nina hamnett the best tits in europe part 15

I Said, " I
am awfully sorry but I am afraid that I have had
too many champagne cocktails and may fall asleep




or scream, will you meet me here to-morrow? "
They were charming and said that they would and
I was conveyed home to bed. I saw him several
times, and the day he left Paris I had luncheon with
him and he gave me a hundred francs and asked me
if I would buy myself some flowers. I did, but a
very small bunch, and lived in comfort for the rest
of the week. I have never seen him since but hope,
perhaps, that he will see this book and know that I
have not completely vanished.

I don't much like writing about funerals, but I
shall have to because Erik Satie died and I thought
that I ought to go to his. He lived at Arcueuil with
his umbrellas and was to be buried there in the
village church. I took a train on the morning of
the funeral at the Gare d 3 Orleans by myself. On
the platform waiting for the train was the painter
Ortiz de ZarateNude above.
I found that he was going to the
funeral too and so we got into the same carriage;
I was glad to have someone to go with. When
we got to Arcueuil we asked the way to the church,
which was about ten minutes' walk. The ceremony
had already begun. The church was filled, there
were politicians and all the Boeuf, Brancusi, Cocteau,
Moise, Valentine and Jean Hugo, Yvonne George,
Wassilieff, all Les Six, and the Ecole d 5 Arcueuil,
Erik Satie's own school of musicians, of which
Sauguet is the only one whose name I can re
member. This was the second funeral I had
gone to, and, although it was very sad, as I missed
my afternoon seances with Satie at the Dome,
he was an old man and had lived his life and




had had a lot of fun, it was not so tragic as that of
Radiguet, who was so young. After the service
we started for the cemetery, which was about a mile
away. The men followed on foot first, walking four
abreast. There must have been at least fifteen
hundred people present. Afterwards walked the
women. Yvonne George, Valentine Hugo, Wassilieff
and myself headed the procession. There were
many very respectable French bourgeoises, all dressed
in deep mourning. These I found out afterwards
were the wives of all the keepers of cafes in Arcueuil
where Satie had had aperitifs. At the cemetery we
stood by the graveside and saw the coffin laid in the
grave and shook the relatives by the hand and went
back to Paris. I had a most beautiful letter from
Satie that he wrote me on one occasion when I asked
him to come to a ball that I was arranging with some
Americans. I said that I would " dance like the
devil " for his benefit. Alas! he could not come as
it was a very late affair. He answered my letter
and said that he was sure that it was impossible
for me to " Dance like the devil " as I was
" beaucoup trop gentitte" Unfortunately, I have
lost it.

I was at this time very broke and very gloomy.
F. and R. asked me to stay with them in their
castle and I very much wanted to go. I was in
pawn at my hotel and could not move, so had to
wait patiently until something turned up. A very
nice Englishman, Dreydell, turned up whom I had
met before. He suggested that I should have an ex
hibition in London that he would arrange for me to


have at the Claridge Gallery, in Brook Street. I had
a good many oil-paintings that I had never exhibited
before, and quite enough for a good exhibition. He
bought a still life of mine and paid me twelve hun
dred francs. I was delighted and wired immediately
to F. that I was arriving at any moment. I paid
the hotel bill and felt very light-hearted and free
again. The next day I caught a violent cold and
that evening had to go to bed with a high tempera
ture. I was living alone at that time in the Rue
Campagne Premiere. In the same hotel lived three
people who were charming, but generally spent
every night dancing and drinking in Montmartre,
arriving home at seven or eight in the morning.
They generally bounced into my room to inform
me of the scandals of the night, which they managed
to hiccough out. At seven a.m. they arrived in
evening-dress. I said I was very ill. They were
very upset and brought me -a bottle of brandy and
tottered off to their beds. I looked at it and decided
that I should, on the whole, prefer a lingering death
rather than a sudden one and went to sleep. I
managed to sleep all day and at six-thirty a doctor
friend of mine happened to call and see me. He
gave me one look and said, " Have you any money? "
I gave him fifty francs and he went out and bought
various pills, potions, and appliances, and within
ten minutes my temperature was considerably less.
By this time my neighbours had come to, and
were appalled to think that they had not fetched a
doctor in the morning. I suggested that they should
have some brandy; and console themselves as it




wasn't really very serious. The same evening the
doctor came to see how I was, and he and a friend
of mine finished the brandy and staggered home
arm-in-arm.




I BEGAN to pack my things and think about the
South of France. The Pole saw me off at the station.
I armed myself with a bottle of red wine. The train
was full and the only seat I could find (I travelled,
of course, third class), was in a carriage filled with
French sailors. In the corner was a very small
ginger-haired French soldier. I sat down in a
corner. The sailors opened their bottles and offered
me some wine. We then all drank together. They
were all Bretons and we talked about Brittany.
Next to me was a very good-looking, golden-haired
sailor, who got very drunk, and, after making an
unsuccessful attempt to kiss me, fell asleep with his
head on my lap. I felt slightly embarrassed but
thought it better to remain still, hoping that even
tually he would become conscious and that I could
change my position. The other sailors and the little
soldier were already asleep and I lay my head
against the window and slept too. About five in the
morning I woke up and from the opposite corner of
the carriage the soldier spoke to me in the most
perfect " Oxford English." I thought, " Good God!
He probably knows all kinds of people that I do and
here am I with a sailor asleep with his head on my
lap I asked him why he spoke English and he told
me that he had been brought up in England and
that his Father was a Frenchman, and he, being a
French subject, had to do his Service Militaire. He
had been in Egypt before in some kind of political job







and had to leave it to join the Army. He said that
the food was very bad but his family gave him
money so that he could feed himself. He was per
fectly charming and at Toulon the sailors got off,
feeling rather ill and bad-tempered, and the soldier
and myself continued, standing in the corridor, talk
ing and looking at the landscape. When I arrived
at Cannes, my friends were waiting for me on
the platform. The soldier got out and I intro
duced him to them. We asked him to have a drink
with us but he had to wait for another train to
take him to Nice and had not got time. F. was
not at all surprised to see me with a French soldier,
as he is one of those sensible people who are not
at all surprised at anything.

I was very dirty indeed and I had some food at
the Cafe de Paris, which is, or was I think it no
longer exists opposite the Casino. We then
motored to the house, which was on the road to
Grasse, but about two miles from the main road.
It was a most beautiful old house, built about 1802,
on a hill surrounded by mimosa trees, which were in
full bloom. The yellow flowers in the sunlight were
so bright and dazzling that one had to blink one's
eyes for a few seconds before one could see. In the
front of the house was a hilly lawn with some big
trees. The whole lawn was covered in the biggest
and sweetest smelling violets that I have ever seen.
There were several farmhouses on the estate, quite
near the house, surrounded by olive trees and
a small, strangely shaped, and very fat donkey with
an enormous head. I did not get on very well with




It as, whenever I sat outside and attempted to draw,
it would lay Its head on my lap or try and swallow
the Indian ink. There was also a tame sheep which
was very fond of walking into the drawing-room
and tucking itself up comfortably on the sofa. This
had to be discouraged in wet weather as it did not
wipe its feet. I had the most beautiful bedroom
with a large and very comfortable bed. I also had
a bathroom to myself and a kind lady came and
asked me if I wanted any mending done. I felt that
at last I had arrived in Paradise. The house had a
wide winding staircase. The rest of the house had
been painted with coloured patterns which, unfor
tunately, had disappeared, principally owing to the
damp. At the back of the house was a lake filled with
fish and a small and very beautiful island with mi
mosa trees on it. On the far side was a bed of irises.
We were on the top of a steep hill and the ground
sloped down. The other side of the pond, behind
the irises, which could be seen from the house, we
could see in the distance the sea, and at night the
Esterelle. At one side of the house was a valley and,
in the distance, more and bigger mountains. These
had snow on the top of them, and in the early mom-
ing were the most wonderful colour. Near the house
was a pear-tree in bloom. I think I have already
mentioned that near Paris, there were orchards
filled with pear blossoms which I never had the
courage to paint; but every day I looked at this
tree and determined to try. For the background
there were trees on the hill as it sloped towards the
valley, and over their tops were the distant snow-




capped mountains and the blue sky. To my sur
prise I found that blossom was very much easier to
paint than many other subjects and it turned out
to be, I think, one of my best pictures. Even F.
liked it. It is now in the collection of Roy Randall.
We had breakfast in our pyjamas and dressing-
gowns and then walked about the estate accom
panied by a very fat white mongrel, which waddled
and wheezed, and was called Zezette. Poor
Zezette very much shocked the smart French people
who visited us, as they expected that F., with
such a fine chateau, would have, if not Borzois in
attendance, at least Alsatians or something rather
grand.

I worked in the morning and afterwards we sat
in the sun and drank cocktails till lunch. The
cook was a fat Frenchwoman and I have never eaten
so much or such good food. I felt myself growing
fatter every day, which indeed I was. I am afraid
that I slept generally during the afternoon. Every
evening I insisted on putting on one of my nine
evening-dresses, and had great pleasure in sweeping
up and down the wide staircase and imagining that
I was rich. F. would put his head out of his sitting-
room now and then and hand out instructions on
the subject of deportment. F. and R. never worried
about changing and generally had dinner in their
ordinary clothes and espadrilles. After dinner we
sat in a little room which has now, I believe, a
mosaic floor designed by Picasso. F. would discourse
on life and the beastliness of the human race and
R. and I would listen. Once I inadvertently men-




tioned my admiration for Marie BashkirtsefF as a
person, and was so shaken by the torrent of abuse
that I received from F., that I had recourse to the
brandy-bottle for a few minutes to recover. I think,
and still do, that F. is the most intelligent person that
I have ever met. He seemed to have read everything
that had ever existed. I had the sense to make notes
of many of his views and of all the books that he men
tioned, all of which I shall certainly not live long
enough to read. We read Fantomas, that series of
French cc bloods " in forty-two volumes, all of which
Max Jacob and Cocteau have read. F. drew most
beautifully and did two paintings of me which
he never actually finished because he decided that
he could not attain to the perfection of his original
conception. He might have been a great artist if
he had not been so intelligent and so critical. R.
was a portrait painter of considerable talent and had
had a good deal of success in Paris and, in fact, had
made quite a lot of money, but being so far from
anywhere and managing the estate, he did not paint
very much.

We motored into Cannes one morning to do some
shopping and have some cocktails at a large hotel
on the Promenade. It was filled with English and
Americans; one could easily pick out the English as
they all sat with small bottles of champagne in front
of them instead of cocktails, a habit of which I
thoroughly approved. F. heard from Francis
Poulenc to say that he was coming to Cannes to stay
with his Tante Lena, who was eighty, and F.
wrote and asked him to stay with us for a few weeks.



I knew him quite well and was delighted, as he was
most amusing and intelligent, as all Les Six were.
We went to Cannes to fetch him from his Aunt's
house. He had a room next to mine. It was a small
room papered with the most wonderful eighteenth-
century wall-paper, with a landscape continuing all
round the walls. It looked like a Henri Rousseau
and had large snakes and huge trees and alligators
coining out of the water. F. was very proud of
this room as it had a wicker bed. I believe that it
was actually very uncomfortable, but F. showed it
to everyone with great pride.

Poulenc composed all the morning; I painted the
pear-tree and F. came and gave first Poulenc,
and then myself, advice on our respective arts. It
was delightful to paint in the sun and hear pleasant
music at the same time, and I was perfectly happy.
I taught Poulenc some of my songs, which he in
vented accompaniments to, and I sang them some
times to the French people who visited us. Poulenc
was terrified of birds and one morning, at about five
o'clock, I heard a knock on my door, and there was
Poulenc, who said, " Venez ici y faipeur" and under
the water-pipes of his room was a fluttering sparrow,
which he could not bear to pick up. I put my hand
underneath and took it out and threw it out of the
window. By this time the cook, who slept under
neath, had heard voices and poked her head out of
the window. She looked up in astonishment and
saw our frightened faces and the fluttering spar
row.

We went to Grasse one day and found Nicole





Groult, the dressmaker, and Madame Jasmy van
Dongen. They arranged a luncheon-party at the
hotel, which we went to. There were only French
people present and we had a wonderful time.
Poulenc and I found some gambling machines in the
bar of the hotel and proceeded to lose francs until
we were dragged away by F. and R. Grasse is
a dreadful place and smells of bad scent. I asked
Poulenc to sit for me, which he did, for an hour
every day. I thought that he should wear a button
hole, and we all walked round the estate to choose
a flower of a suitable colour. The ground was
covered with wild anemones of all colours and I
chose a pinkish purple one, which looked well on a
grey-green suit. The portrait was a very good like
ness but a drawing I did I liked better. The drawing
was reproduced in the Burlington Magazine some years
ago, with one of Auric also.

Madame Porel, the daughter-in-law of Rejane,
came to lunch one day. She was very chic and very
nice. Harry Melvill was staying in Cannes at the
time and came over frequently to see us. One day
he came to lunch and said that he had just been to
see Monsieur Patou, the dressmaker, and that Mon
sieur Patou had been talking about the Queen. We
asked what he had said, and Harry said, " He said
that the Queen was forty-seven, and I said, c But
Monsieur Patou, the Queen must be more than
forty-seven/ and Monsieur Patou said, c I am not
talking about her age, I am talking about her
bust. 3 " When Harry talked about the happenings
of the evening before, or the present time, he was







very funny, but he had a large stock of old stories
that got a little wearying after a time.

My birthday is on the same day as F.'s, but
he is older than I am. It is Valentine's day, the
fourteenth of February, and he arranged a birthday
party. We asked Harry Melvill, a French Countess
and her husband, and a tall and distinguished
Englishwoman who was staying at Cannes, and we
hired a waiter from the hotel at Grasse. The waiter
proved to be quite mad and very inefficient.
Speeches were made and we drank a magnum of
champagne and walked and talked in the garden
afterwards. One day we went to Nice to see
Monsieur Gentilhomme, the tailor.20s french oxfords
 We went to
Vogade's, where we found Honegger and Stravin
sky. Stravinsky had to be fitted at the tailor's and
we all went round there, where he was to meet his
wife and children. He had with him two little
pictures that he had just had framed. They were
sewn in needlework and designed by his two small
daughters. They were very beautifully drawn and
he was very proud of them. His eldest son came to
meet him with his Mother. F., R., and I went back
to Vogade's and talked to Honegger. We asked
Stravinsky and his wife to lunch with us at Faletto's,
a restaurant on the road from Nice to Monte
Carlo, in a week's time. A few days later a motor
car arrived at our house and Stravinsky and his
son appeared. This was before dinner. We always
had a tin of caviare presse which I had to spread
thinly on toast. Stravinsky seized a spoon and
dug spoonfuls out of the tin and then played on





our harmonium the fair tune out of Petrouchka.
They stayed to dinner, Stravinsky sat beside me and
presented me with a glass cigarette holder.

Picabia, the Dadaist, lived not far away from us
and we went with Harry Melvill to his house. The
house was so full of things, ornaments, pictures,
furniture, that it was almost impossible to move
without upsetting something. He came to lunch
with us and brought with him Marthe Chenal, the
famous opera-singer. She sang the c c Marseillaise ' * on
the steps of the Madeleine during the War, and had
a wonderful voice. She was the most magnificent-
looking creature, very tall, with a wonderful figure
and a beautiful and very animated face, with curious
purplish-red Medusa-like curls all over her head.
Poulenc tried to induce her to sing, but she would
not, but asked us all to a box at the Casino at
Cannes, where she was playing cc Carmen." Poulenc
sang his latest songs which were composed for the
words of some old and rather naughty French
poems of the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
which delighted Chenal, and I was finally induced
to sing my sailor songs which Poulenc played for me.
Poulenc's Tante Lena was invited to the Opera also
and asked us if we would like to come and dress
at her flat at Cannes. She was the sweetest old lady
I have ever met, very active and talkative, and was
so kind and nice to me, treating me as if I wasayoung
thing of twenty. She came and brushed my hair
and helped me to dress and we all went to the
Cafe de Paris and dined. I really did feel like a
jeune file being chaperoned and out for the first









time. I wore a magnificent white dress with white
beads on it, very long. My hair was cut quite short
with two side whiskers, known by the apaches as
Rouflaquettes. I had enormous pearl earrings, a
large pearl ring, and a very good imitation gold
chain bracelet, all of which had been given to me
by R., F., and Poulenc one day, when they left
me alone at the Cafe de Paris, and went out and
showered false jewellery upon me, with which I
was delighted; and they really looked magnificent
with my fine dress. Chenal was a splendid actress,
but looked really almost too big for the stage.
Afterwards we went to the Casino and had supper
with Ghenal and Picabia and his wife and several
other people. I induced Picabia to dance. He
assured me that he had never done so before, but
he got round somehow. He was much shorter than
I was, and rather fat.

Chenal hired a motor-boat sometimes and took
her friends to the smaller of the two islands opposite
Cannes, called St. Marguerite. She invited us all to
lunch with her one day. F. was not feeling well and
so Poulenc and I went off in the car together. We
had to meet at a small cafe and had to explain that
F. could not come. One motor went back and
Poulenc and I got into ChenaFs Hispano-Suiza,
which was very large and grand. There were
Picabia and Gaby and two other people. It was a
beautiful day and very hot. On the island is a little
restaurant by the sea and under some trees we had
the spfaialiti de la maison, which was lobsters done
in a special way. Everyone was French except 



myself. From St. Marguerite we could see In the
distance, in the Golfe Juan, some warships. We were
told that they were English. After lunch we visited
a monastery and then took our motor-boat. Ghenal
suggested that as we had plenty of time we should
return by the Golf Juan and visit the warships. The
first one had not a visitors 5 day, but the second one
was the " Royal Oak," and we climbed up the side.
A petty officer said to a sailor who had helped us up,
" Do they speak English? " And I said, " I am
English," whereupon they were delighted. So were
my friends, and we saw all over the gun-room and
climbed up and down ladders. When we got to
Cannes we went to the Casino. One can play boule
without a special ticket, but for the roulette and
more serious gambling rooms one has to have one.
Chenal was charming and bought me a season ticket
for a month, not that I ever gambled, but it was
most thrilling to watch the faces of the Greeks and
serious old ladies at the most serious table of all,
where the chips on the table staggered me. We
saw the ex-King of Portugal. We had to wait
a little before the really serious table started. On
each place is a card with a name on it, and I saw
the names of several very well-known people.
Eventually the table filled up. There was a very
smart old lady with a large hat covered in flowers.
She had the most sinister face I have ever seen, and
completely expressionless. There were two elderly
Englishwomen, who looked like governesses, and had
piles of chips in front of them. Poulenc played
boule, I did not play anything, but continued to





watch the roulette. Our motor came to fetch us,
and Poulenc and I drove back to the Chateau.

The next day we had arranged to meet Stravinsky,
who was to have lunch with us at Faletto's