It was not because his painting was bad, it was very 
competent, but he seemed to have missed his voca 
tion so completely. He was the most perfect type 
of soldier I have ever met and was quite obviously 
cut out to be a General instead of a painter. 

The term at the Art School ended. 



 

TOWARDS the end of March I took the train to 
Newhaven. I got into a third-class carriage with a 
little dark man who looked like a foreigner. We 
were the only people in the train and we did not 
speak till we got to Lewes when he said, " Please, is 
the next station Newhaven? " And I said that it 
was. We talked quite a lot between Lewes and 
Newhaven. I said, " I am going second-class on 
the boat, but perhaps we will meet at Dieppe/' He 
met me and bought me coffee and cigarettes and we 
got into the train. I asked him what he did. He 
was an Italian engineer who had been in the British 
Navy and said that he was on his way to Bombay. 
We were both half-reclining on the seats, one oppo 
site the other. I said, " The women in Bombay 
must be very beautiful, aren't they? " He sat 
straight up on his seat and looking hard at me, said, 
" I don't care about 'em good-looking," at which 
speech I felt highly flattered. When we got to Paris 
we shook each other warmly by the hand and said 
that we hoped we would meet again. 

I took a taxi and drove to the hotel that I stayed 
in when I arrived there in 1914. I looked out of the 
window and saw the lights of the Rotonde. It 
had not changed. I went to the Rotonde and 
asked a strange-looking young man where Zadkine 
and Wassilieff were. I heard that they were both in 
Paris. I went to Wassilieff 's studio and it was just 
the same. Wassilieff asked how my figure looked 





 

so I took off all my clothes and she said,  Oui, la 
mSme chose" so I put them on again, seeing that she 
was satisfied that I had not dropped to pieces. 
In a small cot, beside WassiliefPs bed, was a child. 
I asked where it came from. Wassilieff said that 
during the War, one day she was sitting in the 
Rotonde and opposite to her she saw a most glorious 
looking creature. He was very dark and wore the 
uniform of a French officer. He had the Legion of 
Honour and many medals. She called for the 
waiter to bring some paper and did a drawing of 
him. The officer called a waiter and sent a message 
asking if he could buy the drawing. Wassilieff

spoke 
to him but refused to sell it; she invited him to her 
studio. He came to see her and Wassilieff found 
that he was an Arab of Persian origin. She said that 
they at once fell in love and that he always ate 
grapes in bed during the night. One day he had to 
return to his regiment. Some months later, Wassi 
lieff, looking at herself in the mirror, noticed that 
she was getting rather stout. She remembered that 
her Mother had grown fat at quite an early age. 
As she got fatter and fatter she decided to visit a 
doctor who informed her that in four months 9 time 
she would, if all went well, produce young. The 
Arab had completely disappeared, but Wassilieff, 
being a very courageous woman, was not unduly 
upset. She gave birth to a small brown son, who 
had a very loud voice indeed, and very nearly drove 
the poor lady mad, She told me of all her troubles 
during the War. In 1914, as I have already ex 
plained, she had a canteen where Modigliani, Edgar, 





 

myself and all the poor artists and writers dined for 
one franc-fifty, which included a glass of wine and 
one cigarette. Trotsky was in Paris. He had sold 
newspapers in the streets and was quite penniless. 
He ate every evening at the canteen, free of charge, 
as Wassilieff was extremely kind and hospitable, 
especially towards her own countrymen. The 
troubles in Russia took place and Trotsky became a 
great man. Someone said that Wassilieff had been 
Trotsky's mistress. She was immediately arrested 
and taken away from her son, who was only a few 
months old. Ferdinand Leger, and Jeanne his wife, 
took care of him, and poor Wassilieff was nearly 
distracted. There was a great trial and all Paris 
came to the Court to see the mistress of the great 
man. They expected to see a great beauty and 
when Wassilieff appeared they were very much 
astonished to see a very small woman who looked 
like a peasant. Wassilieff rose to her full height, 
which was just under five feet, and made a speech. 
She said that it was perfectly true that Trotsky had 
dined at her canteen every night for many months, 
as he was quite penniless, and she said, " And now 
you imprison me. I, who have given birth to a 
Frenchman who will fight for you. Look at my 
hands, they are scarred with work and I have even 
got a skin disease." She made such an impressive 
speech that she was immediately allowed to go free. 
Later on that evening I found Zadkine, who still 
had the same studio in the Rue Rousselet. He had 
then married the painter, Valentine Prax. She was 
a pretty, fair girl, who had been brought up in 

 



PARIS REVISITED 



Morocco and had a great deal of talent. She worked 
in the same building as Zadkine did and, as she 
had to go away to the country asked me if I would 
like to take her studio, which I did. I was so 
pleased to be back in Paris that,, during the day 
time, I walked about by myself, visiting all the 
places I had been to before the War. I went to 
La Ruche and saw the studio that Edgar and I had 
lived in. I wore out a pair of shoes in three weeks. 
The Rotonde closed at 10.30 as the war-time regu 
lations were still enforced, so we went to people's 
studios afterwards, if we did not want to go to bed, 
and brought bottles with us. I found Brancusi, who 
 

had moved to the Impasse Ronsin, and lived in a 
large workshop opposite the studio, where Madame 
Steinheil had lived and the tragedy had taken place. 
He was pleased to see me and was just the same as 
he had been before the War. He had sculpted a 
bronze bird that was very beautiful. It was highly 
polished and shone in the corner of the studio. The 
only table was made of white plaster. It was 
a solid lump, round, and about four feet in dia 
meter. He asked me to come to dinner with him. 
As he was very fond of cooking he said, cc Moi je 
diteste Us restaurants, je mange chez moi, je visite le 
boucher le matin et fachete les bifsteaks par le mitre" 
When one dined with him one had to eat and drink 
at the same time. He had marvellous burgundy 
and one started with some aperitifs. As the evening 
went on one got into almost a state of coma, as the 
" bifsteaks " were certainly measured by metres, 
and the Pommard was rather potent. I had heard 




 

that he had done a statue of a princess. I had seen 
one that he did about fourteen years before in 
marble, of a very beautiful woman with her head 
slightly leaning on one side and nude to the waist. 
He had worked and worked on it until it was almost 
completely abstract and resembled the same object 
that Gaudier Brzeska's head of Ezra Pound did. 
He had apparently sent it to the Salon d'Automne. 
It was also made of polished bronze, the same 
material that the bird was made of. It was placed 
in the Salon in the middle of a large room. One 
day the President arrived and sent for the police. 
He explained to them that it was an indecent object. 
The policeman said, " Je ne vois rien d'indfoent; fa a 
Vapparence d'un escargot" Brancusi was sent for and 
the President said, " It is disgraceful to exhibit such 
a thing in the same place as Monsieur Rodin ex 
hibited." Brancusi said, " Mais Monsieur Rodin tfa 
pas pris la place pour perpttuiU" All the same he had 
to remove it. The night I dined with him I asked 
to see the portrait of the Princess. In the corner of 
the studio I saw something wrapped up in a white 
sheet. Brancusi uncovered it and said, " There it 
is! " I did not like it as much as some of his things 
and Brancusi said, " Voild le portrait de la Princesse! " 
And I said, " And a remarkably handsome woman," 
and he covered it up again. 

Wassilief I saw every day. She was not painting 
much at that time but making the most amusing 
dolls, portraits of people. They were made of kid 
and the eyelashes and eyebrows were sewn in silk. 
She went to a shop where they stuffed birds and 





chose different coloured glass eyes to suit her 
clients. She made two of Evan Morgan in evening 
dress, with a white shirt and every detail of his 
elothes, cuff links, buttons, shoes, all imitated in 
an extraordinarily ingenious way. She also some 
times did naked portraits-poupfes of people who 
rather admired themselves with nothing on. She 
painted the kid to match their skins. Sometimes 
she would use smooth white kid and sometimes 
chamois leather. She did a wonderful head of 
Paul Poiret, the dressmaker, and made his beard 
of orange wool, as he had red hair. One day 
at the Rotonde I saw a young man with long fair 
hair; he was badly dressed. I was with Beatrice 
Hastings at the time. She had been sensible enough 
to stay in Paris during the War. It was a repetition 
of Edgar. She said, " He is a very talented Polish 
artist; would you like to meet him? " I rashly said, 
" Yes. 53 After the Rotonde closed we all went to 
someone's studio in the Rue de la Grande Chau- 
miere. He was then very drunk. I had an awful 
presentiment that at any minute I should fall in love 
with him. He had a guitar with him and sang 
Polish songs. He was so unlike any of the people in 
England and reminded me so much of Paris before 
the War, that I asked him to come to my studio. 
He .brought some of his paintings with him, which 
were mostly of flowers and of a very beautiful colour. 
I was delighted with him and we sang to his guitar 
and drank white wine all the afternoon. He told 
me that he had had a dreadful love tragedy the year 
before, that he had loved a beautiful girl, who was 
 



also Polish, and that she had died. He showed me 
a photograph of her lying on her death-bed, 
covered in lilies. As the white wine and the songs 
had rather gone to our heads we both burst into 
tears. I found out later on that it was not really 
such a tragic story and that he had behaved very 
badly to her and that the description of his tragic 
feelings and great sorrow was really only put on for 
my benefit. The young men of the Quarter always 
made a point of cultivating English and American 
women, as they were convinced that they had 
money. I was glad to realize later on that they 
were quite frequently disappointed. My money, 
which was not very much, was beginning to give 
out. I had been in Paris for three weeks and had 
decided that I could not possibly live in England 
any more. I had to go back and send in my resigna 
tion to my Art School, which I quite well realized 
was disgusting behaviour. I went back to London, 
sent in my resignation, borrowed five pounds from 
a friend of mine, and returned to Paris and the 
abominable Pole. He met me at the Gare St. 
Lazare, looking quite clean. He said, " Do not 
spend your money on lodgings, come and stay in the 
hotel that I do. It is near the Cimeti&re Mont- 
parnasse, and costs very little." I took a room 
there. I met with him an extremely nice Pole, who 
lived in Modigliani's studio. The first night I 
stayed in a little hotel near the Avenue d'Orl&ins, 
where I was eaten up by bugs. I had met them 
before in Grafton Street, and they certainly could 
bite. The next morning E. suggested that I should 





paint a picture out of the hotel window. The win 
dow overlooked some roofs. As I had already done 
several roof scenes in London, I was interested to 
see some new roofs of a different colour. I found 
that these were much more gay and I sat at home 
most of the day painting. I gave him all the money 
that I had as he would take me out in the evenings to 
a workmen's restaurant, near by, in the Avenue du 
Maine, and we had a good dinner and a small bottle 
of red wine for almost nothing. What he did during 
the day I did not know and never took the trouble 
to enquire. One day I introduced him to a friend 
of mine, whom I had known in London. She was 
very good-looking and well dressed and had some 
money, about eight hundred a year. I saw that she 
liked him (she had a passion for stealing other 
people's men), and that he liked her was obvious. 
She had much more money than I had. I had 
written to some friends of mine in London, and as 
they knew that I was working, and that it was 
cheaper for me to live in Paris, they sent me thirty 
pounds. 

This was in June 1920. I knew only two or 
three people and those not very well. One of 
them was Zborowski 

 the picture-dealer who gave the 
contract to Modigliani. I gave the Pole most of my 
money to look after. One day he said, " I love 
your friend and I am going away with her to 
night. ' He disappeared, leaving me almost penni 
less. This of course, was my own fault for being so 
stupid, but, I thought, thinking of my past experi 
ences, " One has to pay for all one's stupidities, and 
 



they are very expensive, so perhaps that one day I 
will learn some sense. " I went and wept on Wassi- 
liefs chest. She, knowing the young man very well, 
rather took it as a joke. I didn't, as, in about two 
days 9 time, I was completely penniless. I went to 
see Zborowski, who was kind enough to lend me 
a hundred francs. I got thinner and thinner and 
wondered what would happen to me. I met a very 
nice Arab and also the other Pole whom I had met 
with my friend. They knew what had happened to 
me and were very kind. Wassilieff allowed me to 
stay in her studio, and I wept for about a week. 
Finally, she got very bored and threw me out, so I 
went back to my dreary and dirty hotel. In Mont- 
parnasse there was a Russian Jew, whom I had met 
before the War. He had come to Paris quite 
penniless, with the idea of studying painting, but 
was very poor, and, having a good figure, he posed 
in the Academies. He was a terrific blagueur, and 
really very stupid and simple-minded. He also 
thought that my friend, who had gone off with 
E., was rich and told me that they had gone to 
Fontainebleau he had been to see them; he said 
that they were going to get married and that he had 
engaged himself as their chauffeur. The art dealer 
was delighted and came and told me that E. 
was marrying a rich girl and that she would buy 
many pictures. This girl, whose name I can't 
mention, I knew very well, and knew that she, 
being British, adored La chasse. The moment that 
she had stolen anyone's man away she got tired 
of him. As soon as E. stepped into the train 

 



 

for Fontainebleau, she couldn't bear him any 
more. Bored and fed up as I was, I had already 
realized this would happen and waited for the time 
that he would return. One day an Englishman 
whom I had known before arrived in Paris. I told 
him this idiotic story of my stupidity; and, having 
some money, he gave me a few hundred francs. I 
was beginning to work again and take a new interest 
in life. I was still in the same abominable and dirty 
hotel. One day E. returned from Fontainebleau 
and explained that my friend had to return to 
London and after three months she would come 
back to Paris and they would get married. During 
the three months he would live with me platonically! 
I said, " Gome out to lunch with me and we will 
discuss the matter." He was completely penniless 
and he had lunch at my expense in a restaurant near 
the Avenue d'Orleans, near the church where the 
funeral had taken place of his dead Jiancfo. I told 
him in French what I thought of him. I had a fine 
vocabulary, which I had learnt from Modigliani, 
and I should think that if anyone who had not 
been such a complete monster had been spoken 
to in the way that I did to him, I should have 
been strangled. After lunch I paid the bill and gave 
him ten francs. He didn't believe that I really 
meant what I said and he would pursue me from 
cafe to cafe. I have never spoken to him again, and 
although he still sends me his love, I never will. Of 
course my friend never came back to marry him, 
and I am glad to say that he became the laughing 
stock of Montparnasse. I did not speak to my friend 
 



for eighteen months after this affair, but we ended 
by being as good friends as ever and were able to 
laugh at the whole incident. This annoyed E. as 
he used to see us sitting together and talking and 
laughing at the Cafe du Dome and the Rotonde. 
The other Pole who lived in Modigliani's studio and 
the Arab were extremely kind to me, and used to 
sit with me in the evenings. I knew that they 
thought I had been very stupid about the affair 
with E. but they were kind and tactful enough never 
to mention it at all. 

The Russian Ballet was in Paris at the time, and 
one evening I was taken out to dinner and after 
wards to a box at the Opera, where they were per 
forming. I was taken by a painter called Charles 
 

Winzer, the man who, before the War, had spent 
the evenings in the Rotonde with Frederick Etchells 
and myself, inventing silly poems. He was a great 
friend of the Princesse Eugenie Murat's and I was introduced to her