LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER I VERY EARLY DAYS
ONE morning towards the end of the year 18893 a
lady who lived in a terrace of houses on the top of a
high rock surrounded by battlements descended into
the kitchen to order the food for the day. She was
in a few months' time to have a child. She was
suddenly seized with a strong feeling that she must
come upstairs, cross the garden and look down on
the seashore. The impulse became so strong that
she went upstairs, crossed the garden and looked
over the battlements. Standing on the shore far
below was a man with dark hypnotic eyes. This
man,, whenever he saw her, stared at her in a way
that frightened her; he had lived a long time in the
East.
The child she was about to bear was myself. I
have often wondered if that man hypnotized her in
any way that may afterwards have affected me or
induced me to start on a career that was so different
from that of my family or my upbringing. On
February the fourteenth, 1890, I was born.
Everybody was furious, especially my Father, who
still is. As soon as I became conscious of anything
I was furious too, at having been born a girl; I have
since discovered that it has certain advantages. My
first recollection of anything is walking downstairs,
step by step, to join a little boy who was standing at
LAUGHING TORSO
the bottom of the stairs holding out a china vase
with pink and blue flowers on it. That was my
second birthday- We then went to Saltash, where,
seated on the front doorstep one day, I went for a
walk with a strange lady and was later discovered
by my nurse all dressed in white chasing a flock of
sheep down a hillside followed by an angry shepherd.
At this time my brother was born, and as everyone
was very much occupied I had a good time rooting
up all the carnations in the front garden that my
Father, whom I dislited, had recently planted,
Next door lived a boy of about six. I spent much
time trying to pull him through the wire-netting
which separated our gardens, but without success;
he is now, I believe, a Brigadier-General in the
Royal Engineers. We then went to York. I was
taken out one evening in my nursc s s arms to sec the
Duke and Duchess of York driving through the
streets and was thrilled by the lights and the crowd;
this was their honeymoon visit to York. They are
now King George and Qpieen Mary*
There was a lunatic asylum next door and some
times a fair; the noise of the fair and the lunatics
kept us awake at night. On Christmas Day I was
given a glass of champagne, which gave me a
pleasant and gay feeling* I was then sent back to
Tenby and to my Grandmother, who was the most
stupid and sentimental of women and loathed my
Father, I was free and allowed to do as 1 liked. I
rode every day on a donkey, accompanied by a
donkey-boy and my nurse. I liked the donkey-boy,
but the nurse and lie talked all the time. 1 felt the
MYSELF AT SALTASH
VERY EARLY DAYS
terrible misery of being so young and ignorant and
having no conversational powers: I decided that
something must be done to improve things. I fell in
love with a little boy of seven and ran all over the
town after him saying, " Tony, I will kiss you/ 3 but
I never caught him. Many years later, when I was
eleven I was asked to a party and everyone said,
cc Aren't you going to kiss Tony? " and we both
nearly died of shame. He is to-day a successful
rancher in South America. I was now four, and had
the first feeling of shame. I spent most of my time
writing stories and drawing. I wore socks, and one
day my Grandmother said, cc You are too big to
wear socks and people will think it shameful and
will stare at you. 5 ' I hung my head and blushed
and had to wear black woollen stockings. A birth
day party was given for me and I was given an
oyster to taste; I spat it on the floor and was
carried out screaming. I objected to girls, and was
asked to a refined Christmas tree party where I was
given a beautiful pink doll. I made so much disturb
ance that I was taken home at once in the Bath
chair that always took us to parties.
There was a woman with a horrible face who
passed the house every morning; I always waited
for her to poke my tongue out and make grimaces;
I found out later that she was a Sunday School
teacher. She complained to my Grandmother, who
had me locked into a back room during the time
she passed the window. Life with my Grandmother
was, on the whole, too easy, and, finding my be
haviour impossible to cope with, she sent me to
3
LAUGHING TORSO
Chatham to my Father. There, I had a donkey to
ride on which was kept in the barracks and all was
well until the soldier servant gave her oatmeal that
had not been soaked and she swelled up and burst
and I was very sad.
Life at Chatham was not pleasant. My Grand
mother arrived and then there was one perpetual
argument as to how I was to be brought up, violent
arguments that nearly came to blows; one particu
larly awful moment when I locked myself into the
W.C. and the battle raged in the passage outside.
There was a picture of Lord Nelson when young, a
coloured plate from the Illustrated London News, on
the wall that I had to gaze at trembling. I think I
could draw that picture now. The only friendly
person in the house was the soldier servant whom
I would grab whenever he came into the nursery
and tie him to a chair with a skipping rope. My
Father was selfish and bad-tempered and beat me.
I must admit that I was a dreadful child but 1
think he rather overdid it. He had a bag of bam
boo canes which were sent to him from India,
If I had behaved badly during the morning I was
locked into his dressing-room to wait for him to
come home. How I hate still the smell of shaving
soap and pomade. When he arrived, he made a
noise like a hungry lion, took the bag of canes, and
tried each one out on his hand to see which was the
most effective, then as I skipped about and screamed
he would cut me on the legs or anywhere he could,
I had to go to bed on one occasion as my legs were
cut and bleeding; such was the Spartan upbringing
4
VERY EARLY DAYS
of the 'nineties. A large doll was brought for me
with a view to instilling some feminine feeling into
me, but being of an imitative disposition I placed its
head in the fire-place with its legs sticking over the
nursery fender, stole one of my father's bamboo
canes, turned up its skirts, and beat it so that its
head was battered on the grate; it was mended but
as this occurred again and again the family gave it
up. One nursemaid left after another. A very tall
one came and I found that her white apron made a
very nice slide, so she went too.
We went to the grand review on the Lines; I sat
beside the coachman. In the carriage was my
Mother, my Grandmother, an old lady and an old
gentleman. The ladies wore hats like birds'-nests.
When the guns went off I gave a loud howl and fell
backwards into the carriage on to the birds'-nests.
I was left at home next time.
In 1898 my Father was sent to Belfast where we
had a house near the Ormeau Road. I was sent
out one Saturday evening to fetch a medicine glass
as my sister was ill and the servants had gone out.
It was a terrifying experience, every house seemed
to be a pub and outside lying against the barrels of
whisky were drunken men and women: I had to
dodge them and wind my way through them.
I and my brother went to an Irish mixed school,
we were regarded as foreigners, and as I did not feel
able to deal with the pupils I did my best to have
my revenge on the music mistress who, poor woman,
had a miserable time and probably still hates the
English. In Belfast I first felt real affection. An
LAUGHING TORSO
Irish lady my family knew had three little girls; I
stayed with them as often as I could escape from
home and was really happy.
When we left Ireland I had to be carried on to the
boat wailing loudly with misery. We went back to
Tenby and my parents went to Malta, leaving me
with my Grandmother. I spent most of my time
and money on fishing; I sat daily on the end of the
old pier alone with a line and caught pollack and
sometimes sprats which were generally too small to
cook. One day I met a butcher boy whose face I
had never liked, so I kicked his tray of meat over and
hit him in the stomach; I was rescued by two nuns
and taken home to my infuriated Grandmother. I
made friends with bathing-machine boys whom I
found sympathetic and a pleasant change from
home life. I learnt the pleasing expression of
" Bloody b r " from them, which I found acted
very effectively on a nasty park keeper* I also had
a dispute with my Grandmother who locked me
into a bedroom and spoke about the devil, so I
threw a basin, a jerry, a jug and two bananas out of
the window and knocked her down. Every day I
rode on a fat pony kept by the sweep but I only
rode it because I liked the sweep, who was a nice
kindly old man and not because of his pony, which
was old and fat-
PRIVATE ACADEMY
CHAPTER II THE CALMING INFLUENCE OF THE
PRIVATE ACADEMY FOR YOUNG LADIES
ONE day a grim aunt appeared; she said that
boarding school was the only place for me, so I
was sent to a high-class Academy for young Ladies
at Westgate-on-Sea. I was plunged in gloom. My
Father wrote quoting from Thackeray, I can't re
member the exact quotation, but it was about the
boy who was sad at school, not because he was sorry
to leave his parents, but because the school was a
very uncomfortable place. He was right, but it
pained me at the time and I did miss the bathing-
machine boys. My Grandmother had fitted me out
in a splendid manner. I had a bag with my initials
on it, a writing-case from the Army and Navy Stores
with initials too, and a fine Bible with large print
handsomely bound in leather with my name in gold.
I was thrilled to see my name in print. I shared a
room with another girl. Apart from her beautiful
red hair which was curly and hung down to her
waist, I decided that she was the same kind of gutless
half-wit as the rest of the sex. I cried all that night
and she cried too. I cried, mostly from rage and a
feeling of being caged in: she cried because she
loved her parents. I cried daily for a week.
On Sunday we went to church. The altar walls
and ceiling were painted blue with silver stars; after
gazing at the stars during the sermon I had an idea*
" Why not run away? " At seven-thirty the next
morning I saw that my room-mate was still asleep;
7
LAUGHING TORSO
I looked round the room and saw the Bible with my
initials in gold; I put it under one arm and a pair
of indoor slippers under the other. I took seven and
sixpence which was my pocket money for some time,
climbed over the garden wall, and started in the
direction of the station. I must have been rather a
noticeable figure at that hour as I had the school
colours on my hat, I got to the station and asked
about the trains to London, where my Grandmother
was staying. By this time I had worked up a con
siderable amount of affection for her. Alas! no
trains for an hour and a half; what should I do?
I took a road behind the station. I passed by a
farmyard and looked through the iron gates. I saw
chickens and pigs feeding. I felt awfully hungry
and envied them. I passed a road of villas and
could sec the detested bourgeois eating eggs and bacon
through the lace curtains* I came to a field of
turnips and sat down on the roadside, I had heard
that turnips were good to eat so I chipped a bit off
one and found it extremely disagreeable, I thought
that it must be nearly time for the train to go and
got up to walk on 3 suddenly a hand was laid on my
shoulder: the HEAD MISTRESS!
The mistresses three sisters were charming and
very intelligent women, and although I won a prize
for writing an essay on a play of Shakespeare's, my
performances in the schoolroom were far from satis
factory. I was by this time quite resigned to my
fate and began rather to enjoy it. In the winter
term I overheard a discussion on theatricals and to
my joy was told that the theatre was to be hired for
8
PRIVATE ACADEMY
two nights and that I was to play the leading part
in Jack and the Beanstalk. " Fame at last." I danced
extremely well. The most brilliant pupil was a
child often, my own age, with blue eyes and short
golden hair, a relation of the mistresses, who was
very conceited and was furious that she was not
given the leading part. I met her in Paris a few years
ago. It still rankled. Like most blondes later in
life, she resembled instead of a ripe fruit or flower,
those pale faded waxen fruits and flowers in Vic
torian glass cases. Blondes should dye their hair and
paint "their faces or get married and have children.
Rehearsing was fun and the costumes were made
by the mistresses and the great night came. I wore
red tights and high-heeled red shoes and a little cap
with a feather and felt that I was about to conquer
the world. I went through my part and climbed
the beanstalk a rope covered in leaves which hung
over a beam and was held by two old gentlemen in
the wings. I was very well received, I danced a
hornpipe and brought the house down. I was called
for over and over again. The only time I shall know
what real Fame is, to stand in front of an enthu
siastic and cheering audience. Some rich people
wanted to get me an engagement in London and
others to dance at concerts but alas! my family
again. " Ladies do not go on the stage." I was
furious, besides a lady was the last thing that I
wanted to be.
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER III AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL
MY family had decided that the school at West-
gate was very expensive and decided to get votes for
me to go to the Royal School, Bath; this was for
officers' daughters; it meant passing a rather stiff
exam., so I returned to Tenby. My Father was in
South Africa at the War, so things looked good.
Some nice little boys and I organized an army with
a view to beating up some members of the lower
classes who had taken exception to us. They des
pised girls but said that I and a girl friend of mine,
the only one who was not a fool that I could find,
could join, provided that we put red crosses on our
arms and attended to the wounded, which we had
to do after the first encounter. Our army went out
on the prowl every Sunday* One day we marched
out on to the sand dunes. We approached a high
rock and to our horror when we got near we were
bombarded with huge stones and large lumps of
turf; we were forced to retreat. One day the
enemy appeared unexpectedly. My noble army all
ran away and left me. They tied my hands behind
my back with rope and marched me back triumph
antly through the streets where I met my Grand
mother!
We had a charming milkman who had a milk cart
with big cans which I could hide behind when I did
the rounds with him and saw any undesirables
about*
My Brother's school had just started a girls 5 class,
10
MYSELF AND MY BROTHER IN FANCY DRESS
TENBY, 1899
AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL
so I was sent there. The Headmaster's wife was
terrifying but kind and intelligent. I could not do
arithmetic, so cried with rage whilst she roared at
me.
The Headmaster appeared from time to time and
when my sums were shown to him he would ex
claim " Moly Hoses! " which we thought very dash
ing and clever. My friend who wore the red cross
in our ill-fated army was brilliant at arithmetic and
what was my astonishment when one day in the
middle of an impossible sum the Mistress glared at
my friend and pointing to me said, " She has more
brains in her little finger than you have in your
whole body." That gave me confidence in myself
and I took to writing stories. I could never arrive
at any satisfactory result as I never could think of
anything to write about and had to console myself
with doing drawings, which I considered to be an
inferior art. I passed the examination with honours,
I think principally on my viva voce examination in
scripture. I was examined by a charming and
sympathetic Welsh clergyman who found my views
on the Bible quite unusual.
Every Saturday since I can remember, my
Grandmother insisted on my accompanying her to
the cemetery to visit the tomb of my Grandfather.
She was of a sentimental disposition and lived only
for the dead. It was a dismal proceeding. I had to
fill the iron anchor and cross with water and arrange
the flowers. After a speech about death and the
uselessness of living, we went home. The flowers
chosen were often " Stars of Bethlehem/ 5 which
ii
LAUGHING TORSO
smelt strongly of onions: it seemed an odd way of
demonstrating one's affection and I was glad that
the dead had lost their sense of smell.
My Grandfather was a remarkable man and if he
had only lived he died in i893~-we would all not
have got into so much trouble. Any artistic talent
that I have I inherited from him. He 'was a naval
officer and did all the surveying in the 'seven
ties of Heligoland, Western Wales, and Western
Australia. He drew all the maps himself with
beautiful drawings of islands and little landscapes.
I believe that they are still in use at the Admiralty,
In those days naval officers took their wives and
families with them when they went abroad. They
sailed to Australia in a sailing ship with two masts;
this took three months, Perth was then a convict
settlement and all the servants were convicts. My
Grandfather bought for a few hundred pounds land
that is now the main street of Perth; he sold it; for
a few thousand pounds. When they sailed back
there was a terrible storm and one mast was washed
overboard and they knelt down and said their
prayers; a shark followed the ship and the second
mate went mad and jumped overboard. They got
home safely, however. My Grandmother was a
Canadian and was one of three very beautiful
sisters; she met my Grandfather when he was in
Canada with his ship and married him. One of her
ancestors was Joseph Howe, who federated the
Canadian States and had a dispute with Mr.
Gladstone, wfio was forced to apologize (Dictionary
of National Biography], She had many ancestors; in
12
AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL
fact there was no end to the ancestors who came
over on that very overcrowded ship, the <c May
flower/ 3 She was what the Americans would de
scribe as " dumb. 55
From here I went to Bath. This was very
different from my private school; there were a
hundred and fifty girls and I was delighted with
it: the girls complained bitterly that it was a
charity institution; the only advantage being that
we were not made to wear uniforms and be com
pletely like workhouse inmates.
My first term I won the foreign languages prize
because I had had the verb " To be " and the verb
" To have " dinned into my head for two years. I
had no particular talent for languages. I drew
maps for a friend of mine and she did my arithmetic.
At Christmas I played the " Mad Hatter " in Alice
in Wonderland, and had a great success; the Arch
deacon of Bath always sent his old top hats to the
school for theatricals, so I wore one. One day
during preparation someone handed me a copy of
Edward Lear's Nonsense Rhymes. I thought them so
funny and made such a disturbance that I was sent
out. A friend and I started to write a magazine
together, I doing the illustrations, having abandoned
writing. This was stopped as it was considered un
conventional. Bath made me horribly ill and de
pressed; I developed glands and had to stay at home
for a term.
My family were at Portsmouth waiting for the
return of my Father from South Africa and I was
sent to the Portsmouth School of Art. This was in
LAUGHING TORSO
1903. I was given coloured pictures of Venice to
copy in water-colours; it bored me after a time and
so I used to wander about the Art School. I found
a passage, on the walls of which were nude studies
done by the students which fired me with enthu
siasm. I found myself in the Antique Room with
white plaster casts of Venus, Hercules, and the
Dancing Faun. I had an irresistible desire to get a
hammer and chip off the plaster fig leaves that
seemed to me to be ugly and silly.
I met at this time a family who were very kind to
me. The sister had hair nearly down to the ground,
reddish gold and most beautiful. She had a wonder
ful voice and used to act in amateur theatricals; she
was always getting engaged to naval officers but
none of them came up to her ideal I believe she is
still a maiden. Her family would not allow her to
become a singer notwithstanding the fact that they
were almost penniless; because ec Ladies did not go
on the stage." She would probably have become a
famous singer. I fell in love with her brother
Morris who was nineteen, six foot three, and a dream
of beauty. He was in the Rifle Brigade and looked
magnificent in his uniform. I stayed with them
sometimes when my family went to London, and as
his sister sat each evening with me when I was in
bed and talked about life he would rush into the
room and fire a revolver out of the window. This
seemed to me the height of daring and manliness.
One day he invited me to go for a drive in a horse
trap of the American pattern that one sees in old
cowboy films. It had big spidery wheels and held
14
AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL
two people. We drove to Portsdown Hill. He put
his arm along the back of the seat, I was terrified.
My Father had warned me that one should " Never
let a man touch you "; I did not know what he
meant but I sat straight up on the end of the seat
until the arm was removed. I was sadly disillu
sioned the following Christmas ? when we had moved
to Plymouth. A photograph album was sent to me
and inside was written, cc Nina with love from
Morris/ 5 but it was in his sister's handwriting. He
is now the father of a large family.
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER IV I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
IN 1 905 my throat was so bad that I had to leave
school, which I did, shedding a tear on the Head
mistress's shoulder. My Father was stationed in
Dublin opposite Guinness's Brewery, and I was sent
to the Dublin S.chool of Art. I liked the Irish, they
were free, easy, and amiable, I was known as
cc the foreigner. 3 ' I drew extremely well and the
other students came round to admire my drawing.
I did a charcoal drawing of the head of Michael
Angelo's " David," half life size, the curls nearly
killed me but I was very proud of it and took it home
triumphantly. My Father then went to the Curragh
Gamp where I had a splendid time and hunted witli
the Kildarc. I had to ride the army horses, which
had very hard mouths, but I rode well and did not
mind*
Then the crash came and my Father ruined the
family. We crept away one night in a jaunting car
along the wet and lonely roads. We were not feeling
very cheerful and the only vehicle we met was
another car with a coffin on it. My Grandmother
had a big flat at Chiswkk and she and my Father
fought daily as they tried to plan out our future,
This was in 1905. My Father said to mc s < Now
you must earn your own living. I believe that it is
quite respectable for ladies to study to become
clerks in the Post Office/ 9 I was sent to the Regent
Street Polytechnic, the commercial side. The
Headmaster was a Yorkshireman and an old beast.
16
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
The students were mostly board-school children
whose talent for adding up and doing sums stag
gered me. I gave one look of despair at the figures
and took to drawing on the blotting paper. At the
end of the term the Headmaster told my Father that
I was a hopeless case and quite incapable of getting
on in any walk of life. As I persisted in drawing, my
Grandmother decided to send me to an Art School.
About this time I was confirmed. I never knew
quite why or what it was all about, but I was sent
alone to a very sympathetic clergyman. We
prayed together and I had to write an essay on one's
Duty to one's Parents. This I did so well and filled
it with such noble and pious sentiments that he told
my Grandmother that I had something of a real
Saint in my disposition. It occurred to me that if
leg-pulling was as easy as all that the future might
not be so bad. I was dressed in white and taken to
a church at Ghiswick where the Bishop of London
confirmed me.
Some friends of my Grandmother's knew A. B.
Cull, now a famous marine artist; he said that five
years' free education was to be had at the Royal
Academy Schools. He had just finished the course
there himself. The examination was difficult and
he said that once having passed the examination
one's artistic future was easy! I was sent to prepare
for this exam, at the Pelham School of Art in South
Kensington. The students were very refined and
snobbish, the girls were mostly of well- to-do families
who, I think, sent their daughters there to await the
happy moment when they would find husbands. I
17
LAUGHING TORSO
was deadly serious and determined to get on. The
old man who kept the school was a sweet old
Scotsman who painted curious pictures of High
landers and romantic scenes at dawn. They did not
seem to me to mean very much, I drew from the
antique with energy. Mr. Cope, now Sir Arthur,
conducted the life class. He used to roar, " Line!
Line! " at the young ladies and they would burst
into tears.
I lived at the flat at Ghiswick with my Grand
mother. I wore a stiff linen collar and tie and cor
sets with bones in them, A few years later I cast
them aside. My Grandmother and an elderly
cousin said that it was indecent and disgraceful and
women's backs were not strong enough to support
themselves; I am now forty-one and my backbone
has not yet crumpled up.
In the flat underneath lived a very charming
family. They knew H, M Batcman, which thrilled
me, and I would go down in the evenings and hear
about the great man, of whom I am still a very great
admirer. One of the sons, Charlie, was a medical
student. I fell violently in love with him* I was
ugly and shy, and he used to take beautiful and
well-dressed girls to dances. This made me sad, 1
was studying Anatomy at the time and going to
lectures at the Royal Academy, The grand passion
gave me such interest in Anatomy that 1 learnt and
knew by heart every muscle and its attachment. I
borrowed his bones, a skull, a backbone, and a
chain of vertebrae on a string which hung over the
end of my bed at night. I placed the skull affection-
18
MYSELF AT SEVENTEEN
1907
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
ately on the table at my bedside. My Grandmother
thought that I was mad. Poor Charlie! he is now
dead.
I was now sixteen. I drew from the nude at the
Art School, but I had never dared to look at myself
in the mirror, for my Grandmother had always
insisted that one dressed and undressed under one's
nightdress using it as a kind of tent. One day, feel
ing very bold, I took off all my clothes and gazed
in the looking-glass. I Vas delighted. I was much
superior to anything I had seen in the life class and
I got a book and began to draw.
I went away for the summer to Margate and
painted four water-colour landscapes, for which I
got a silver medal at Christmas.
A girl student one day gave me a small book by
Camille Mauclair on the French Impressionists;
I thought they were most interesting and so different
from Highlanders in action.
I travelled home one day in the same carriage as
a girl who had won the gold medal at the Royal
Academy Schools for portrait painting. I was much
impressed at first but bitterly disillusioned when I
showed her the book and found that she had never
heard of Edouard Manet.
One of our students had found a Sketch Class
where clothed models, workpeople, and interesting
character models posed from five till seven. It was
at the London School of Art, where John Swan, the
animal painter, and Frank Brangwyn were the pro
fessors, and Joseph Simpson took the sketch class.
Simpson was a brilliant caricaturist and draughts-
LAUGHING TORSO
man. I went along with her and when I got there
I knew for certain that the Royal Academy was no
place for me and decided at all costs to leave
Pelham Street. This was not so easy, as my Grand
mother was thinking of the five years' free education
at the Royal Academy Schools rather than my
artistic development.
I wrote to Mr. George Clausen, the Academician,
who occasionally gave criticisms at Pelham Street.
I went with some of my drawings to his studio in St.
John's Wood. He was very encouraging and sym
pathetic and when I asked his opinion on the
advisability of going to the London School of Art
he seemed to think that it was a good idea. The
result was that my Grandmother was induced to
pay my fees for a short time.
The next term I went to * c Brangwyns," as we
called it.
Here at last was paradise. It was run as a French
Academy. The class had a Massier who posed the
models and the professor came once a week,
Swan was a remarkable personality and was very
hard to please. One day a negro model was posing
and I was doing a large drawing in charcoal Swan
appeared and saicl ? cc Go and wash your hands and
face and if you can draw like that you are all right/ 9
Most of the students imitated Brangwyn and their
work was atrocious, They imitated his mannerisms
instead of learning from his real qualities. He was
not a good professor* he had too much personality
to teach well*
Later George Lambert and William Nicholson
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
were the professors. Nicholson always wore a white
duck suit, with a spotted tie and socks to match, and
came on a push bike.
As we decorated the walls wnh palette scrapings I
am afraid he never left as spotless as he arrived. He
taught still life. We began with a white plate and a
stout bottle with some white drapery against a grey
wall. Nicholson always said when he saw a some
what shaky plate, u Draw the plate round, it looks
more professional/ 3 so he got a pair of compasses.
He was an excellent teacher.
George Lambert was the best professor I have
ever had. He drew beautifully and took endless
pains over anyone whom he thought had talent.
Lambert took a whole morning painting a leg for
me.
Everyone was terrified of Swan and we all ran like
rabbits when we saw him coming. One bold
student wrote on the door of his Life Glass, " Aban
don hope all ye who enter here/ 5 but as it was high
up I don't think he ever saw it.
A girl who was with me at Brangwyns had a room
in Chelsea and we shared models. She and her
brother Henry Savage knew Richard Middleton, the
poet, very well. I found her extremely interesting.
She was very well read and talked a great deal about
people like Frank Harris and Edward Thomas and
we wallowed in the " Shropshire Lad " and the
poems of John Davidson.
Wilenski, the critic, was a student there too. He
wore a large sombrero and a black cloak and carried
a silver-headed stick. He had studied abroad and
21
LAUGHING TORSO
painted purple and green studies and was the ad
miration of the whole school, but we were rather
frightened of him and regarded him as a superior
being who understood the mysteries of life. Jan
Gordon was there also.
One day there came to the school a strange young
man with a funny hat made of cloth in the pattern
of an American sailor's hat. He had a long nose
and stuttered. He was at once named cc The
Genius/ 3 He certainly had talent. I fell in love
with him. I used to visit him in Chelsea; we were
very pure.
I used to come home late at night. My Father
screamed about virtue. We were only too virtuous.
He kissed me one day. We read d'Annunzio. I
wished I were older, I bought a large black hat
like a coal-scuttle and a dress with a slight train
and tried to feel fatal,
We went to the Coliseum to see Sarah Bernhardt
We Imagined that we were greater than all the
lovers in history. We remained pure because I
don*t think he quite knew what to do about it, any
way he lacked Initiative and so nothing happened,
We drank crimede~menth* and felt really devilish.
He painted a picture of me lying on a sofa with
an out-stretched hand like a fork, 1 forget what It
represented; I think one of the phases of the soul
I was convinced that I had a fatal and hopeless
passion.
About this time I met Arthur Ransome who had
written a book called Bohemia in London, I walked
into a friend's room and a man in knickerbockers,,
22
MYSELF TO-DAY
1932
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
with a very large moustache, was there. He pro
duced a flute from his pocket and I danced. We
were later introduced. This was Ransome. I
went to his flat one day; as he opened the door
there was an awful smell of shag and beer. Ransome
said, " I am awfully sorry but a friend of mine, a
gipsy, arrived here with his donkey-cart filled with
ferns which he hawks round. I have not seen him
for years. " Ransome invited him in and they
talked Romany, drank beer, and smoked shag.
Later, when they came out, the donkey-cart had
been taken to the police station.
Ransome was editing a series of translations of
short stories by foreign authors. One day he asked
me to dine with him at the " Good Intent," on
Chelsea Embankment, he was meeting a young man
who was in Fleet Street. I was much impressed as
I had just read The Street of Adventure, by Philip
Gibbs. The young man was Hugh Walpole. They
talked and I listened and felt that life had really
begun.
Nineteen hundred and nine. A very talented girl
at the Art School, who had been born and brought
up in Russia, asked me to spend the summer vacation
with her family. I was delighted and took the last ten
pounds out of the savings bank and we took a ship
from the Millwall Dock to St. Petersburg.
We were given in charge of the Captain, but he
could never find us in the evenings. We discovered
some students in the Second Class with guitars and
23
LAUGHING TORSO
we spent our evenings singing and drinking port.
The farther the ship got away from England the
better I felt, and my Father and my Grandmother
seemed like some nightmare of a forgotten age.
At Kronstadt a steamboat approached filled with
the wildest-looking men dressed in green uniforms,
with high boots, large flowing beards, carrying
swords. These were the Customs officers. They
climbed over the side of the ship and looked through
our things.
When we got to St. Petersburg we drove in a
droshky to my friend's family's flat, a magnificent
apartment with salons and many rooms. The next
day we went to a place on the Gulf of Finland.
This part of Finland is not very beautiful. Nothing
but pine trees and forests. I stayed there for two
months.
For one week they came to Petersburg to show
me the sights.
I went to the first night of the ballet The Sleeping
Beauty. Pavlova was the Premiere Danseme, Karsa-
vina the second, and the Corps de Ballet was wonder
ful. Any one of them would have been a star now,
My friend had two unmarried sisters and they
had two very beautiful Russian friends who were
both unmarried. Every day roses and poems were
brought to the Russian girls by students and young
officers, I was very envious, but they were bored
and sent them away. The students came in their
blue uniforms and talked and talked; they never
seemed to repeat themselves. They all talked
French and most of them English, After their visits
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
we were quite exhausted and they never seemed to
have really said anything at all. We had violent
arguments in the evenings over the respective values
of Dostoievsky and Shakespeare.
A Russian uncle appeared one day, his name was
Alexander. There was a piano in the house called
the Castrule, which is the Russian name for sauce
pan, because it made such an odd noise. Uncle
Alexander sat clown to it after luncheon one day
and played without stopping for eight hours; he
played rather like a barrel organ. He was very
sweet and had an enormous grey beard and steel-
rimmed spectacles.
I went to my first cinema in Finland. There
were no street lamps so we started in a procession
with sticks and Chinese lanterns attached by strings.
We saw the old Italian funny films where cart
wheels dropped off and old ladies were left sitting on
them being whirled round and round.
There was a Kursaal where we were taken and
given one glass of Swedish punch each quite
enough,, as it was very intoxicating and would cer
tainly have gone to our heads. Sometimes they
had fetes and we would dance the Mazurka with Finns
and Russians. That was fun and much better than
Charlestons and jazz dances. The Finns are mostly
very ugly and quick-tempered. One of our friend's
cooks disappeared suddenly and we heard that she
had been displeased with the butcher and had
thrown a large mutton bone at him, doing con
siderable damage, and had been locked up for a
month. There were Northern Lights at night, not
25
LAUGHING TORSO
very strong but most irritating, as one woke up at
one a.m. and thought it was five, and the nights
were interminable.
I learnt a little Russian and was sent out to buy
stamps and cigarettes. In September I sailed from
St. Petersburg. On the boat I met a woman who,
like my friends, had been born and brought up in
Russia, although of English parents. We became
great friends. Her family had cotton mills in
Russia. As I shall explain later she was the means
of my going to Paris.
I would very much have liked to have stayed in
Russia, but there was no chance of an English per
son getting anything to do. The only thing was to
go into a home for decayed gentlewomen and wait
for an opportunity to teach English.
I went back to my Grandmother's and felt ex
tremely discontented. I returned to Brangwyns,
and as my Grandmother refused to pay any more
fees, the manager of the Academy was kind enough
to allow me to work there for nothing on the con
dition that I acted as Massier for the still life class.
We painted onions and potatoes and strawberries*
The braver and better off students painted melons
and pumpkins out of respect for Brangwyn.
I still continued to visit my friend the cc Genius "
and worked in his studio. He was still painting souls
in torture. I did not belong to the imaginative
school of painting, so drew charwomen and small
children,
One day I was in the King's Road, Chelsea, and
someone said, a There goes Augustus John! " In
26
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
19063 when I first went to Pelham Street, I had heard
of him and went to his first Exhibition at the Carfax
Galleries. There were drawings and water-colours
and I was thrilled by them and visited the Exhibi
tion many times. I saw a tall man with a reddish
beard, in a velvet coat and brown trousers, striding
along; he was a splendid-looking fellow and I
followed him down the King's Road keeping a
respectable distance behind. I did not discover
until I met him in 1914 that he came from Tenby
and had had the same German and dancing mistress
as I had had twelve years before.
Epstein lived in Cheyne Walk and I would stand
outside hoping to get a glimpse of him. I saw him
through the window one day.
Life was dull and I knew nobody of any real
interest. I went to the local Public Library and
read everything. I had to find out something about
life at all costs, and in order to meet interesting
people decided that I must not be an ignorant bore.
I went and lived with my family. In the evenings,
when I was reading, my Father would come in and,
seeing reproductions of Whistler etchings on the
wall, would scream, cc Whistler! Ha! Ha! If you
continue this rot I will have you put into a lunatic
asylum/' What with this and my hopeless passion
I became paralyzed. I lost the use of my hands
completely. I was taken to a doctor friend of my
Father's, an unpleasant man who might have been
my Father's twin brother. What I really was suffer
ing from was virginal hysteria and boredom, but this
monster invented a disease called Spinal Adhesion
27
LAUGHING TORSO
and made me lie down for hours. This made me
worse.
I went to Margate with my Mother who I had
really never known before. I found her charming
and we got on very well. I read philosophy and
poetry; my Mother thought that I was overstrain
ing my brain and suggested a little light literature,
Ethel M. Dell, etc, I was horrified and continued
to read Kant, Schopenhauer, and Baudelaire. I got
slightly better and on my return got worse. My
Father had a friend who worked with Dr. Forbes
Winslow and went in for hypnotic suggestion. I
was taken there; he had a medium who went into
a trance, she held my hands and he said to her,
" She has nothing the matter witli her whatever."
The medium then came out of her trance, let go
of my hands, and the doctor said, " What you want
to do is some work, any kind, but occupy your
mind." From that moment I recovered,
A second cousin of mine was an opera singer; he
had sung at Co vent Garden, He had a fine baritone
voice but he was not strong and had to spend most
of his time touring the Colonies with Madame
Albani and singing " Land of Hope and Glory,"
which urged large crowds to a feeling of patriotism
bordering on frenzy. I never liked him; when I
was fifteen he would stare at me in a way that made
me embarrassed. He was at this time Thomas
Beccham's manager and a play called Proud JMaisie,
by Hemmerdc, was running at the Aldwych
Theatre, I wrote to him asking him if he could get
me a job to walk on, I had finished with the Art
28
I BEGIN TO BE AN ARTIST
School and was at home with no money to buy
paints or canvas arid very miserable. My cousin
wrote and asked me to go to his office. To my joy
he said that I could start that night and walk
on in the chorus at ^i a week. I was delighted to
earn i a week at anything, it was a fortune. The
play was an eighteenth-century Scottish play, with
powdered and bewigged ladies, of whom I was one,
and Highlanders in kilts. I thought with a smile of
the old Professor at Pelham Street and his pictures
of Highlanders in action. There was plenty of
action in this play. We had Henry Ainley, Leon
Quartermaine, and Alexander Carlisle in the caste,
a splendid caste, but the play was not a success.
The hero and adored of all the chorus was Leon
Quartermaine; Henry Ainley was quite out of the
picture. My first night I was standing in the wings
and Ainley, seeing a new face, came up to me and,
putting his hand under my chin, tilted up my face,
looked at it, and walked away. I was in a dressing-
room with eleven other girls; they showed me how
to make up and were very kind. The management
provided eleven widcer-work frames to wear under
the dresses and make the panels at the side stick out,
and eleven pairs of white drawers with white lace
on the legs. These hung on a rail. We had to hold
empty golden glasses and sing a drinking song. All
the girls had young men who waited for them.
They brought them flowers and accompanied them
home. I was very much distressed. I had quar
relled with the cc Genius " and had no one at all. At
the end of the week I got my i. At the end of the
29
LAUGHING TORSO
second week the play came to an end. All the
chorus were upset and recommended me to visit
Mr. Blackmore in Garrick Street. It was strange
after my youthful cravings to find myself acting on
the stage of a London theatre, but the glamour had
already worn off, and even two weeks showed me
that I had done well to paint and not to act.
I put on my coal-scuttle hat and the dress with
the train, and sat down in Mr. Blackmore's waiting-
room. There were dowdy-looking painted ladies of
all ages, and a good many rather horsey and beery-
looking men, nothing at all like the present-day
chorus boy. We all waited,, in fact we waited and
waited. After waiting about three weeks, one day a
page boy, who used to come round daily and peer
into our faces, tapped on the window of Mr. Black-
more's office, and as the window was lifted up,
shouted, " A little bit of fluff, sir." I then realized
that if I sat there for forty years I should never be a
** Little Bit of Fluff. 53 I returned to painting, I
worked at home ancl joined the Polytechnic evening
life classes at Turnham Green, A neighbour sat
for me and I did a pastel of her head which was
accepted by the Liverpool Art Gallery.
30
I GOME OF AGE
CHAPTER V I GOME OF AGE
I WAS now twenty-one. I was introduced one day
to a poet. He had long hair. He lived with an
extremely beautiful girl who was an actress. She
had golden eyes and the most perfect eyebrows; she
had long black hair down to her waist. He wrote
hundreds and hundreds of poems to her. She had
plenty of money always. The poet talked of Aleister
Crowley, of whom I had heard a good deal. He
was supposed to be very clever and very wicked. I
was taken to his studio and introduced to him. I
found him extremely intelligent and he did not
strike me as being very bad. He asked me to paint
four panels with signs representing the elements,
earth, air, fire, and water; while I was painting
Fire, apparently the Fire Element escaped, and three
fires started in mysterious ways in the studio on the
same day. It was said that Growley was so wicked
that no young thing could remain alone in the same
room with him in safety. One day I was painting
by the fire and his secretary went out, leaving me
alone with him. He was lying on the hearthrug in
front of the fire asleep. He woke up, stared at me,
and said, " ARE YOU ALONE? " I said, " YES/ 5
and he lay down and went to sleep again. Growley
had some drug from South America; it was quite
harmless and one saw colours. He never offered to
give me any. One day a rich marmalade manu
facturer, who had come to study magic, was given
some. He was stone deaf and was sitting by the
3*
LAUGHING TORSO
fireplace with a dreamy look on his face; he had
just taken some. Every now and then Crowley
would write on a piece of paper, cc What are your
impressions? " and the marmalade manufacturer
wrote, much to Crowley's disgust, cc I see coloured
patterns like the tiles in the Victoria and Albert
Museum."
I visited the poet and the beautiful girl quite often,
She had a big studio in Chelsea. She seemed often
depressed and one day said to me, a I am going
away to-morrow for a long time, perhaps for ever,
come in the morning and I will give you some
clothes/ 5 I was delighted as I had very few clothes.
I felt rather worried about her but did not know
what I could do. The next day I went to the studio.
Outside pinned on the door was an envelope and
inside was the key* I was rather frightened. I
opened the door and inside was a large red curtain.
I hesitated for a moment, terrified; I pulled it aside
and on the sofa she lay dead, with a mother-o'-pearl
revolver and her slippers beside her on the floor.
Her face was quite white and her golden eyes were
half closed. She had placed the revolver to her
chest, inside her dress, and shot herself through her
heart and lungs. I called the caretaker and he
fetched the police. I, of course, had to be a witness.
This depressed me for some time.
The following summer my family went to Margate
for two weeks* I did not want to go, so my Father
gave me two pounds and I took a furnished studio
in Chelsea for ten shillings a week and worked, I
was quite alone, everyone was away, and 1 had no
32
I GOME OF AGE
one to talk to at all for two weeks, but I could work
and was quite happy. About this time my Grand
mother died. Nobody was at all sorry. She had to
be taken back to Ten by to be buried with my Grand
father. The family went to Paddington to see her
off. I found my friend the " Genius " and we ate
ham and drank coffee in the Fulham Road. He
took a room in Charlotte Street and we became
friendly again; the great passion had vanished and
he rather bored me. He talked very much about a
woman older than himself whom he had met in
Cornwall. He had a little picture of hers that I
thought very good. He said that she had a wonder
ful voice and was also very musical. I felt quite
jealous. One day I met her and we became great
friends. The cc Genius " has long since vanished,
but often I see his friend. I am afraid we are un
kind enough to make fun of him.
One day I visited the Chelsea Palace and saw
Fred Karno's Mumming Birds. Then there was a man
who just walked up and down the stage. He did not
speak but he was so funny that the whole house
roared. This man, I found out afterwards, was
Charlie Chaplin, who must have already done a
good many films. At this time two aunts of mine
took pity on me to the extent of providing me with
2S. 6d, a week each to help my artistic career. Also
a girl whom I had met at Brangwyns had a maiden
aunt who suffered from suicidal mania and was certi
fied insane. I taught her painting and cheered her
up considerably; she paid me 5^. a lesson, so I was
quite well off. This poor woman's life had been
33
LAUGHING TORSO
completely ruined by her parents' stupid way of
bringing her up. When she was a girl she was never
even allowed to go to dances, her Father was a
clergyman. She had no friends and at the age of
twenty fell in love with the coachman. There was
a scandal in the village and she never recovered.
She drew rather like a child and some of her pictures
of ships and the sea were quite good. She eventually
died and so my finances were again in a bad way.
My paternal Grandfather was an Indian Civil
Servant. He had had at one time a considerable
sum of money in a bank that went smash. There
still remained a few hundred pounds which the
grandchildren would eventually get. A sympathetic
uncle by marriage arranged that I could get fifty
pounds in advance. This was a fortune and I was
overjoyed. I took a room in Grafton Street,
Fitzroy Square, for seven and sixpence a week.
There were bugs in it. I chased them with a can
of petrol. I slept there sometimes but generally
went home as I could not afford much to eat
during the day-time and there was always food at
home. My Father by this time had quite given
up any hopes of my becoming a decent human
being or marrying a nice man and settling down
in the suburbs. He secretly hoped that I would
get into some awful mess and then he would be
able to say, " I told you so, this is what Art leads
to," He and his horrible doctor friend would
discuss me with leers and winks and talk about what
they thought went on in Art Schools.
In Gower Street was the Slade School. The
34
I GOME OF AGE
London School of Art and the Slade were rivals and
we despised the students there. There were dances
at the Botanical Gardens. Marquees were put in
the gardens and everyone went in fancy dress.
We wore very few clothes but the Slade wore
Aubrey Beardsley costumes and were covered up to
their necks. Our school had the reputation for
being immoral whereas we were very innocent and
respectable. So much so that one day a girl was
discovered kissing a young man behind a door and
she was practically cut by the whole school. J now
began to feel that having finished with Art Schools
I must leave the student stage and become an
artist. This I realized was a difficult thing to do as
many students at the Art School and they were of
all ages seemed to have remained students all
their lives. I painted a life-size portrait of myself
in the looking-glass. The colour was very dull but
it was very well drawn. I painted a pale-faced and
half-starved looking woman in black, holding a
yellow tulip. She was one of Growley's poetesses
and he called her the " Dead Soul "; it was a very
good description.
One day when I was going home in the tube I
sat opposite a girl. She had a most wonderful
face, like the portrait of the girl in the National
Gallery by Ghirlandaio; she was rather fatter and I
decided that at all costs I must paint her portrait.
I followed her out at Hammersmith and touched
her on the arm. I said, " Do let me do a painting
of you." She looked rather frightened, but I
pressed my name and address into her hand. She
35
LAUGHING TORSO
had a sister who knew some artists in Chelsea and
wondered what strange kind of individual I could
be. She wrote asking me to tea. The family were
charming people. My future model's name was
Dilys and her father was Welsh. She came and
sat for me and I painted a life-size portrait which
delighted us both. I gave it to a second-rate woman
novelist who, I believe, put it in the dustbin.
At this time Mark Gertler was very much talked
about. He .was painting pictures of Jewish char
acters in Whitechapel which were very interesting,
and I saw an exhibition of his things at CheniPs in
Chelsea. There was a self-portrait there of a young
man with a fringe and very blue eyes. One day I
met him and a girl called Carrington, who had won
a Scholarship at the Slade. She had fair hair which
was cut like an Italian page. She was one of the
first women in England to cut off her hair and was
very much stared at as she never wore a hat, I in
vited them both to tea and felt rather as if I had
invited a god and goddess. Carrington appeared
in one red shoe and one blue* We talked about Art
and the future, and I preserved Gertler's tea-cup
intact and unwashed on the mantelpiece. It; re
mained there for about a month; I felt that it ought
to be given to a museum. He asked me to come to
tea. He lived in Bishopsgatc with his sister and
brother-in-law* I found myself in a Jewish market
where hardly anyone spoke English. I finally got
to his house. He went downstairs and fetched up a
tray with the tea on it; he put it down on the floor
and said, " Help yourself! " I met at this time a girl
36
RICHARD 8ICKERT, R.A.
I GOME OF AGE
with long red hair. She was a friend of Gertler's
and was an actress. She was acting at the St.
James's Theatre, where a Shakespeare season was
being given by Granville Barker. I met Cathleen
Nesbitt with her, too, and one day Dennis Neilson
Terry came to her flat. He had to give a recitation
and chose one from the Bible. He recited it to us.
In the middle was an awful shriek and he shrieked
so loudly that the people upstairs came down think
ing someone was being murdered.
I met a woman who took me to one ,of Walter
Sicker t's Saturday afternoons. I thought him a
wonderful person and he seemed to like me. He
came to my room in Grafton Street and liked my
work. I used to go to see him nearly every Saturday.
I met Lucien Pissarro, who also came to my room
and liked my work. I met Wyndham Lewis, T. E.
Hulme, and Epstein. At this time a society was
started called the cc Independants," which was
founded on the principle of the Salon des Inddpen-
dants in Paris. Anyone could send five pictures on
the payment of a small fee. The Albert Hall was
hired for the occasion and I sent five pictures, in
cluding the cc Dead Soul," my portrait of" Dilys,"
and two others, and it was a most interesting ex
hibition. The sculpture was downstairs and many
famous foreign artists showed there. My pictures
were hung upstairs in a group and I thought they
looked very nice. All my friends from Brangwyns
showed there. I had two press cuttings, one in the
Times, of which I was very proud. Glutton Brock
was then the art critic. I met him some years after-
37
LAUGHING TORSO
wards and he was always very kind to me in his
criticisms.
Some months before in a paper called Rhythm,
which I took in, I saw some drawings that interested
me very much. They were by a young man called
Henri Gaudier Brzeska. Downstairs there were
statues by him, one was of a wrestler, and four
others. I used to visit the show several times a week
and when I was tired of walking round I sat down
on a chair in the midst of his statues. One day a
young man, looking like a foreigner with a little
beard, looked at me in an amused kind of way, I
thought that this was probably the sculptor, but was
too shy to tell him how much I liked his works. He
walked away and afterwards I went upstairs and to
my delight found him standing in front of my
pictures. One day an elderly woman whom I knew
asked me if I knew a sculptor who could give her
lessons at five shillings a time. I knew the book
seller, Dan Rider, who lived near Charing Cross
Road, He was a fat little man who roared with
laughter the whole time. He knew Frank Harris
very well. He also knew Gaudier Brzeska, I went
to see him and I said, " Is Brzeska rich? ** and he
said, a He is very poor**; so I said, "There is a
lady who would like lessons in sculpture. 9 ' This was
in 19139 when five shillings meant more than it does
now. It was not very good payment but I wanted
to meet him, Dan Rider arranged a meeting at his
book shop. I turned up and was introduced to him.
I said, ** Come back to my place and we will talk
about the lessons in sculpture/' We walked up
38
I GOME OF AGE
Charing Cross Road. He said, " What do you do ? "
I said that I painted and had exhibited at the
Independants at the Albert Hall. He said, " There
were so many pictures. 5 * I said nervously I had a
picture of a " Dead Soul," holding a yellow tulip.
He said, " Yes, of course, I remember it, you are the
young girl who sat with my statues; my sister and
I called you c La Fillette. 5 " We walked on. He
gave my friend lessons, and one day came to my
room and said, " I am very poor and I want to do a
torso, will you sit for me? " I said, " I don't know,
perhaps I look awful with nothing on, 5 ' and he said,
" Don't worry." I went one day to his studio in the
Fulham Road and took off all my clothes. I turned
round slowly and he did drawings of me. When he
had finished he said, " Now it is your turn to work."
He took off all his clothes, took a large piece of
marble and made me draw, and I had to. I did
three drawings and he said, " Now we will have
some tea." From the drawings he did two torsos.
The other day Harold Nicolson published one of
the drawings in the Evening Standard and said that
the torso was of myself. Henri was very poor and
lived with an elderly woman who, he told me, was
his sister. We used to wander round Putney and
look at stonemasons' yards, where tombstones were
exhibited, in the hopes of finding odd bits of stone in
reach of the railings. One day we found a nice
piece of marble and that night we arranged to
meet. At 10.30 we went to the yard. I watched
for a policeman and he took the piece of marble and
put it in his pocket.
39
LAUGHING TORSO
Out of this piece of marble he made the first
torso of me, which is now in the Victoria and Albert
Museum. I thought he was the most wonderful
person that I had ever met. The sister was rather
terrifying and Polish. At that time young men had
the idea that Polish women were the only women
in the world. They certainly had brains, but also
temperaments and many " complexes." She and
Henri lived in rooms in Putney and Henri had a
workshop under one of the arches of Putney Bridge.
I spent every Sunday afternoon with him. We
bought chestnuts and roasted them and he drew me
in nay clothes. Henri had a bright red shirt. A
friend of mine had invented a shirt, the neck was
cut square, it was what is now called a jumper.
Henri had a red one and wore it inside his trousers.
I wore mine outside my skirt and people stared at
us in the street. Henri talked about the " sales
bourgeois." In the next arch of Putney Bridge there
lived an academic sculptor who did monuments.
He did not carve stone, so Henri despised him. He
had a band of Italian workmen who came and did
the dirty work for him, that is to say, they hacked
out the stone. When the sculptor was out Henri
would buy the workmen some Chianti and learn
from them how to carve stone. He bought a forge
cheaply and put it in his backyard. There he used
to forge the tools that he sculpted with. It was a
wonderful machine with large bellows and made a
great noise* Henri said to me, cc Don't mind what
people say to you, find out what you have in yourself
and do your best, that is the only hope in life."
40
I GOME OF AGE
One day I sold six of Henri's drawings to a friend
of mine for -i each. He said, " Don't tell my sister
you sold six, say it was only five and we will go to
the c Swiss ' in Soho and have some drinks." I dined
with him and his sister in their rooms in Putney.
There was a row during dinner and they threw some
beefsteaks at each other. After dinner she said to
Henri, cc You bore me, take Nina away and give
her something to drink, " so we went to the " Swiss."
After we had had some beer Henri said, " She is not
my sister, she is my mistress," and I choked down
some sobs. She did not seem to mind my going out
with Henri and in fact rather encouraged it, so I
thought that it didn't matter. Henri bought a large
knife with a curved blade. He had met W. B.
Yeats who told him about the ghosts of his ancestors.
Henri "said, " I have never met a ghost and if I did
I should take this bloody great knife and kill him."
Henri never met a ghost, but I did later on, and I
didn't have a knife.
Henri knew Ezra Pound very well and liked him.
Ezra said, " You must sculpt me," and bought him
a block of marble. He said, " You must make me
look like a sexual organ." So Henri got to work
with a piece of charcoal and drew on the stone. He
chipped and chipped and it was magnificent and it
has been offered to and refused by many museums.
It is now in a front garden in Kensington, sur
rounded by geraniums. Henri slept generally under
the arch on an iron bed, one of the kind that ser
vants used to sleep on and could be folded up. It
looked very uncomfortable. He disapproved of
41
LAUGHING TORSO
comfort. cc Artists should be poor and not indulge
in comforts of any kind/ 5 One night we went to
an anarchist meeting in Soho. They had weekly
meetings and each week in a different language.
This night it was in German. Henri knew five
languages and translated for rne. I did not know
much about anarchy but I thought that any kind
of revolt against anything was good. I decided that
it was dreadful not to have been born in Whitechapel
and that the proletariat were the only people who
were capable of anything, Henri came to my room
sometimes. He arrived one day and took out of his
pocket a large statue, I could see it sticking out as
it was about a foot long. It was cc The Singing
Woman " arid is now in the Tate Gallery, We put
it on the table and admired it, Henri talked about
art and said, <c Painting is an art for women,
Literature is an art for old people, but Sculpture is
the art for strong men/ 3
I still had my room in Grafton Street, One day
somebody said, a You might get a job to paint
furniture and do decorative work at the Omega
workshops in Fitzroy Square/' The man who
owned it was Roger Fry. I knew his name very well
as he organized the first Post-Impressionist show in
London in 1911.
Feeling brave one morning I went to Fitzroy
Square and asked to see Mr. Fry, He was a charm
ing man with grey hair, and said that I could come
round the next day and start work* I went round
and was shown how to do Batiks* I was paid by the
I COME OF AGE
hour. I made two or three pounds a week and felt
like a millionaire. I brought Henri round one day
and he did a design for a tray which was eventually
carried out in inlaid woods.
43
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER VI LIFE
I WAS now twenty-two, and having read many
books, thought that it was time to consider the
problem of sex. I was almost completely ignorant.
I decided that the next man I met and whom I liked
I would hand myself over to, I went to see an
elderly woman in Chelsea and asked her what
happened. She gave me such a terrifying descrip
tion that when the moment arrived for the presenta
tion of my virginity I required more courage than
a soldier has when " Going over the top."
One day I went to see Crowley in the Fulham
Road, where I met a most beautiful creature. He
had long green eyes and hands like the Angel in the
National Gallery by Filippino LippL He seemed
to like me too. He took two rooms near Fitzroy
Square; one night I arranged to sec him at 10.30.
I arrived and he said, ec Will you take your clothes
off? n So I did and the deed was done. 1 did not
think very much of it, but the next morning 1 had
a sense of spiritual freedom and that something im
portant had been accomplished.
I read frequently the poems of Paul Vcrlainc, and
translations (of which there were not many) of
Arthur Rimbaud* One day I read Berrichon's
book on Rimbaud and discovered to my amusement
that the rooms where I had left my virginity behind
were those that Rimbaud and Verlainc had stayed
in in London* One day I said to Walter Sicker t,
cc Do you think that they will put up a blue plaque
44
LIFE
on the house for me or will they put up one for
Verlaine and Rimbaud? " and Walter said, " My
dear., they will put up one on the front for you and
one on the back for them." My beautiful admirer
tired of me very soon. I discovered afterwards that
he liked only pure young girls who very quickly
bored him. We went to Paris and I stayed at the
same hotel with a Russian woman who was a friend
of his, and who came over with us. I did not see
much of him. We stayed there for five days.
Epstein and his wife were there and I met Brancusi
the sculptor. At this time Epstein's Memorial to
Oscar Wilde was put up in Pere Lachaise. For some
reason it was considered indecent and covered up
with a tarpaulin, so every afternoon Epstein, his
wife, Brancusi, a Spanish painter, his wife and I,
would go to Pere Lachaise and snatch the tarpaulin
off. Eventually the French police were told about
it, and, when we next arrived, hiding behind the
tombstones were policemen who rushed at us and
covered the statue up again.
I liked Paris and determined to return there as
soon as I could collect sufficient money. Mont-
parnasse was cheap and everyone worked all day
and came to the Rotonde in the evening. I was still
rather in love. After five days my money gave out
and I came back "to London with the Russian woman.
I have always regretted not having stayed another
night as I could have seen Isadora Duncan dance,
and at that time she was in her prime. When I got
back to Grafton Street I burst into tears. I cried
every day for four days.
45
LAUGHING TORSO
I had always wanted to cut off my hair I never
had very much but my friend had said, " You must
never cut your hair off." The first thing that I did
was to get it cut. To my delight it curled and I wore
a fringe. I felt a sense of freedom. A large fair
man, who was a poet, was brought to see me the day
after I had come back. He came to see me every
day at five o'clock, and after the fourth day my sobs
ceased at that hour. He took me to dinner one
evening at a restaurant called the Eiffel Tower.
Some artists and poets went there. We had a very
good dinner and the proprietor seemed very pleased
to see him, I soon recovered from my passion and
started to work again. He wrote me a poem which
I still have, but as his handwriting is rather difficult
I can only make out some of it.
I sent a picture to the New English Art Club
which was accepted and which was hung on the line,
Epstein saw it and liked it very much and spoke
about me to people. I knew a man called Redmond
Howard; he was the nephew of John Redmond.
He was a journalist and, like the rest of us, generally
m financial difficulties. Once he pawned all his
possessions and was left only with a top-hat and a
frock coat.
John Flanagan, the painter, lived in Fitzroy
Street and he had supper parties consisting of
sausages and mashed- One day a man came to my
room and bought a drawing* Howard turned up
and I said, " Let's go for a drink/' He replied, ** If
you don't mind do buy me a pair of socks instead."
We went to Berwick market and got a pair of socks-
LIFE
The old Jew who had the stall said to me, cc Vill you
'ave some silk stockings very cheap ?" I said,
" Oh no, that would be extravagant/ 3 And he said,
" Oh no, it vill be an investment," and I was so
flattered that he mistook me for a lady of loose
morals that I took Redmond out and we spent all
the money.
One of the first night clubs was started in London
at this time, 1913. It was started by Madame
Strindberg, the second wife of the Swedish play
wright. She had been a famous actress and beauty
in Vienna when she was young. I had been taken
to the Cafe Royal some weeks before by Henri
where we would drink crime- de-menthef rappee.
I had met Lilian Shelley, a beautiful girl who was
on the stage. She sang at the " Cave of the Golden
Calf/ 3 the name of the night club. It was decorated
by Wyndham Lewis and several other artists, and
Epstein had done sculptures for two of the columns.
It was a really gay and cheerful place. Madame
Strindberg brought a flock of Galician gipsies over
and they played accordions and sang and danced.
There were beautiful ladies and young Guardsmen
and artists, and everyone had a good time. Madame
Strindberg had a monkey and every evening at
10.30 Lilian Shelley, who sang cc Popsy Wopsy "
and " You made me love you " every night at the
cabaret, was sent to the Savoy Hotel to feed it.
Madame Strindberg gave dinner parties there. She
was very fond of inviting people who disliked each
other. These parties frequently ended in a free fight.
I wore in the daytime a clergyman's hat, a check
47
LAUGHING TORSO
coat, and a skirt with red facings, including the
button-hole, which was faced with red too. Walter
Sickert always asked me, " When had I won the
Legion of Honour?" I wore white stockings and
men's dancing pumps and was stared at in the
Tottenham Court Road. One had to do something
to celebrate one's freedom and escape from home.
One day the woman whom I had met in the ship
when I returned from Russia, came to my room.
She said, " What are you going to do now? " I said
that I would like to go to Paris. She said, " I have
twenty pounds in the bank doing nothing. Would
you like to take it and go to Paris? " I said that I
would. She sent me a cheque for thirty pounds and
one day I packed my bags and went to Paris alone.
In Paris I knew one of the beautiful Russian girls
with whom I had been in Finland, and a gipsy. I
arrived knowing only the French that I had learnt
at the Royal School I went to a hotel in the Boule
vard Raspail and took a room. The bed was very
short and had a feather mattress, the room looked on
to a courtyard and smelt horrible. The next day I
visited my Russian and the gipsy who lived in the
same hotel. I told them that I did not want to know
any English-speaking people* The first evening I
arrived in Paris, I went to a little restaurant in the
Rue Campagne Premiere which was kept: by an old
Italian woman called u Rosalie." She looked very
distinguished and had a wonderful Roman nose. She
had been a great beauty and a model of Whistler's.
Epstein had recommended it to me, I sat down
alone and began my dinner. Suddenly the door
LIFE
opened and in came a man with a roll of newspaper
under his arm. He wore a black hat and a corduroy
suit. He had curly black hair and brown eyes and
was very good looking. He came straight up to me
and said, pointing to his chest, " Je suis Modigliani,
juif, Jew" unrolled his newspaper, and produced
some drawings. He said, " Cinq Francs'" They
were very curious and interesting, long heads with
pupil-less eyes. I thought them very beautiful.
Some were in red and blue chalk. I gave him five
francs and chose one of a head in pencil. He sat
down and we tried to understand each other and I
said that I knew Epstein and we got on very well,
although I could' not understand much of what he
said.
He used to drink a great deal of wine, and absinthe
when he could afford it. Picasso and the really
good artists thought him very talented and bought
his works, but the majority of people in the Quarter
thought of him only as a perfect nuisance and told
me that I was wasting my money. Whenever I had
any money to spare I would buy one of his drawings.
Sometimes they would come down to three francs.
Every morning he would come to the Rotonde with
his drawings and he generally collected five francs
before twelve o'clock. He was then quite happy
and able to work and drink all day. I had an in
troduction from a man in London to a Russian
woman painter called Marie Wassilieff; she had
been a pupil of Matisse and had now become a
Cubist. She had an Academy where Fernand
Leger was the professor. She lived in a large work-
49
LAUGHING TORSO
shop in the Avenue du Maine. There worked
Russians., Germans, and Scandinavians, but no
English or Americans. There were very good models
posed with draperies and mimosa. Every afternoon
from five to seven there was a sketch class with poses
lasting from five minutes to half an hour. On
Fridays two models posed together. One day a
large negro and his wife sat. They giggled all the
time and another negro sat on a chair with a guitar
and played a whistle through his nose as we drew.
Wassilieff and I became great friends. She did
not speak any English and I learnt to speak fluent
but bad French very quickly. Modigliani lived in
the Boulevard Raspail in a studio with a garden; a
watch was nailed on to a tree for him to see the
time. He would often come home at two or three
in the morning and start to carve stone. The neigh
bours, hearing the tap, tap of his chisel decided
that he was cc louftingue." I only went there once,
I was rather frightened of him. I went round
one afternoon. At that time he did not paint, but
drew and sculpted. There was a long head with
a very long nose that was broken. Modigliani said,
<c Un soir il a tombt et il a cassd son ne%." What had
really happened was that Modigliani came home
feeling rather gay, bumped into it, and knocked it
over. It is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum
and its nose has been mended. One night he came
home very drunk. He was very hot and he took
off all his clothes and lay down in the garden on
the flower-bed which was against the walls of the
studio. In the early hours of the morning two cats
50
THE FRIDAY MOBELS
AT WASSILIEFF'S
LIFE
had a love affair on the roof, and during the howling
period, slipped and dropped down on his naked
body. He woke up with a scream and ran up the
Boulevard Raspail into the arms of an astonished
policeman. Every night he would come to the
Rotonde and sit beside me. He drew all the time
and I watched him. When he got too drunk to
draw he would put his head on my shoulder and go
to sleep. I was rather embarrassed and sat straight
up feeling proud but rather foolish. One day I
went to the Salon des Independants. This was the
year that Arthur Craven the nephew of Oscar
Wilde's wife edited a paper called Maintenant, and
wrote a criticism of the Independants. He stood
outside and sold it himself for thirty centimes. He
was at one time a champion boxer and it tickled the
French, who wrote columns about the " ex-
champion of France " who sold art criticisms outside
the " Exposition des Independants. " The criticism
was very funny and a great deal of it very true. He
criticized celebrated female artists 3 figures and ap
pearance rather than their talents. Of one lady he
criticized her legs, which he did not approve of.
Her lover, a distinguished critic, took exception to
this and challenged him to a duel. He wrote in the
next column of his paper, " Si Monsieur continue
de m'emmerder avec ses challenges je tordrai ses parties
sexuelles" He would also write such things as,
" Nous sommes heureux d* entendre la mort de V acadtmicien
Jules Leftbvre." I never met him but I saw him often
sparring with negro boxers at Van Dongen's studio
on Thursday afternoons. Van Dongen lived near
LAUGHING TORSO
the Boulevard St. Michel and all the critics came
and drank liqueurs on Thursdays. In one corner
boxing went on. One day they asked me to dance,
so I took off all my clothes and danced in a black
veil. Everyone seemed pleased, as I was very well-
made. I met Zadkine, the sculptor. In the even
ings Zadkine would sit in the Rotonde and draw still
lives in pen-and-ink of glasses, packets of cigarettes,
and pipes, or anything else that was on the
table.
On Saturdays everyone stayed out nearly all
night. After the Rotonde closed at two we went to
the Boulevard St. Michel. One night Wassilieff,
Zadkine, Modigliani, myself and several others
walked to a caf<. The atmosphere of the BouF Mich 3
was very different to that of the Rotonde. There
were many painted ladies and dull students of the
Sorbonne, and sometimes business men who bought
everyone drinks. We drank cheap red wine, and
talked and laughed and sang. Zadkine and
Modigliani bought me a large bunch of roses; I
had a marvellous time and at seven-thirty a.m. they
accompanied me to my hotel.
I had a wonderful collection of stockings at that
time and wore flat-heeled shoes with straps on them
like children do. They made my feet look very
large. They cost five francs and were worn by
concierges. I had red stockings and yellow stockings
and some that looked like a chess board. Modigliani
would run after me up the Boulevard Raspail after
the Rotonde had closed. He could always see me
because of my loud stockings. One night he nearly
LIFE
caught me so I climbed up a lamp-post and waited
at the top till he had gone.
Zadkine had a studio in the Rue de Vaugirard.
I said that my hair wanted cutting and he said, " I
will borrow a pair of scissors from the concierge
and will cut it for you. 53 He cut my hair like a
Russian peasant, the same way that he wore his
own and I looked like one of his sculptures. The
fourteenth of July came. Nobody goes to bed in
France for three days. They start on the evening
of the thirteenth and nothing closes until the evening
of the fifteenth. I went to the Avenue du Maine and
bought a pair of French workmen's peg-top trousers.
I borrowed a blue jersey and corduroy coat from
Modigliani and a check cap. I also bought a large
butcher's knife made of cardboard and silver paper
at the Bon Marche. This I put in the long pocket
which was meant either for knives as the Apaches
wear them too or rulers. I dressed myself up and
went out alone. I met Modigliani at the corner of
the Rue Delambre and the Boulevard Montparnasse.
He did not recognize me and when I produced the
knife he ran away. I went to the Rotonde, where
the waiters did not know me, and to a fair outside
the Closerie des Lilas. I returned to the Rotonde
and we danced in the streets all night and kept it
up for three days. Afterwards everyone retired to
bed for at least a day. About every two or three
weeks dances were given in a big cafe in the Avenue
du Maine; they cost three francs, and everyone
went. They were always fancy dress and were very
amusing. I generally wore my Apache costume.
53
LAUGHING TORSO
Once a woman friend of mine dressed herself up as
a female Apache, with a black shawl and a red rose
in her ear. She painted her face very much and we
went round Montparnasse arm-in-arm. We looked
so realistic that no one suspected that we were in
fancy dress. Wassilieff gave her annual party. We
collected Modigliani and the sculptor. Hunt Die-
derich, who had just had a great success at the
Salon des Ind6pendants with his " Levriers" Hunt
went dressed as an Arab. He brought a huge
copper kettle from his studio which he filled with
beer, and we made Modigliani carry it. Guillaume
Apollinaire was there. After a time Modigliani de
cided to undress. He wore a long red scarf round
his waist like the French workmen* Everyone knew
exactly when he was going to undress, as he usually
attempted to after a certain hour. We seized him and
tied up the red scarf and sat him down. Everyone
danced and sang and enjoyed themselves till the
morning.
I went to the Salon d'Automne. There I saw a
portrait of a young man. It was not a very good
portrait but the young man so impressed me that
I stood for a long time before it. It was of a youth
of about twenty with a long pale face and slanting
eyes, with his coat-collar turned up- He looked sad
and hungry. That night at the Rotonde he walked
in. He did not seem to know anybody. For
months I stared at him and when Modigliani slept
on my shoulder I looked over his curly head at the
young man's pale face* He fascinated me and dis
turbed my thoughts. I worked in the mornings at
54
_^^ LIFE
WassiliefPs and visited Museums in the afternoons.
I drank cafe creme at the Rotonde. Life was so
exciting that I had no time to drink. Sometimes if
anyone was rich we drank champagne at fifty
centimes a glass.
One day Wyndham Lewis came from London in
order to arrange for the publication of his Vorticist
Magazine, Blast, in Paris. I had always got on very
well with him and regarded him as a great man. I
was delighted and flattered when he took my arm
and walked down the Boulevard Montparnasse with
me, explaining his ideas and the possibilities of the
future. He spoke in French and addressed me in the
second person singular, the only person who ever
had; I found it difficult to reply as my grammar
was very shaky.
I heard that Arthur Ransome was in Paris. He
introduced me to a very good-looking young man
who was an aristocrat. He wore very old clothes, a
large cloak, and a black hat, and wrote poetry,
His shoes were never cleaned; he said that he was
incapable of putting them outside the door at night.
After I got to know him we sent a postcard every
night addressed to him, cc Dear Basil, please put out
your shoes in the morning/ 3 His name was not
Basil, but that is what I shall call him. We had
lunch at the Restaurant Leduc in the Boulevard
Raspail. When we were having coffee I said,
" Where does one find a bath here? I have not had
one for weeks." Ransome looked horrified and
they called a fiacre and told the driver to go to the
nearest public baths. The building was by the Gare
55
LAUGHING TORSO
Montparnasse; it was of a circular pattern. Down
stairs was for men and upstairs for women. Ran-
soine bought me a piece of pink soap that floated, and
a towel. I was taken upstairs by an old woman and
Basil and Arthur remained downstairs. I scrubbed
and scrubbed till the skin nearly came off. I got
out and Ransome called from downstairs, " How
are you getting on?" I said, "I have finished wash
ing." He said., cc What! you can't possibly be clean,
go back and do some more scrubbing." So I went
back and splashed the water about until I was told
that I could come out. We then went and drank
some Vermouth Cassis, which is vermouth and a
syrup and is drunk by the work girls. Basil was very
good-looking and resembled Rupert Brooke, only
that he was shorter. He liked me very much. I
very nearly fell in love with him. He was a great
success with women, and was rather spoilt and con
ceited. I was told that he had treated a friend of
mine very badly. He had visited her daily and
implored her to marry him. She refused, but at the
end of six months, when she actually did fall in love
with him, he went off with a Frenchwoman. I
could not see myself being treated like that and I
rather despised him for being an aristocrat. I still
shared Henri's sentiments to a great extent.
In London the second Independant show was
being held, this time at the Holland Park Skating
Rink. I had sent a life-size nude painting of two
women. People thought it rather vulgar. I also
sent a portrait of Zadkine. Some of the critics liked
it* Henri wrote for Blast, Wyndham Lewis's paper,
56
LIFE
and the Egoist. He sent me a postcard and on it was
" I liked your works at Holland Park very much as
you may have seen from my article in the Egoist"
He wrote this of me: " Miss Hamnett cares much
about representation. I was very interested to see
a portrait of Zadkine the wood-carver. In this
work there are great technical qualities of paste and
drawing more amplified in the other portrait
where carefully chosen blacks and violets create a
very distinguished effect. I see from the quality of
the c Women composition ' that the affinities of this
artist are coming nearer to preference for abstract
design."
Henri did not like Zadkine. He knew him in
London before he had gone to Paris. Zadkine
carved trunks of trees into Apostles, and a large
group of figures. Henri despised people who did
not carve stone. This was not quite fair, as Zadkine
carved stone too. Basil came to see me nearly every
day. He asked me to marry him. I thought of my
unfortunate friend and said "No." The more I
refused the more persistent he became.
I was, in fact, in love with the pale young man
who sat at the Rotonde. Every evening Modigliani,
WassiliefF, Hunt Diederich, his wife and I dined at
Rosalie's. His wife, who was a Russian, designed
and herself carried out, very beautiful embroideries.
She drew at WassiliefFs Sketch Class. There were
forty or fifty people there every evening and Modi
gliani would come in and sit on the floor and draw.
There was a very long staircase leading up to the
workshop and we could hear him approaching if he
57
LAUGHING TORSO
was drunk, and stumbling upstairs. If he was too
far gone we would chase him out. Sometimes he
would make terribles noises and frighten the old
ladies in the class. Everyone suspected that I had
a good figure and they asked me to take my clothes
off and dance. I said that I did not know any
dances but they said that it did not matter. I still
had feelings of modesty but, being inordinately vain
and proud of my figure, one day I took off all my
clothes. Somebody played Debussy's u Golliwog's
Cakewalk " on the piano and I improvised a dance.
This was a great success and so was the figure. I
danced for them two or three times a week. Every
one was charming and the old ladies brought me
flowers. Zadkine and Modigliani drew as I danced.
A German lady asked me to sit and carved a little
statue in wood of me. I have forgotten her name,
but she was quite talented in the Munich style.
She did busts and painted them, including the eyes
rather like the archaic Greek sculptures.
Basil was a great friend of Isadora Duncan's* He
told her about me. I did not want to dance and
only pranced about for fun and to be admired.
Wassilieff said that I was " Gothic." One day
Hunt Diederich and his wife gave a party. They
had some Russians who played balalaikas and sang.
I danced to the balalaikas. I started by dancing in
a veil and then took it off. A French millionaire was
there and he wanted me to dance in a cabaret. I
refused. I sat for Hunt and he did a frieze round a
lampshade of me dancing round it in different atti
tudes. The millionaire consoled himself by buying
58
LIFE
it for a respectable sum of money. About midnight
a disturbance was heard outside accompanied by
loud hangings on the door. This was Modigliani,
who always appeared if he heard that I was dancing
anywhere. Hunt threw him out. I was rather sorry
as we could have sat him down in a corner. Hunt
and his wife were great friends of his; they bought his
drawings and were very good to him. One day he
sold a stone head for a hundred francs. He adored
Picasso, who wore a blue serge suit and a yellowish-
brown cap. Modigliani went out and bought a blue
suit and a yellowish brown cap. He strutted up and
down outside the Rotonde to be admired. Unfor
tunately towards the evening he got very drunk and
fell into the gutter, covering the beautiful new suit
with mud, and was very battered and sorry for him
self the next morning.
Augustus John knew him very well and bought
two of his sculptures, which are now at his house at
Chelsea. He gave him several hundred francs for
them. This was before I knew either of them.
Modigliani said that he was tired of Paris and the
vile existence that he lived, and pined for Italy.
He asked John not to give him all the money but
enough to get to Italy, where he could live very
cheaply, and send him the money in small sums at
a time. He went to Italy and, after, wrote to say that
he was well and happy, enjoying the pure atmo
sphere and the sunlight, so far away from the
temptations of Paris. John sent some more money
and Modigliani took the next train back to
France.
59
LAUGHING TORSO
One day he was asked to the house of a very rich
man who was having a reception. He was intro
duced to a woman with an exceptionally ugly but
interesting face. He said, cc Madame, wire figure
m'interesse tnormement: c'est la gueule la plus monstrti-
euse queje rial jamais vue mais inUressante^ admirrrable
du point de vue du dessin etje voudrais bien votis dessiner."
The poor lady was very embarrassed, but later, I
think, when she found out who he was, she sat for
him. Modigliani always said " Admirrrable " when
he saw something that pleased him. There was a
very striking woman who came to the Rotonde,
called Madame Bing. Her husband was Henry
Bing, who worked on Simpticissimus, the German
paper. She had a white face and short golden hair.
She wore a long black cloak and a black hat. I
asked her to sit for me and I painted a life-size
portrait of her which was not bad (also mentioned
by Henri in the Egoist). Wassilieff liked it. I
did not paint Cubist pictures, although L^ger
had given me two lessons and I had succeeded in
painting a life-sized nude torso; this certainly had
a certain influence of Cubism.
I had a studio in a courtyard in the Boulevard
Edgar Qpinet. It cost fifty francs a month, which
was at that time two pounds. It belonged to an
American painter called Lionel Walden, He
painted seascapes in the Hawaiian Islands, which
were a great success at the Salon and in America.
He had some plaster casts of legs and arms. I gave
a party one evening after I had sold a painting. We
dressed ourselves up in sheets and black draperies
60
MOD1GLIANI
LIFE
and held the arms and legs close to our bodies, so
that they stuck out of the draperies. It had a
curious effect and looked very sur-realiste.
The gipsy I knew when I came to Paris was called
Fenella. She had been discovered, sitting on a
doorstep in London, by Ransome. She had posed
for Augustus John and I had seen several drawings
of her at his exhibition at the Carfax Galleries.
She looked like a bird. She had a very long neck
and large rather protruding eyes. She wore a tight
dress with silver buttons down the front and shoes
like I did, with straps. She had the prettiest legs
and smallest feet that I have ever seen. She played
a guitar and sang. She spoke about ten languages
and sang in sixteen, including Japanese. She was
supposed to be consumptive and drank soda-water
and milk. She had a drawer-full of louis d'or, one
of which she lent me one day ajid which I gave back.
She came to my party and sang. We bought bottles
of wine at fifty centimes a bottle and it was quite
drinkable. At five a.m. we went to the Rotonde
and sat there till nine o'clock.
Frederick Etchells, the painter, was living in
Paris. He was a friend of Wyndham Lewis's.
There was a very amusing and clever painter
called Charles Winzer and every evening we three
would meet at the Rotonde. We wrote poems. I
wrote the last words of the poems, four of which had
to rhyme and a fifth that did not, and they wrote
in the poems. They were very funny and we spent
the whole evening laughing at them. My friend
Basil, whom I quarrelled with periodically, was cut
61
LAUGHING TORSO
off by his parents every few weeks and had to return
to England to pacify his Mother. My thirty pounds
was melting away and I feared that I would have to
return to England. One day he came back having
got quite a lot of money. I said, " I shall have to go
back to London. " He said, " You must not go, I
will buy two water-colours." So he gave me some
money and I stayed on. One was a drawing I had
done in 1912, when I stayed with a friend in Dorset.
It was of a fair at Gorfe Castle and was quite good.
Basil left them at my place as he was going to Italy;
he never collected them as he never had a place to
put them in, so I kept them for him. He was after
wards killed in the War, and last year I had an Ex
hibition in Berkeley Street at the Galitzine Gallery
and exhibited " the Fair/' A strange man, whom I
did not know, came and bought it for ten guineas.
Basil was going to Italy with a friend of his; he
wanted me to go too. He said, cc My friend, who is
an elderly man, will chaperonc you." His friend
arrived in Paris and I met a most; charming man
who certainly was not over thirty. I did not go.
They went and I received telegrams daily from
Venice to join them. I think I was foolish not to
have gone now, as I should have got into much less
trouble than I did by staying in Paris. I clid not
realize at the time how genuinely fond of me he was
and I still hankered after the pale creature at the
Rotonde. I regretted very much when I heard in
1915 that he had been killed in Mesopotamia. I
received a postcard from him, written the day before
he died.
62
LIFE
In the Quarter were two Japanese. They were
known as " Les Japonais" They were a great
success at parties. One was Foujita, who has since
become world famous, and the other was Kavashima
who is also a well-known painter and spends his life
in Germany and America. They were pupils of
Raymond Duncan. They wove the material that
their clothes were made of and made their own
sandals. They wore their hair in fringes with bands
of ribbon round their heads, and Greek robes and
sandals. They danced Greek dances and worked
all day. Diego Rivera, the Mexican artist, did a
Cubist painting of them both together with square
faces. It was exactly like them, although far from
realistic. It was what Jean Gocteau would describe
as "plus vrai que le vrai."
Kisling, the Polish painter, came each evening to
the Rotonde. He wore his hair with a fringe too.
He was thin and very good-looking. He had a dis
pute with a painter called Gottlieb and they
arranged to fight a duel. Rivera was one of the
seconds. They went out of Paris. A cinema man
with a camera was there and we saw it on the pic
tures the same evening. Kisling came to the
Rotonde with a cut on his nose and was considered
a great hero. I think that if he had washed the
blood off it would not have been visible. Very
seldom we went to Montmartre. I went once to the
Lapin Agile. Ghil (note the pun) was an old man
who looked like the cc old man of the sea." He wore
a fur cap and had a long beard. This was the
cabaret where Picasso and Max Jacob and all the
63
LAUGHING TORSO
famous painters and writers went years before 3 when
the artists lived in Montmartre, and when it was
really cheap and very gay. I took a violent dislike to
the old man and could not go there without having
a row with him. There was a life-size plaster cast
of Christ, on which the students had carved their
names; it was carved from head to foot with signa
tures and looked as if it was suffering from smallpox.
I believe that I signed it too. We drank small plums
in Kirsch and poets recited bad poems and Monsieur
Ghil played a very fine guitar. I did not like the
atmosphere of Montmartre, or the people, and I
think only went there twice during my whole stay.
I went to the Moulin Rouge once and saw elderly
ladies in long skirts doing the can-can. That was
fun as they looked just like the drawings of Toulouse
Lautrec, and, in fact, I think were the same ladies
having grown considerably older.
The Cafe du D6me was opposite the Rotonde.
It was filled with Germans and Americans. I very
seldom went there. The Americans had a poker
game every evening. This continued for about
twenty years, and only broke up a few years ago.
I did not know any Americans, but Basil used to
play poker with them in the evenings, and some
times made quite a lot of money which we would
spend together. He would tell me funny stories
about them. A large man with a red beard went
out to the other side of the river to dine with his
relations. He wore a dinner jacket. After he had
disposed of his relatives he went to Montmartre
and then to " Les Halles," where everyone ended
LIFE
amongst the cabbages and onions. He returned
to Montparnasse in a very battered condition at
eight-thirty in the morning. Along the Boulevard
Montparnasse was a tramway, and the road between
the tram-lines was dug up for repairs, leaving a hole
about six feet deep. The red-bearded man felt
sleepy and got down the hole and went to sleep.
About an hour later the noise of the trams woke
him up and he appeared like " Venus rising from
the Ocean/ 3 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.
Every Friday evening I went to Lavenue's, which
65
LAUGHING TORSO
is opposite the Gare Montparnasse. 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, " 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 Caf6 du Panth6on in the BouF Mich 3 . 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. 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
66
ETCHELLS MODIGLIANI
MYSELF
A FANCY 'DRESS DANCE IN THE AVENUE DE MAINE
1914
LIFE
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. 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
67
LAUGHING TORSO
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 3 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.
68
LIFE
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, cc It was rather
like waving a flag in space. 5 '
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,
LAUGHING TORSO
" I think that young man looks very interesting and
I should like to meet him. 33 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
70
LIFE
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.
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER VII WAR
THERE was a feeling of agitation and unrest in the
atmosphere. On the second of August War was
declared on Germany. There was pandemonium.
No one had any papers. I had no passport and
Edgar had no papers at all except a mysterious
birth certificate with a German name that I had
not heard before. We had two weeks in which to
get papers and register ourselves. My beautiful
Russian friend went away and said that Edgar and
I could live in the studio, which we did.
Nobody had any money. Paper money was refused
everywhere. Only gold and silver were accepted.
On the third of August the mob stormed the
Laiterie Maggi, which was a German firm* They
killed several Germans and broke all the milk-shops.
Everyone said that we would starve. Wassilicff
started dinners at her studio at one franc-fifty, with
one Caporal Bleu cigarette and one glass of wine
thrown in. We all went every evening and Modig-
liani too. A Swiss painter did the cooking. Oddly
enough, a few days before the declaration of War,
all the Germans vanished from the Qjiartcr. The
last days of the time given for registry of ourselves
were nearing their end. I implored Edgar to go to
the police, but he refused; he appeared to think that
he was superior to the police force. An American
woman sculptor gave me sittings, and so I was able
to earn enough money to live on,
People said that the War could not possibly last
72
WAR
more than two months and that we need not
worry.
I had gone to the British Consul, who had given
me a paper with which I could identify myself and
get back to England. The time for registration had
expired and one day two policemen appeared at my
studio and took Edgar and me off to the police
station. I was locked up for the afternoon and
asked what I knew about him. He produced the
birth certificate with the German name on it 5 and
as they knew that he had known many Germans
as we all did, they thought that he was a spy.
They asked him to hand over his gun. He pro
duced two dirty handkerchiefs and one sou. They
let me out later on, but threw him into the Prefec
ture which was filled with all kinds of people who
could not produce papers. They slept on straw, all
together. There were millionaires with gold watches,
and every kind of person, and there they waited till
something happened. I was so unhappy that my
American sculptress asked me to stay with her and
her husband, and fed me, and they were very kind as
I had no idea how long Edgar would be kept in
prison, or what would happen afterwards. I col
lected enough money to get my fare to England. This
was an appalling prospect as it meant returning
home and I really began to think that my life was
at an end. The future seemed completely without
hope of any kind.
I took the train to Dieppe. When I got there I
found that there were no boats going to England.
I had about twenty francs. A porter took me to a
73
LAUGHING TORSO
rather grand-looking hotel down a side street leading
to the sea. I took the cheapest and smallest room
that I could find, A whole girls' school was there.
They had come from a tour of Switzerland and were
in the same position as I was. I could not afford to
eat at the hotel, so I bought myself bread and cheese
and ate it on the seashore. I went to the old church,
which has a group of golden statues with Jesus
Christ in the Manger, surrounded by the Wise Men
and the Virgin Mary. I bought a candle and lit it
for Edgar. I also said a prayer, and afterwards
wondered if it would be registered in Heaven as I
was not a Roman Catholic.
For three days there were no boats and I was be
ginning to feel very hungry. On the third day a
boat sailed. I had a ticket as far as Newhaven*
During the daytime I sat on the quays. I had some
coloured chalks with me and did quite a lot of draw
ings, I just managed to pay the hotel bill and had
two pennies left. By this time nothing seemed to
matter. The boat did not go to Newhaven but to
Folkestone. When I got to Folkestone I went to the
station-master and said, " All I have is twopence
and I want to get to London. " As a matter of fact
many people were in the same position. He was
very kind, and after I had given the name and
address of my parents he put me into a first-class
carriage. The railway company sent the bill in and
were kind enough to charge only the third-class
fare. I was extremely hungry, having had nothing
to eat for twenty- four hours. When I got to Victoria
I was able to take the Underground home, as two-
74
WAR
pence was just the fare. I was almost in rags when
I arrived and the family were not any more pleased
to see me than I was to see them.
Edgar wrote me postcards now and then. One I
have never been able to understand. It was sent
from the Prefecture of Police. As he always talked
in parables I presumed it meant that he loved me.
If I had decided that it did not I might have had the
sense to stay in England and join the W.A.A.C.'s
and have helped or hindered the Great War.
Basil was in London at the time and one day he
introduced me to Augustus John. I never knew
until then that he came from Tenby. We got on
quite well and, of course, found that we knew every
one there.
One day I went to see Henri. He was very
pleased to see me. We bought a bag of plums and
walked to Richmond Park. We were both very
gloomy and sat on the grass amongst the bracken.
Henri knew the antelopes quite well and some of
them came up to be patted. He did many drawings
there. We sat silently and ate the plums. Henri
said, " I shall have to go to France and fight and if
I go I know quite well that I shall never come back/ 3
and I felt that he never would either. We walked
silently back to his workshop under the arch and had
tea and I went home.
This was the last time that I saw him as, when I
came back from France, he had already left.
Everyone was very depressed at this time and no
one knew what was going to happen. Basil was very
kind to me and asked me what I proposed to do
75
LAUGHING TORSO
about the future. I said that I could not imagine,
but that if Edgar got out of gaol, I should probably
return to Paris and bring him back.
One day I got a letter from him to say that he was
released and allowed to stay in Paris for the duration
of hostilities. Basil gave me five pounds and said,
that if I really loved him I had better go back and
join him. Everyone said I was mad but I did not
mind, and took a train to Folkestone. We arrived
at Boulogne. There were two other English people
on the train. The train took thirty hours to get to
Paris. There was nothing to eat, and if the French
peasants had not been at each station with food
for the soldiers, and were kind enough to give us
some bread and cheese, we would have had nothing.
I was in a carriage with five French postmen who
were going to Paris to join up. They had some bottles
of wine and cider. I gave them two farthings to
bring them luck. We arrived at Arras and had to
get out as we heard that the Germans were some
where in the neighbourhood. The station was filled
with soldiers who had come from a battle. They
were all bandaged up and covered with blood. I sat
down with them and rather felt that to be taken a
prisoner by the Germans would be the simplest way
of getting out of it all. The train then went on and
we got to another station.
A motor-car appeared with three French officers
in it. They said to the engine-driver, " Go on at
once, the Germans are three kilometres away.'* So
we went on. The other two English people were
old ladies, both married to Frenchmen. I spotted
WAR
the sale bourgeois at once by their faces and took
a dislike to them. We got out at another station and
sat on the platform. One sat on either side of me.
They talked about religion, and the efficacy of
prayer. I said I didn't think so highly of it and they
said I was an atheist and left me. A train came in
carrying more soldiers who had come from another
battle. I found them more sympathetic. The train
went on and we got to Paris.
I met Edgar at the Rotonde. He seemed pleased
to see me. I had one hundred francs in five franc
pieces, which I had tied up in a stocking. I took a
room in the hotel where I had first stayed in Paris.
Every afternoon the Germans came in Taubes and
dropped bombs. We all thought this very exciting
and would lean out of the window of the hotel to
watch the bombs dropping. The bombs did not kill
people, but the shells that the French shot at them
did. I was watching the fun one afternoon and
something whizzed past my head. It was a bullet,
and went through the hotel window downstairs.
We found it on the floor with the end of it bent. As
I only had a hundred francs Edgar said that I had
better come and live in La Ruche, near the Porte de
Versailles, his mysterious residence. I moved in.
La Ruche was a large garden and in the middle was
a circular building filled with studios. The studios
were triangular and it was like a cake cut in pieces.
His studio was in the garden and living there was
a Russian admiral's daughter. There was a gallery
which one had to climb a ladder to reach. Several
rungs were missing from it. The Russian admiral's
77
LAUGHING TORSO
daughter drank wine during the daytime and
methylated spirits all night at my expense. She
also stole my only night-dress, which was a calico
relic and had originally belonged to my Grand
mother. In the mornings we sent her to the soup
kitchen to buy some stew, which we lived on. In
the studio opposite lived an artist's model who
brought us lobsters. She had been to the Bal des
Qjaatz Arts and had brought a souvenir home. It
was a model of the guillotine and we sat and admired
it. There were no newspapers in Paris and every
day we heard the German guns getting nearer and
nearer,
Edgar found a large spider in the garden and did
drawings of it every morning.
WassiliefF had her dinner parties every evening
and her place was filled. A tall Russian from the
Volga played the lute and sang to us and we tried
to be as cheerful as possible.
Modigliani was living in the Rue St, Gothard and
Edgar and I went to see him. He had a large studio
which was very untidy and round the wall there
were gouache drawings of caryatids* They were
very beautiful and he said, " Choose one for your
self." The bed was unmade and had a copy of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Les Chants de Maldoror
upon it. Modigliani said that this book was the one
that had ruined or made his life. Attached to the
end of the bed was an enormous spider-web and in
the middle an enormous spider* He explained that
he could not make the bed as he had grown very
much attached to the spider and was afraid of
78
WAR
disturbing it. This was the last time that I saw him
as, soon afterwards, he went to Nice.
I was still sitting for the American sculptress and
so we had enough money to live on.
The German guns were getting nearer and nearer
and the Government had gone to Bordeaux. Out
side the Gare Montparnasse were long queues of
people going to Bordeaux with all their belongings.
We went to see Brancusi, the sculptor, every after
noon. He lived in the Rue Montparnasse. He had
two workshops and lived in a little room. He was
very like a saint and played a guitar and sang
Rumanian songs. He talked to us about life and
cheered us up. Basil was in Paris again. He could
not join the Army as he had a bad knee. He asked
me what I was going to do. I said that I had better
go back to England. I should, of course, have gone
to Nice where many artists went and lived very
cheaply.
One day Edgar and I went to the Cimetiere
Montparnasse. We used to go there sometimes and
sit under the trees and read. It was very quiet.
We would bring a bottle of cheap wine with us.
One afternoon Edgar said, " How much does it
cost to get married in England? " and I said, cc I
think about seven-and-sixpence," and he said, " Let
us get married! " I said that I didn't mind if I did.
We had no money to get to England however, and
I had been in Paris about six weeks. Basil lent or
rather gave me some money and we took a train to
Le Havre. Edgar had no papers except the birth
certificate and when I got to Le Havre I had to see
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LAUGHING TORSO
the British Consul. I told him that this was my
fianct and I was taking him to England to marry
him and he passed us through. I took him home
to my parents, who were not at all pleased that I
was going to marry a foreigner, especially as he was
completely penniless and knew no English. After
three weeks we got married. My Father paid the
wedding licence. Everyone was very gloomy, in
cluding myself. We took two attics in Camden
Town. The rent was seven-and-sixpence a week.
We had very little furniture. I took Edgar to the
Omega Workshops and Mr. Fry gave us both some
work.
Henri had already gone to France and Basil was
trying to get into the Army. He finally persuaded
a grand relation to use her influence and he got a
commission in a Scottish regiment and appeared
looking very magnificent in a kilt. He was very
sorry that I had got married, and so was I. We
went out and drank some drinks together and talked
about the hopelessness of the future. He went to the
War a few days later and was killed in Mesopotamia
in 1915.
Edgar and I met many interesting people at the
Omega. There were many Belgian refugees, musi
cians, and actors, and Madame Vandervclde, who
was very good to them all and acted and recited in
order to raise funds to help them. She also bought
some of our pictures. Edgar decorated her flat for
her and so we managed to live. She was a very
brilliant and amusing woman and had extremely
good taste in Art. Edgar suggested to Mr, Fry that
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they should have a musical performance of De
bussy's " Boite a Joujoux" and that he should make
and work the marionettes for it. This he did. We
all worked the marionettes. We lay on our stomachs
and pulled the wires. He cut them out of card
board with a knife. We had a fine orchestra of
Belgians and a good audience and they made some
money.
After the arrival of the Belgians, Charlotte Street
became very gay. There were Bal Musettes all up
the street. A big Belgian played an accordion and
everyone danced and a hat was taken round after
for halfpennies, as they do in France and Belgium
in workpeople's dances. We worked at the Omega
for so many hours a day and often had lunch with
Roger Fry, who had a room in Fitzroy Street, where
he painted. He did several paintings of me, one of
which was at his last show in Bond Street. Vanessa
Bell and Duncan Grant worked sometimes at the
Omega Workshops. She was very beautiful and had
a wonderful deep voice. I used to go home and
attempt to lower my voice too. I think I succeeded
to a certain extent after some practice. They
painted batiks and boxes and turned out some fine
work. I was never very good at decorative work.
I met Edward Carpenter one day at lunch at Mr.
Fry's. He was a saintly old gentleman with a grey
beard and a grey shirt. Walter, now Richard,
Sickert lived in Fitzroy Street also, in fact he had
a number of mysterious rooms for miles around as
far as Camden Town. Edgar and I sat for him
together, on an iron bedstead, with a tea-pot and a
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LAUGHING TORSO
white basin on a table in front of us. We looked the
picture of gloom.
We went every evening to the Cafe Royal and
frequently walked home to Camden Town as we
seldom had the 'bus fare. We could stay the whole
evening there on a fourpenny coffee in those days.
Edgar had made friends with some people whom I
considered dull, common, and boring, so he often
went out with them and I stayed at home. He
seemed to think that I should always be at home
waiting for him and once, when I went out to
dinner with an elderly man I had known for years,
an awful argument took place and we threw sauce
pans at each other. I got so bored with this and
being so poor, as there was not always work at the
Omega, that I fell in love with a tall dark man
whom I had met at the Caf<6 RoyaL He talked
about Greek Islands and black olives. He was a
writer and had studied the piano and had most
beautiful hands. He talked and talked about
things which I did not understand at all. For three
weeks I thought of nothing else but him, and would
even walk up and down streets in which I thought
I might get a glimpse of him. I would buy myself
dinners at the " Sceptre," the restaurant behind the
Caf(6 Royal, where I had gone with Henri. The tall
man seemed rather amused at me. After about
three weeks of thinking about him I saw him at the
restaurant. He was alone, and asked me to have
some coffee with him. My heart beat so rapidly
that I shook all over. He told me that he was en
gaged to be married and I, with a choking feeling in
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my throat, said that I would like to meet his fiance.
I went home and cried a good deal and a few days
later met her. The passion immediately died, and
she and I became great friends and I painted several
portraits of her. It was trying, many years later,
after he and his wife had parted and he was quite
alone, when we had some drinks together in Paris
and I told him of the great passion that I had had.
He was very much surprised and said, seizing my
hand, " Don't you think those things could ever be
revived/' and I said, " I am afraid they couldn't/'
and he was very sad. However we are still friendly
and he has become a very celebrated man and is
now happily married.
I was getting more and more bored with Edgar
who was daily becoming more soulful, and spoke in
parables which I had long since given up at
tempting to understand. He bought some wooden
blocks and did some woodcuts. These were very'
interesting and he sold a few. The painter, Ben
jamin Corea, lived in an attic in the next house.
He was even poorer than we were. I would buy
two pennyworth of bones twice a week and make a
stew, and on this and porridge and margarine, we
all three lived. One day someone bought a drawing
so I bought some real butter. Edgar and I had a
dispute about people with Victorian ideas, which
I said he had, and he threw the plate and the butter
at me. I was so upset about the butter that I forgot
to throw anything back. I looked despairingly
round and saw it sticking to the wall. It was still,
fortunately, quite eatable. One day a rich aunt
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LAUGHING TORSO
appeared to see how we were getting on. She advised
me to try a certain brand of margarine which cost
ninepence. I said I only paid fivepence-halfpenny.
She did not however leave the extra threepence-
halfpenny behind. Soon after this my uncle, her
husband, paid our rent, so that was a help. I am
afraid that sometimes when we were very poor I
spent the money on food and got into debt with the
landlord. They were working-class people and,
unlike many that I know, perfect beasts. We were
naturally regarded with the greatest suspicion,
having a German name.
I urged Edgar to go to the police and register
himself. Everything was so unsettled that I think
they had forgotten about him for the time being.
One day a District Visitor appeared and asked
him what religion he belonged to. He said that he
was a " Hedonist, 5 ' so she went away. We met the
painter, Foujita, one of Les Japonais in Paris; he
was delighted to see us as he was just as poor as we
were. He only became famous in Paris after the
War. He still made his own clothes and wore his
hair the same way, but without the Greek band.
He wore strangely shaped baggy trousers and a black
velvet jumper, which hung outside, and a leather
belt. People called him the " Eskimo/ 3 He
lived with some friends in Chelsea and did charm
ing frescoes in their kitchen of antelopes and
flowers. Someone afterwards took the house and
said that they did not care for other people's
decorations, and had them whitewashed, I think
they are now sorry.
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On Sundays, Foujita, Edgar, and I, went home
to my parents for lunch; this was frequently the
only decent meal we had during the week. My
Father became quite human, and in the afternoons
we all played " heads, bodies, and legs." That is the
game where everyone draws a head and leaves two
lines indicating where the next person should begin
the body. The pieces of paper were then passed to
the next person and then again until the legs were
done. The drawings were very funny and some of
them very good.
Foujita was a charming character and had the
most terrible ' struggles before he became famous.
I last saw him when I stepped off a boat on the
He de Brehat, in Brittany. I had not seen him for
three or four years. He was sitting on the terrasse
of a cafe. His hair had turned very grey. He had
large gold earrings on and wore red horn-rimmed
spectacles. He was with his wife, who was very
chic and beautifully made up. There was another
Japanese with them. I waved to him and he said
" Bonjourninahamnett" as if he had only seen me the
day before. We sat down and talked about the old
days. I was sorry that I had to go back to Paimpol
that day, where I was staying opposite, as I believe
they had wonderful parties every day with bathing,
singing, and drinking.
One day I went to dinner with a woman friend
of mine in Clifford's Inn. We had dinner and some
wine, and suddenly there was a strange whizzing
sound and she said, rather nervously, " What is
that? " I said, " That is only a motor-'bus." She
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LAUGHING TORSO
said, cc Have another cigarette and some port/ 5
which I did. There was a terrific crash and we
both went outside and in the sky was a thing that
looked like a golden pencil. This was the first
Zeppelin. We then heard several other crashes
fairly near, but getting further away. I had to
catch a 68 'bus to get to Chalk Farm. When I got
to Chancery Lane it was about six inches deep in
water. A bomb had hit a water main and a gas
main, and the water was rushing down the street.
I was annoyed as I had a pair of new shoes on and
got them wet. The Strand was several inches deep
in broken glass, as nearly all the windows had been
broken. When I got to Wellington Street a huge
green flame sprung up opposite the Gaiety Theatre.
I thought that another bomb had dropped and sat
down in the doorstep of a bank, thinking that death
was rapidly approaching.
I thought of my wicked life, and of my Father and
my Grandmother, with a certain sentimental regret.
As nothing happened I got up and thought that I
would go to the Cafe Royal. The people in the 'bus
that I should have taken, if I had not had another
cigarette and a drink, were sitting in the 3 bus with
their heads blown off, as a bomb had dropped out
side. I took a 'bus to the Caf<5 Royal by the Savoy
Hotel. In it were two Japanese. The evening
cloak of one was torn to bits. He had been inside
the Gaiety Theatre, but fortunately, his cloak had
been hanging up in the cloak room. We all talked
together of what had happened. In Paris in 1920
I met him. I said, " I have met you in London,"
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He did not remember me but did when I reminded
him of the air raid. The cafe was in an uproar and
everyone drank to celebrate their escape. Edgar
and I saw the daylight air raid from our attic
windows. It was a fine sight, and they were in
wonderful formation, like a flock of birds surrounded
by the little white puffs of smoke of the British guns.
One day I became so ill that I went home to my
Father and Mother, who, although they disapproved
of me, still liked to see me. My family lived at
Acton and during the night I had a dream. I
dreamt of noises which tapped and tapped. Sud
denly I woke up and looked out of the window. I
saw what I thought were fireworks, a big golden pen
cil diving to the earth. I came into my Father and
Mother's room and said, " Please wake up, I think
there must be a Zeppelin falling down." My
Father said, cc Go to sleep and don't disturb me."
I said, " You must wake up and come into the
garden," and he did and we saw it break in half
and come down in a rain of golden showers. This
was the Cuffley Zeppelin.
We visited the poetess, Anna Wickham, some
times. She lived in a beautiful old house in Hamp-
stead. It had an apple orchard and Dick Turpin
had lived there once. There we met Richard
Aldington and his wife. They were Imagist poets.
Richard had known Henri very well and had some
of his work.
In 1913, when I first met Anna Wickham, I had
influenza very badly. I was living alone and did
not want to go home to my family. She was kind
8?
LAUGHING TORSO
enough to invite me to her house and to look after
me. I stayed in bed and had a room overlooking
the garden. Several times a week D. H. Lawrence,
his wife, and Katharine Mansfield came to see Anna.
Mrs. Lawrence and Katharine sat by my bedside
and talked to me. D. H. Lawrence sang hymns for
hours in the drawing-room. This was not awfully
cheerful. I had never seen him and was told not to
get out of bed on any account as my temperature
was nearly a hundred and four. One day I heard
voices in the garden. I heard Anna and a man's
voice and got out of bed and saw a man with
reddish hair walking amongst the apple trees,
talking to Anna. That was the only time I ever saw
Lawrence and never met him at all.
The Cafe Royal and other places closed early
during the War and we found an Armenian caf<6 at
the back of Shaftesbury Avenue. There everyone
went. Epstein, Michael Arlcn, John Cournos, in
fact every inhabitant of the cafe. We drank
Turkish coffee and ate Turkish delight and I think
that the conversation, as the result of the Turkish
coffee, was better than that; of the crime de menthe
frappfe. There was an old man who spoke on soap
boxes in Hyde Park who went there one day; he
decided to take to painting. He used to buy old
oil paintings from the Caledonian market and other
places and touch them up and exhibit them in the
Armenian caf<6. He had a one-man show there.
He also painted spirits. One day I saw him in
Charlotte Street. He had a costermonger's barrow
with him and it was loaded with the tops of old
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hansom cabs. I said to him, " My dear Arthur,
what are you going to do with these? " He said,
" You see, dear, I think they will be so useful to
paint on."
He was reputed to have been found in the cellar,
in which he lived, in bed with a policewoman; and
her helmet and baton were hanging by a nail on
the wall as a souvenir.
I saw him last in the Fitzroy Tavern. He came
in looking just the same this was about ten years
later his beard had grown nearly white; he had
a sack on his back, and his coat was still fastened
with safety pins. He bought a large jug of beer and
filled everyone's glass. I hear that he is now respect
ably married.
One day someone took me to the studio of Lady
Constance Stuart Richardson. She lived in an old
Criminal Law Court near Sloane Square. There
was a party and everyone brought bottles.
It was a huge place with many rooms. I stayed
the night there in a large Greek bedstead. Several
other people stayed in different places and we had
breakfast in the morning. The others had to go to
work at various offices, and Constance and I sat in
front of the fire and talked and got on very well
indeed. I had known a cousin of hers who had been
killed. She was a most charming and interesting
woman and my dreary existence was cheered up by
her company. As Edgar neglected me a good deal
I spent most of my time with her. She had a
marvellous figure and danced with not much more
on than a tiger skin before the War, and even then
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LAUGHING TORSO
this was considered most shocking, and when she
appeared at the Palace Theatre there was a terrible
disturbance.
Neither of us had any money or, at least, very
little and we ate often at a little restaurant in Soho
where we got credit. We had often with us officers
of all nationalities. Italians in blue cloaks, French
men, Guardsmen, and so we did not always have to
" Chalk it up." I painted a portrait of Constance.
She had a black turban on and a red robe, rather
like a burnous that the Arabs wear. It was a good
painting and was bought by Sir Michael Sadler.
I sent it to the National Portrait Society and it was
accepted. On the day of the private view, Con
stance and I went. The place was full of all kinds
of grand people. They all flocked to my portrait,
expecting to see an almost nude woman. They
were bitterly disappointed, and Constance and I
laughed.
There were parties nearly every night, as all the
time officers were returning on leave for a few days.
This, I think, was the beginning of" gate crashing."
Someone would arrive and say, " Let's have a party
to-night, collect your friends and tell them to bring
anyone they can," and, of course, they did. One
week we went to five all-night parties and did not
go to bed at all. The first one was in Chelsea,
given by an artist who wore a Russian shirt and
played the accordion, Constance and I went and
brought two Italian officers with us who were much
admired in their blue cloaks. The party was such
a success that Constance decided to give one the
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following night. That was a terrific affair. Some
of our friends had gone to the Ritz and the Berkeley
to see if they could find any more people to bring,
and they came back with a glorious creature in a
blue and gold uniform, covered in medals. They
said, " look what we have found. 35 He was a
French Count. He had a very small motor, which he
called Le Lapin, and which he drove at terrific speed.
The third night Augustus John gave a party to
celebrate his going to France. He was a major in
the Canadian Army and was commissioned by them
to paint their part in the War. The party lasted all
night and in the morning we hung out of all the
windows and waved him " Good-bye/ 3 He looked
splendid in his uniform.
A beautiful woman, who was the wife of a Guards
man, gave the parties on the two following nights.
Billie Carlton was there and all kinds of actresses
and Guardsmen and foreign officers in uniform.
Edgar came too. He made a scene because some
one put his arm round me as I was walking up
stairs to the ball room. I burst into tears and
everyone took my part and I told him to go home.
I stayed the night there with Carrington, the girl
with the red and blue shoe, and another girl.
One morning two plain-clothes detectives came.
They were drunk and smelt of whisky. They wanted
to know why Edgar had not registered himself. I
said that I had frequently told him to do so. They
said that he had better hurry up as there would be
trouble. They were very unpleasant and familiar
and made me feel quite ill. Edgar still refused to do
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LAUGHING TORSO
anything. He used to stay with his friends in
Chelsea for nights at a time. I never went to their
house except once to a party. One day the police
came there and arrested him in the kitchen for
being an unregistered alien. My reputation amongst
these friends of his was that I was a wicked woman
who was ruining his bright young life and cramp
ing his brilliant career. He did not come home
that night. I did not worry as he never told me
when he was returning.
Early in the morning the police came and told
me that he was in a Police Court at Marylebone.
I went to see him and the trial came on later. I
did not go to it but his friends did. Later that
morning when I was working at the Omega two
young women came there, and with tears in their
eyes told me that he had got three months' hard
labour for not registering* I said " Oh! " and felt a
sense of freedom at last. This sentence was passed
under the Aliens' Act, which was enforced during
the War.
I went to my attic and wondered how Edgar was
feeling, I went to see him once; that was the only
time I could. I think he rather enjoyed prison
life. He had books to read and as he was of a
ruminative disposition he was quite happy.
I was now able to go out and see my old friends*
I sold drawings and paintings and was able to work
in peace and began to be very bored with the attics
in Camden Town, I made friends with a charming
girl, Marie Beerbohm, She had been a friend of
Edgar's and for that reason I hardly knew her.
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We became great friends and I had a very good
time.
Towards the end of Edgar's three months I
wondered what would happen as I was very happy
by myself and was very much disinclined to have
him back. I knew I would have to. I asked the
police and they said that he would not be allowed
to stay in England but would be sent to France in
the Belgian Army. I went to fetch him from the
prison and, accompanied by detectives, took him to
a camp, where he remained till he was taken to
France, He seemed pleased to see me and sorry
to go. I felt sentimental about the past and we
both wept as we said good-bye at Waterloo. I have
never seen him since. He wrote to me from France,
and the last letter I had was just after the Armistice,
when he asked me to send him five pounds, saying
that he loved me as much as ever. I did not reply.
Having made a little money and still having work
at the Omega I decided to look for a studio in the
neighbourhood of Fitzroy Square. I found one on
a top floor in Fitzroy Street. It was quite large
and had a bedroom and kitchen. I believe that
at one time Augustus John had lived there, and later
on Percy Wyndharn Lewis. Walter Sickert lived
opposite, that is to say he had a studio there, but he
actually lived in Camden Town. I was happier
there than I had been for three years. I heard that
Sophie Gaudier Brzeska was living in Fulham and
went to see her. She showed me a photograph of
Henri at the Front. She was taking a cottage in
Gloucestershire and asked me to stay with her.
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LAUGHING TORSO
We had a long correspondence, half In English and
half in French. I went and stayed for a fortnight.
She was certainly very eccentric. She agreed to
pay for the food if I would provide the drinks port
and sherry she liked. She had a horror of the moon,
and if we walked out in the evenings we had to
walk either sideways or with our backs to it, as it
might cast an evil influence upon us. She objected
to the way I spoke and said one should speak like
the working classes and not be snobbish. We had
long arguments about this. In the evenings we
drank our port and sherry and I did drawings of her.
I slept in a top attic. There was no furniture except
a rather short sofa in which my feet stuck out over
the end, and one chair. Leading up to the room was
a staircase. There was no door either to the room
or at the bottom of the staircase, so at night she
would stand at the bottom of the stairs and shout
her views on philosophy and art and tell me to avoid
looking in the direction of the moon, which came in
through the window as there were no blinds. What
with the moon and the owls hooting outside and
Sophie's raucous voice holding forth on philosophy
I felt sometimes rather unnerved. One morning,
at about three a.m., Sophia screamed up the stair
case, " If you had the chance would you have gone
off with Henri? " And I screamed back, " Yes! "
After a moment's hesitation, during which I felt
rather frightened; she went back to bed. She
talked extremely well She suffered a good deal from
ill-health and was rather nervous. She wore very
old-fashioned clothes that she had had since about
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1905, and a small hat. She always reminded me of
Cezanne's portraits of his wife. One day she pro
duced a nightdress, also very old-fashioned, it was
very elaborate and had real lace on it. She said,
" Would you like this, it might help you to attract
men? " I said, " No, thank you, I can do that quite
well without! " Sophia made pounds and pounds
of jam, she had a mania for it. We picked black
berries and bought apples and when she rested in
the afternoon I had to sit downstairs and see that it
did not burn. Sophia was reading Casanova at that
time, and from upstairs would make comments on
his disreputable life, shouting down the staircase at
me. I only intended to stay there a week, but as
there were air-raids every day in London I thought
I would stay on. Sophia had obtained from a park-
keeper the permission to use an upstairs' room in the
porter's lodge, belonging to a large estate. This she
rested in at the end of her walks. It was very dirty
and Sophia would lie on the floor and eat nuts and
throw the shells all over the floor. She came there
to contemplate, and I was only allowed in on the
condition that I would not speak. The air-raids
stopped a week later and I left. I had been invited
by Roger Fry to stay at his country house in Guild-
ford. I arrived there, rather shaken, after the
weeks of Sophia. Roger said I was quite mad to
stay with lunatics. Several members of the Strachey
family were staying there. In the evening Lady
Strachey would read us restoration plays and we
would play games. Everyone would choose a book
from the library and hide the cover. They read
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LAUGHING TORSO
a passage from their books and the others had to
guess who had written it. Someone read three
lines and no one could guess who had written it. I
had a sudden inspiration and said " Oscar Wilde/ 5
and, much to my astonishment, it proved to be
right. It was from the pamphlet on Socialism; I
had read it years before. That was naturally the
only quotation. that I ever did guess. Roger Fry one
evening quoted a passage that no one could guess
and it turned out to be from Baedeker, It was a
wonderful week-end and I did not talk at all as
everyone else talked so brilliantly. There was only
one trouble, that a horrible bird arrived outside the
library, sat on a small tree, and whistled three notes.
This it did without ceasing. We went into the gar
den and collected pebbles with which we pelted it.
This drove it away for a few minutes and then it
came back again. When I left on Monday morning
Roger was buying an air-rifle. I went back to
Fitzroy Street and started work seriously.
I painted some artificial flowers in a white vase
which Sickert bought. He still lived opposite and
asked me to breakfast. He said, cc You had better
come every morning at nine, as I get up at six in
Camden Town, swim for an hour, think for a bit,
and have breakfast." At nine I crossed the road
and had a large cup of coffee, two eggs, marmalade,
and a large cigar. Breakfast lasted until about ten-
thirty and then I was sent home to work. Some
times I sat to him for a short time. Sickert was the
kindest and one of the most intelligent and charming
men I have ever met. He always seemed to know
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what one wanted to do next, and that is rare in any
human being. He still had his Saturday afternoons.
The studio was large and badly lighted after the
daylight had gone, and he loved shocking the
guests, who consisted of all kinds of people, from
the very grand to the humble, but serious, art
student. He had a life-sized lay figure and an iron
bedstead in one corner, with a pink counterpane;
he said it always reminded him of the " Camden
Town Murder." One day he placed the lay figure
on the bed in a rather compromising position, sat
next it with his arm round its neck, and waited for
the guests. They all looked rather startled when
they saw this unusual group. I took Beverley
Nichols there one day. He was seventeen and in the
London Scottish. He was very good-looking and
charming and played the piano marvellously; he
was a great success at the Saturday afternoons.
Later on I think I quarrelled with him. I forget
why. I have always regretted it as I admired his
work very much.
My friend, Marie Beerbohm, came often to Fitz-
roy Street. We all went in the evenings to the
Eiffel Tower Restaurant and ate and drank after
wards. One morning Marie came to see me. She
said, " An awful thing has happened; I was bring
ing with me half a bottle of champagne to cheer us
up. I met Walter Sickert in the street. He saw it
and said, c Disgraceful that young girls like you
should drink in the morning/ and he took it away
from me." The next morning I saw it in the wine-
bin, when I was having breakfast with him. It
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L AU GHING TORSO
remained there for about six months. One day I was
painting W. H. Davies, the poet. He said, " I don't
feel very well to-day, I had lunch with Sickert and
we had a bottle of champagne. He cooked the
lunch and afterwards said, ' Now what about
another half-bottle. 3 " I then realized what had
happened and sure enough the next morning, when
I went to his studio, it had gone!
Nancy Cunard, who was often at the Eiffel
Tower, started a magazine of poetry called Wheels.
Three young poets called Sitwell, wrote for it, and
there was a great deal of discussion as to their merits.
I met them one day with Ethelbert White. I
thought them most intelligent and charming, and it
was at their house that I met W. H. Davies. I was
told that he was very shy and difficult to talk to.
I had a golden evening-dress on, with a wreath of
autumn leaves round my head, and looked rather
like a dissipated Bacchante after a little champagne.
Davies was sitting on the floor and I sat down beside
him. I talked of the relative values of beer and
public-houses, and we got on admirably.
One evening Robert Ross was there, and St. John
Hutchinson, and they decided to act " Salome/' I
had to play Salome whilst Robbie Ross acted Herod.
There were a lot of people present and I was
frightened to death, so much so, that when I had to
speak to him I made a dash for the door and hid in
the bathroom. The audience actually thought that
this was part of the play and I managed to get away
with it. Davies lived in two rooms in Great Russell
Street. They were filled with mice. He set a trap
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W. H. DAVIES
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for them, but was so sad when he found one dead
that he made no further attempt to kill them but
fed them instead. He said he always regretted the
days when he was a tramp as, in New York, there
were three or four of them who worked together
every day, and in the morning they went out one by
one. No one could come home until he had col
lected four dollars. He said that sometimes they
would all be back by one o'clock. I asked what they
did when they got home and he said/' We smoked
cigars and drank, and went to a music-hall."
Augustus John did a very fine painting of him.
Mine was a good likeness but not a very good paint
ing. John and I both concentrated on his eye
lashes. This amused me when I saw John's painting,
which I had not seen before I started mine. One
evening, Roger Fry asked me to come to his studio
to have some coffee. I went and found there
Robert Ross and Walter Sickert. We drank wine,
and I think this was one of the most amusing even
ings I have ever had. Sickert did his famous turn of
reciting "Hamlet," imitating the voices of each char
acter, Hamlet, the King, the Queen, etc. Robbie
Ross told stories of Mr. Gladstone and Queen
Victoria; I can only remember one. I think now
how stupid I was not to have written down an
account of that evening, but I was then too modest
and self-conscious to do such a thing. The story I
remember was of the funeral of Qjieen Victoria at
Frogmorewith Princess Louise and Princess Victoria.
With. Constance Stuart Richardson I had met the
" Kim," the Duke of Manchester. He said that he
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LAUGHING TORSO
was giving a party at his house and as he only, as a
rule, had theatrical people, he would like to invite
for a change some painters; would I bring Walter
Sickert and Augustus John? This seemed an almost
impossible feat, but I promised to do my best. I
found Augustus and he said that he would consider
the matter. Sickert I asked at breakfast the next
morning, and he was delighted as he had known
Kim's father very well. The Sitwells asked me to
dinner on the night of the party and Sickert and his
wife were there. We had arranged to collect John
at his house and take him with us. We arrived
rather late and found a large motor-car outside.
John was standing on the doorstep. We all three
got in and went to the party. All kinds of stage
stars were there who were famous at that time.
The men were mostly in uniform. Melville Gideon
played and sang. Luvaun, the Maori, was there
with his Hawaiian guitar. Melville Gideon sang
his famous song about the " Pussy Gat " and we
drank champagne. I had my golden dress on with
the wreath of autumn leaves, which got nearer and
nearer my left ear as the evening wore on. Sickert
walked home with me and left me on my doorstep
in the early hours of the morning-
One day I got Spanish J flu*, Everyone was dying*
I went to bed in my studio. Sickert brought me
milk in the morning and Adrian Allinson, the
painter, cooked me onions in the afternoon. At other
times I was quite alone, . . . I stayed in bed about
a week without the assistance of a doctor and then
recovered.
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Mrs. Sicker t was kind enough to ask me to stay
at their house in Gamden Town. When I got there
I stayed in bed two or three days and then got up.
She was a charming and wonderful woman and did
beautiful embroidery. Every day I watched her and
talked about myself, which seemed to amuse her.
At the end often days I felt very strong indeed and
returned to Fitzroy Street*
Living near me was a young Belgian who had
been a soldier and suffered from time to time from
shell-shock. He was very poor and I asked him to
sit for me. This I enjoyed, as he sat very well, and I
talked French to him, which reminded me of Paris.
He had long hair and an interesting face. He
painted also in a rather flamboyant Belgian style.
I thought that the French were a much superior
race to the Belgians, whose mentality seemed dreary
and bourgeois in comparison. I painted a life-size
portrait of him, which Sickert bought, and one
seated at a table with all my books behind him on
a bookshelf, which was good, and was bought by
Walter Taylor. I saw it not long ago. I was pleased
with it. Going to see a painting one did years ago
is much the same as going to see an old friend whom
you have not seen for a long time. One feels nervous
and frightened that they may have become old
and haggard and ugly and falling to bits. I had a
pleasant surprise when I saw rny painting.
The air-raids had not stopped but the barrage
was doing its work and often chased them away
before they got to London. During air-raid nights,
if I had friends with me, we went down to the cellar.
101
LAUGHING TORSO
Roger Fry came and joined us if he was alone, in
fact everyone in the street generally visited each
other on these occasions. We eventually got bored
with sitting in the cellar and laid in a stock of wine
for air-raid nights, and sat on the roof instead and
watched the bombs dropping. The nearest escape
from death, with the exception of the Clifford's Inn
experience that I had, was when I was in a studio
near the Eiffel Tower Restaurant with three young
men, one of whom was half German and the other
two naturalized Germans. They were playing in
turn German music when we heard the whistles
blowing for the alarm. They did not stop playing
as we heard the bombs drop- Each one that dropped
got nearer and nearer. Finally we heard a terrific
whizzing noise, that sounded as if it were just over
the roof, and then a crash quite near. The Germans
had started throwing bombs the other side of
Hampstead and had dropped one at almost regular
intervals till they got to the West End. The last
one dropped near Portland Street, on a hostel that
the girls from some large shop lived in, but they had
all gone away for a holiday. If it had dropped in a
straight line as the others did, it would have been
very near us. On another occasion I was at the
Eiffel Tower with three young men. Mark Gertler
and Geoffrey Nelson were two of them, and we were
sitting near the large windows looking on to the
street. We were amusing ourselves by playing
" consequences." We heard the whistles blowing
and then a loud crash. The bomb dropped out
side Bourne and Hollingsworth's, which was not
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far away, so we had some more drinks and went
home.
My painting still showed a good deal of French
influence. At the Omega Workshops we thought
and spoke only of modern French Art, Derain,
Picasso, Matisse and others. Under the gloomy in
fluence of London my colour, which had cheered up
in France considerably, became duller and duller.
J. M. Synge said that he had to live years in Paris
before he could appreciate Ireland. I have found
out that he was quite right. It was only much later,
after ten years in France, that I could see any colour
in London at all. Now I can see, but perhaps not
yet express, colour everywhere, not so brilliant per
haps, but more subtle. My painting became more
and more mechanical. Sickert said that I should
not paint from life. " Make sketches and square
them up, as the old Masters did." I tried this but
failed. Whether this was from laziness or incom
petence I do not know, anyway I could not paint
at all like that.
I had already acquired quite a good library of
rather an odd sort. Edgar and I visited the Charing
Cross Road nearly every day. He found French
books, including a small book of Jules Laforgue's
poems. It was the first volume of poems that he ever
published and Edgar paid sixpence for it. I sent his
books to France to him later on and regret that I
did not keep this one.
I met one day, Mrs. Ruby Lindsay, whom I had
first seen before the War at a sketch class in Chelsea,
where Henri and I went sometimes in the evenings
103
LAUGHING TORSO
to draw. She was the most beautiful person and
always wore a chain round her neck to which was
attached a little ball, covered in diamonds. I
wondered what it was and stared at her and it in
admiration when the model rested. I met her at
one of Walter Sickert's Saturday afternoons. She
was wearing it. I said, cc Do you remember the
sketch class in Chelsea? " And she did quite well.
I said, " Do let me look at that wonderful sparkling
ball that you have?" and when I did I saw it was a
watch. She asked me to her house in Manchester
Square, where she sometimes had models. One
afternoon I went and she had a ballet girl posing in
a pink ballet skirt. She had been a pupil of Sickert's
and was doing a painting that had a great deal of
talent. I sat in a corner and drew. I was very
badly dressed and hid my shoes under the chair.
Presently Lord Ribblesdale came in, and then Lady
Curzon. They were charming and I hid my feet
further under the chair, but they neither seemed to
notice or to mind. We continued to draw and they
talked about Art.
Osbert Sitwell and his brother were in the Grena
dier Guards and looked imposing in their grey
coats. I asked Osbert if he would sit for me. He
came and sat in his uniform, but it was not a success.
I painted another one of him in a small " John
Bull " top-hat, a head and shoulders, and that was
much better. He bought it, and I believe it is
amongst their family portraits. I don't know what
the family portraits think of it. I also painted
Edith in a rainbow jacket that was exhibited at the
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EDITH SITWELL
w rfRick&rJSicktrt R.A.
WAR
National Portrait Society's Exhibition at the Gros-
venor Gallery. The Taller criticized it and said,
". . . Finally was staggered by Nina Hamnett\ of
* Poetess Edith Sitwell ' and ' Poet Captain Osbert
Sitwell'; sister in the funniest Futurist frock, with
what someone called c kaleidoscopic breasts/ and
brother looking nice, in spite of all, in the pale,
dreamy blue-grey and recherche high collar and
waist of a Guard's overcoat. 5 ' This I did not regard
as very serious Art criticism. The Times said, " c Miss
Edith Sitwell 3 is a serious work in the midst of much
frivolity "; this was by Glutton Brock. People
spoke of the Sitwells in the same way as they did in
1911 of the Post Impressionists. In 1911 a com
mittee of doctors, who were experts in lunacy, were
called, and the doctors assured everyone that they
were all mad and within six months would be com
pletely forgotten, but the Sitwells persisted in the
same way as the Post Impressionists did and every
one was much disturbed. Every time the public
thought that they had vanished from sight they
cropped up again, new poems, new books, they
were like corks floating; every time you tried to
push them down they came up and floated on the
surface. I was not considered very important, only
rather a nuisance and so nobody minded much what
I did. I was already beginning to think about
France. I could not see any way of getting back
there. I thought of Modigliani and the Rotonde
and Wassilieff. I had occasional postcards, hearing
that they were doing quite well.
A Polish poet had decided to become an art
105
LAUGHING TORSO
dealer. Modigliani had come back from Nice and
was very poor. They all said,, " You must take up
Modigliani and give him a contract.' 3 In Paris the
dealers buy pictures by the inch; so much for so
many inches, and so much money a month for so
many metres of canvas. The dealer said, " He is
no good, he is a blagueur." Finally, the art dealer
was so pestered, that he had to give in and gave
Modigliani so much a month. Modigliani was de
lighted and drank and worked more. The artists
at the end of the War, in Paris, and shortly after
wards, did very well as all the army officers had
money, and many liked pictures and bought them.
They also gave incredible parties, much to the
annoyance of the concierges, who never ceased to com
plain, but without any success. I began to think
seriously of leaving for Paris. I did not know what
to do about a passport. I was still rather frightened
of the police and decided to wait. I saw Marie
Beerbohm nearly every day. She used to go some
times and stay in Oxford. One day she asked me to
go too. I was delighted. We stayed at the Ran
dolph. At that time there were many amusing
people at the University; T. W. Earp, Aldous
Huxley, and Roy Campbell, who was attending
lectures, but was not actually an undergraduate.
We sat on the lawn at Balliol under the mulberry
tree with Aldous Huxley, who had grey flannel
trousers, a corduroy coat, and a red tie. He was
very tall and thin and snake-like. Marie was also
very tall and thin and elegant. I sat and listened
to them talk. J. B. S. Haldane was also at Oxford.
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Everyone met at Tommy Earp's rooms, and from
there we went back to the Randolph and sat down
stairs and talked and drank. Roy Campbell was
about seventeen and very beautiful indeed. He had
the most wonderful grey eyes with long black eye
lashes. He spoke with an odd gruff voice and a
funny accent. He sang Kaffir songs. He gave me a
nice copy of the poems of Arthur Rimbaud; he
presented them to me at the Randolph, rather in the
manner of a headmaster presenting a prize to the
head of the class. He had just worked his way from
South Africa in a tramp steamer. Tommy Earp was
the President of the Union. He had wonderful hair,
which sometimes he allowed us to stroke. It grew
straight up like grass and felt like a doormat. We
dined at the George, the Mitre, and the Golden
Cross, and I was as nearly in Paradise as it was
possible to be. Tommy said extraordinary things.
One day someone said something about bunions,
and somebody else said, " What are bunions? " I
said, " Those things that grow on old ladies' toes. 5 '
After a bit Tommy said, " Bunions must rather
impede the Pilgrim's Progress! "
After two days we had to return to London as I
and everyone else had to work. Occasionally, when
I had time, I thought of love and wondered if
ever I would fall in love again. There seemed
so much to do and so many amusing people about,
one had no time to concentrate on such a serious
subject.
We still went to the Cafe Royal in the evenings
and then after to the Eiffel Tower. Horace Cole
107
LAUGHING TORSO
was nearly always at the caf<. He had given up
ragging the Recruiting Offices. He was often with
Lilian Shelley, the girl who sang at the Gave of the
Golden Calf. She was the craziest and most
generous creature in the world. If she had a necklace
or a bracelet on and anyone said that they liked it,
she would say, " Have it! "
One day a tall young man appeared at my studio.
He said he was an art dealer and that he had bought
some of Augustus John's drawings. He bought
several of my paintings, for which he gave me a
small sum of money. This I did not mind, as
Sickert had always told me to sell things cheap
because, like that, one sold more. I asked him if he
knew Sickert and he did not, so the next day I took
him over to see him. The following day Sickert
asked him to lunch. I was not there. At that time
Sickert was by no means rich. Round his studio,
high upon the walls, was a shelf. On it were a quan
tity of canvases, mostly small ones, with their faces
to the wall. During luncheon the art dealer looked
round the shelves and said, " I make you a sporting
offer for all the canvases on the shelf fifty pounds! "
And Sickert said, " Done." He did not know him
self what was on them. When he took them down he
found that on each canvas was a very very good paint
ing. There were about fifty. The art dealer gave a
scream of delight, and on the strength of it, took a
gallery, and had an exhibition which was an enor
mous success, and everyone was delighted. One
day Sickert told me that he and his wife had taken
a house at Bath for the summer* He asked me to
1 08
WAR
come to Bath and stay there, not with them, as the
house was very small, but for me to take a room in
the town. I said that I had no money. Mrs.
Sickert went first and Sickert remained in London to
arrange some business. He took me out to lunch and
to dinner. Sometimes we would walk up to Gamden
Town and round about Euston. We walked one
evening to see a house that had been a school, kept
by an old lady, and he had been to school there
when he was six years' old. One morning when I
arrived at the studio, he said, " I can't bother to
cook the eggs this morning, we must have breakfast
at the Euston Hotel/ 5 so we arrived there about
nine o'clock. The breakfast was very good. I
thought it rather a depressing place, but Sickert
adored those kind of places. After a few days he
went to Bath. He wrote to me asking me to come
there and said that he had found a beautiful room
for me, overlooking the whole town. I would have
liked to have gone very much, but I remembered
how dreadfully ill I always felt when I was at
school. I wrote and told him that, but he answered
by a letter containing fifteen pounds, and saying
that he wanted to buy a portrait of a poet that I had
done. There was nothing else to do but to go.
Sickert met me at the station and took me to my
room. It was a most enchanting place, in a row of
workmen's cottages, half-way up a hill. The front
door was higher than the back door, as the hill
was quite steep. The landlady was the widow of a
policeman. She wore a striped blue-and-white
blouse with a belt, a large cameo brooch, and her
109
LAUGHING TORSO
hair in a bun on the top of her head. I at once asked
her to sit for me and did a life-sized painting of her
with family photographs in suitable frames on the
table and a telescope. I forget why I put in the
telescope, I think it was a nice colour. Anyway
Roger Fry bought it and it was exhibited at the
London Group. I felt that I was behaving rather
badly, as Sickert had told me not to paint from the
model, but to do drawings and square them up.
He never came to my place so he did not know what
I was doing. I must say I was horribly bored and
I felt dreadfully ill and almost suicidal because of
the climate. I knew nobody at all, I went to
Sickert's rooms at five-thirty every day. He had
two rooms where he worked and we would go out
and I would watch him paint sketches of the river
and Pulteney Bridge. This was very interesting and
the paintings were really beautiful that he did from
his sketches. Afterwards I went back to my lodgings,
had some supper, and went to bed. I never have
been so bored in all my life. About twice a week I
dined with Sickert and his wife at their house; that
was very pleasant. On Sunday, Sickert did not go to
his painting rooms, and I had to spend the week
end entirely alone. I thought sometimes that death
would be preferable; no one to talk to and feeling
ill and depressed. I stayed at Bath for five weeks.
One day I walked up Lansdowne and peered through
the gates of the Royal School for Officers' Daughters
of the Army. I saw two girls sitting on the grass
and longed to talk to them. I walked up to the
top of the hill and into a cemetery. The cemetery
no
WAR
had a strange tower and sort of folly, built by some
old gentleman under the influence of a strange
emotion. I sat on a tombstone and \vished I were
inside. Outside my window I could see a large,
rather modern building. It was the C. B. Corset
Manufactory, and had some trees beside it. 1
painted a picture of it from my room and sold it a
few days later to the art dealer who had bought
Walter Sickert's paintings from the shelf. I left
Bath and returned to London.
Sickert was the Professor of Art at the Westminster
Technical Institute. One day he decided to retire,
and asked me if I would teach the evening-class
there. He and Augustus John recommended me to
the committee and I got the job. The class con
sisted of five students when I arrived. They were as
much frightened of me as I was of them. 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
LAUGHING TORSO
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
WAR
MY CLASS AT THE WESTMINSTER TECHNICAL
INSTITUTE, 1919
me and to marry me. I believe he did come back
but I was, unfortunately, in Paris.
LAUGHING TORSO
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
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PEACE
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,
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LAUGHING TORSO
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;
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PEACE
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
117
LAUGHING TORSO
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
118
PEACE
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.
119
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER IX PARIS REVISITED
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
120
PARIS REVISITED
so I took off all my clothes and she said, cc 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. Wassilieffspoke
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,
121
LAUGHING TORSO
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
122
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
123
LAUGHING TORSO
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.
WassiliefF 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
124
PARIS REVISITED
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
125
LAUGHING TORSO
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
126
PARIS REVISITED
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. 5 ' 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
127
L AUGHIN G TORSO
they are very expensive, so perhaps that one day I
will learn some sense. " I went and wept on Wassi-
liefFs 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
128
PARIS REVISITED
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
129
LAUGHING TORSO
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. 3 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. We made friends and she asked
him to bring me to her house. I had never been
to the Opera House before and was much impressed
at the chic of the French women. They were very
much made up, but the only grand and aristocratic
woman that I could see was sitting in a box opposite
to us with some friends, and I asked who she could
be. My friend, Winzer, who knew nearly everyone
there, told me that it was Lady Juliet Duff. I met
her some years afterwards at the Princess Murat's.
During the intervals we went to the promenade and
talked to Diaghilev and the Princess.
In London I had met Andre Gide. One day he
130
PARIS REVISITED
came up to the Cafe Parnasse, which has now be
come part of the Rotonde. This was at that time
miich the most amusing cafe in Montparnasse. He
was delighted to see me and had with him a young
man called Marc Allegri, who, a year or two ago,
went to the Congo with Gide and made a wonderful
film of the natives there. Several English officers
who had been at the Peace Conference were still in
Paris and used to come to the Parnasse in the even
ings. They knew many songs and we found an
American who sang too, and we would spend the
evenings singing. Andre Gide would come up and
listen. He spoke English almost perfectly and I
think enjoyed our singing, although it got very loud
and noisy as the evening wore on. I had left the
Hotel Victor and was living in a hotel opposite the
Gare Montparnasse. Marc Allegri said that he
would like to see some of my work, some of which
I had at my hotel. He had seen it at Cambridge
and had come with Gide to my studio in Fitzroy
Street on one occasion. I arranged to meet him
on the terrasse of the Cafe Parnasse and waited for
some time. Presently I saw Gide by himself walking
by. He waved to me and carne and sat beside me.
I said, " Where is Marc? " He said that he did not
know, but as he had nothing to do for an hour or
two, could he come himself and see my pictures.
We went back to my room and he liked some of my
drawings very much. Seeing my guitar hanging on
the wall he asked me to sing some English songs,
and I spent the whole afternoon singing to him.
He was a charming man, elderly, very good-looking
131
LAUGHING TORSO
and very amusing. I was very pleased that a man
whose works I admired so much should spend the
afternoon listening to my silly songs and enjoy
himself.
I found a girl whom I had known in London, in
fact she had been at Brangwyns with me and had
married a very nice man who was in some govern
ment service in Paris. I had known him in London
slightly. She did coloured dry points of people and
made a lot of money. She had to go to England
for a few days to see her children who were at
school. She said, " Take my husband out and keep
him from being bored/ 3 This, I think, was the time
of Mardi Gras, and there were several holidays.
We spent Sunday at the Rotonde drinking Vouvray
with some friends, and he asked me to meet him
there again on Monday and we would go to Font-
ainebleau, have lunch there, and then walk to
Moret, where there was a little inn where Arnold
Bennett had lived for some years. We decided that
we would drink to his health when we got there and
have dinner. I had never been to Fontainebleau
before and we went to a very nice restaurant and
had lunch and some white wine and started out to
walk through the forest. It was a very hot day and
there was nothing but four or five miles of forest.
We rested by the road-side from time to time and
about six o'clock we got to the inn, very hot and
thirsty. It was about half a mile from Moret itself
and a most charming looking little place. The caf6
had a garden in front of it with some tables and we
sat down and ordered bottles of beer. We were so
132
MYSELF
1920
ONE OF EDGAR'S
MARIONETTES
(of. p. 81)
PARIS REVISITED
thirsty that we drank eight or nine bottles which,
one by one, as we finished them we placed under the
table. We ordered dinner with a whole duck, chose
the wine, and then went for a walk whilst they
cooked it. We sat on the edge of the forest near a
peasant's hut. It was rather damp and marshy.
I had never met mosquitoes before and did not
realize what they were capable of. I began to
scratch my legs, so did my companion. We went
back to the inn and had a magnificent dinner and
drank Arnold Bennett's health again in white and
red wine, then walked to the station at Moret, got
into a train packed with French bourgeois, and,
being very tired, slept one on each seat, packed like
sardines between the French, until we reached Paris.
The next day my legs were swollen to about twice
their natural size and my friend telephoned to me
at the Rotonde to say that he had to stay in bed as
he couldn't walk at all. I have since been careful
of damp and marshy ground.
The nice Pole who lived in Modigliani's studio
said that I could come and work there if I liked.
The studio consisted of two long workshops, up
many flights of stairs. Gauguin had lived on the
floor below. It was next to the Academic Golorossi.
The house looked as if it were going to fall down at
any moment and one could see the sunlight shining
through a part of the wall. There was a fire-
escape on the wall on the inside of the window.
It was a rope ladder with wooden rungs attached
with an iron hook. No one ever dared to go
down it as we thought that the wall and the house
133
LAUGHING TORSO
would probably come down too. I believe Modig-
liani climbed down on one occasion. The studio
was exactly as he had left it, and parts of the
walls had been painted different colours to make
different backgrounds. The staircase was lopsided,
as it had already slipped about two inches from the
wall. I was rather nervous at first about going up
and downstairs, but it seemed to be quite safe. In
the studio underneath lived Ortiz de Zarate, the
South American painter. The Pole and the Arab
sat with me in the evenings at the Cafe Parnasse.
There were many Polish painters there at that time
and they were unanimous in their hatred of E.
who had gone away with my friend and my money.
There was one particularly amusing painter called
Rubezack, who drank wine, sang songs, and made
jokes all day and half the night. The Arab had
a mistress who was a Frenchwoman and was
very jealous of him. I thought him most charm
ing and very good-looking; he seemed to like me
too. Rubezack had a son and had one day to
go out of Paris to a country place to inspect the
school. He came to the cafe and found the Arab and
myself drinking coffee and asked us if we would
accompany him for the afternoon. We took the train
and came to a charming place with a large house,
which was the school. Afterwards we sat in the gar
den of a cafe and drank Vermouth Cassis, a drink
which eventually goes to the head and is mostly
drunk in France by work-girls and concierges.
There was a swing in the garden and we took turns
on it and behaved in a ridiculously childish way.
134
PARIS REVISITED
We then walked across some fields, took the tram,
and came back to the cafe to find the Arab's mis
tress, not looking too pleased, and the Pole who
lived in Modigliani's studio.
Underneath the Hotel de la Haute Loire^ which
was the hotel I stayed at in 1914, was the Restaurant
Baty. Outside were baskets of oysters stacked up.
Inside, the floor was tiled and covered in sawdust.
Rosalie was still in the Rue Campagne Premiere, in
her restaurant, and wept when Modigliani's name
was mentioned, although, when he was alive, she
threw him out several times a week. This was not
really surprising as he caused a dreadful disturbance
at times. One day I met Blaise Cendras at the
Pamasse. He had only one arm, the other he had
lost in the War. I had read his poetry and admired
his work very much. He was a great friend of
Ferdinand Leger, and they and many more amusing
people ate every day at Baty's. Sometimes they
would sing whilst they ate. They sang snatches
from the Russian Ballets. They were particularly
fond of snatches from " Scheherazade " and " Pe-
trouska." One day, after lunch, an elderly Baroness
came to the restaurant and they decided to go and
see Brancusi, bringing some wine with them. They
took the Baroness with them. She must have been
very beautiful when she was young. She wore a
yellow wig, which she twined round her head. She
still had a fine figure. She asked me to dinner at her
flat. She had several pictures of Henri Rousseau,
the Douanier. She had the " Wedding/' a large
picture with the bride in white in the middle and
135
L AU GHING TORSO
the one with the horse-trap and the black dog. I
was thirty at that time and she must have been very
much older. She asked me how old I was and I
said, " Thirty. 53 She said, " How funny, I am only
three years older than you." I had never met
anyone who lied quite to that extent before and was
rather disturbed. I thought that conversation
under those circumstances was going to be difficult,
if not impossible. Evan Morgan came to see her
with me one evening. She told us that we were
both vulgar and common and it nearly ended in a
battle. The day that they all went to Brancusi's
they danced and sang and the Baroness, feeling tired,
asked if she could go upstairs and lie down for a
short time. She did, and then went home. When
Brancusi went to bed he was horrified to find the
Baroness's yellow wig. It was an embarrassing
moment for him. The next day she wrote and
explained that it belonged to her; she said that she
did not, as a rule, wear it, and would he send it back
at once.
I worked at Modigliani's studio with the Pole and
drew at the Academy. I felt rather a fool about my
painting as all the Poles and, in fact, all the painters
painted in very bright colours, and mine still looked
like London fog. I was very happy aiad felt very well
as I always did in Paris. The Pole liked me very
much. He painted portraits and flowers. He was
small and well-built and looked rather like Charlie
Chaplin, whom he imitated very well as he wore a
pair of very baggy corduroy trousers*
136
" THE POLE "
'37
LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER X THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
THE Pole asked me if I would go to the South of
France, but, he said, " We must get married first. 55
I had to confess that I already had a husband.
After thinking for a time he decided that it really did
not matter very much. It had never occurred to me
that it did. I had to pretend that it was a sacrifice
on my part. The same dealer, who had been in
duced to give Modigliani money, bought my Pole's
pictures from time to time. We went to see him and
his wife. I felt like a jeune fills with her fiancS.
They were pleased and congratulated us both. The
dealer bought some of his pictures and gave him
some money. I sold some drawings for a few
hundred francs, very much less than the money that
he had and we took a third-class train for the South.
I did not ask where we were going to, as I was so
thrilled with the idea of going South that I did not
mind. Two South Americans came with us, too.
One of them was going to Gollioure to stay with
Foujita and his wife. The train was very uncom
fortable. The seats were made of strips of wood
which, when one tried to lie on them, made holes
in one's body. We slept uncomfortably and I leant
against my Pole, who put his arm affectionately
round my waist. When we started from Paris it was
cold and pouring with rain; as we got further
South it got warmer and warmer. The South
Americans and the Pole spoke Spanish. My Pole had
lived for five years in Spain and spoke Spanish like
138
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
a Spaniard. I spoke to them in French. We stopped
for ten minutes at Lyons and went into the station
cafe, drank coffee and ate ham sandwiches.
The train got hotter and hotter and the sun shone
from a cloudless blue sky. We saw olive trees and
flowers of all colours, and finally the Pyrenees in the
distance. I thought that I was approaching Para
dise, and began to wonder if I had not died during
the night and had really arrived there. I ached all
over and was getting very hungry. We decided to
stay at Collioure, if we liked the place, and to find
some rooms. In order to get to Gollioure we had to
get off the train at Port Vendres, the place where
the boats sail for Algiers and Morocco. We arrived
there at eight in the morning, and dragged our
weary bodies to a little cafe on the quays. I had
never seen such blue water and such beautifulfishing-
boats with curved sails. The boats were painted the
brightest of blues, greens, and reds. I looked at
them and wondered however I should paint them;
they were so perfect in themselves that it seemed
impossible to do anything that would not resemble
a coloured photograph. The cafe had melons piled
up outside. We had a bottle of red wine to revive
us, some coarse bread, and butter and cheese. From
Port Vendres we had to walk to Gollioure along the
cliffs for about four miles. There were high moun
tains behind us and as we walked we saw an Arab
castle on the top of a hill. It looked like something
out of the Arabian Nights. At last we turned a corner
and saw a bay, the other side of which was Collioure.
There were pink, green, and white houses and an
LAUGHING TORSO
Arab tower on the sea-shore. We walked round the
bay and got down to the shore. There was a
stone path at the foot of the old fort and the sea
came right up to the path. The Foujitas had the
best house in Collioure. It was practically on the
sea. There was only a road and a small stretch of
seashore in front of it. Matisse had lived there for
many summers. It had a balcony and several large
rooms. At this time Foujita was living with his
first wife, whom I had not met before. She was
French and had most beautiful legs, but her body
was shapeless and enormous. She had the most
terrifying face I have ever seen and I was frightened
of her. She screamed at Foujita most of the time.
They were very kind and pleased to see us and found
us a charming place in a very narrow street near the
sea. It cost a hundred and fifty francs a month. It,
had a large room, with two windows looking on to
the street, and an alcove at the back which con
tained a bed. There was also another small alcove.
In the front room was a primitive stove which burnt
charcoal. The old lady who rented it to us was very
ugly and had long teeth like a horse. Appar
ently in this part of the world, there is something in
the water which makes people's teeth drop out, and
even the quite young women had teeth missing.
There were no sanitary arrangements of any kind
and a bucket was placed in the Smaller alcove for
my use. The gentlemen of the town walked every
morning up a hill to the moat of the fort. The old
lady and most of her family earned their living by
packing and salting fish, principally sardines.
140
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
Under each of the houses in the street were large
cellars in which they packed the fish. The women
dressed in black with black handkerchiefs over their
heads. Our landlady's sister kept a little shop. She
sold everything, including tobacco. She had one
of the most beautiful faces that I have ever seen.
She must have been nearly fifty and wore the black
dress that all the women wore; she moved her
hands most gracefully. She had a beautiful voice
and looked like the Virgin Mary. I asked the land
lady if there were not any photographs of her when
she was young. She said that they never troubled
about anything like that, and that the people for
miles around came to Collioure to look at her and
admire her.
The evening of our arrival Foujita and his wife
asked us to dinner. Foujita was a marvellous cook,
and we all went to the kitchen and helped. It ended
by us all being chased out, as Foujita explained in
Japanese, rather forcibly, that " too many cooks
spoilt the broth/ 5 We had breakfast in a cafe the
next morning, and afterwards I wandered round the
town with a string bag to visit the shops. I bought
some meat, and some potatoes and onions, and the
Pole and I cooked it. He cooked very well indeed,
and I knew how to do several things quite well. We
had lunch and then went out to view the landscape
to see what we could paint. I was frightened of be
ginning anything, as he painted much better than I
did, but he was very kind and sympathetic, and said
that it did not matter much what I painted, but " //
faut travailler" He had been a great friend of
141
LAUGHING TORSO
Modigliani's, and knew many stories about him, so
I was never bored for a minute. We went to the
sea-shore every morning with the Foujitas and the
South American. There were bathing-boxes, and
Madame Foujita and I shared one and the men had
another. Foujita swam like a fish and dived
beautifully. I could not swim at all, the result of
my having been " ducked " when I was a child, but
they all decided to teach me. We all made a great
effort and finally after a week, I managed to swim
five metres, and after a scream of triumph, sank.
We went in the evening to a cafe where they had, on
Friday nights, Cafe Concerts. The songs they sang
shocked even me, they were of an unbelievable
indecency, but the population were delighted, and
cheered loudly. I drew at the cafe during the day
time, as we sometimes went there after lunch.
There were Senegalese working near by, digging a
trench. They never appeared to be doing any work,
they just posed in attitudes, resting on their pickaxes
and their shovels, standing in very well composed
groups, never moving at all. We stayed at Collioure
for three months and even then the trench was not
completed. One day my Pole said to one of them,
" How do you like the women here? " And he re
plied, " Not at all, they smell too much/ 5 Ap
parently the white girls smelt as badly to them as
the black men did to the white girls, and so no one
had any success at all.
We had brought metres of canvas with us and
some stretchers, and a few days later I found a
motif. It was up a hill; one saw roofs in the fore-
142
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
ground and the Arab tower with the sea behind and
a few fishing -boats with white sails, and in the
background a green hill with white waves washing
against the rocks. I saw the painting again the
other day. It is in the collection of Mary Anders.
The white waves were very well painted and so
was the Arab tower. The roofs and the sea I did
not think so highly of, and thought how much
better I could have painted them now. The Pole
was very sweet and encouraging. The Foujitas
suggested that we should take our supper and some
wine to the Arab castle that we had seen on our way
to Gollioure. We started off about four p.m. and
climbed the hill. There had been a drawbridge,
with quite a narrow and small drop, only about two
yards wide and six feet deep. It was quite easy to
jump across it, which I and the Pole did at once,
without a thought. When it came to Mrs. Foujita
she screamed with terror. The Pole and I jumped
back and made her jump, she was in a fainting con
dition by the time she got to the other side. I made
a few sinister remarks in bad taste about education
at the Royal School of Officers 3 Daughters of the
Army, the British Empire, cricket, sport, courage,
etc., which I don't think the poor creature was in
a condition to hear. We revived her with some wine
and walked up the steps inside the castle. The
castle was square outside, but inside there was a
round hole, surrounded by a path. On the stone
floor, at intervals of a few yards, were holes, and
underneath was water, into which enemies were
pushed. We got on to the roof, which was large
LAUGHING TORSO
and flat. The view was magnificent. We sat down
and had our supper of wine, bread, olives and sar
dines : one could never escape at any meal from the
eternal sardine it appeared in every form salted ,
fresh, boiled and fried. Madame Foujita spoke in a
gruff and angry voice, even when she was not
annoyed, but that was not often. Foujita was
angelic and never answered back or said a word.
I don't think that she had ever seen or met an
English person before, and she would sit and gaze
at me in astonishment for hours. The South
American had apparently been very rich once and
was an ex-amour of Madame Foujita's. He had a
face like a hawk and a long thin body that was
rather beautiful and resembled an old ivory Spanish
crucifix. He was very Spanish and talked about
poetry, life, hope, and the soul. The Pole knew a
good deal about Spaniards and laughed at him
sometimes. Madame Foujita suspected me of
laughing at her too, but she was, I am thankful to
say, not quite sure. Foujita painted at home during
the afternoons. He did not use an easel, but placed
a canvas against a chair and sat on the floor with
his legs crossed. He worked with a tiny brush, very
rapidly. The South American sat in the sun, drank
wine, and blinked his eyes.
My Pole and I went out every day to find new
motifs to paint. After a week we saw so many sub
jects that we thought that we would have to stay
there for about seventy years in order to accomplish
them. I tried to paint olive trees. I found them
almost impossible. One day we found a beautiful
144
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
motif on a hill. It was very windy, so we attached
our easels to a string and a large stone, so that they
could not move. I was painting furiously, and
suddenly, behind an olive tree, appeared a Japanese.
He said, " Bon jour, Nina" and I looked at him for
a moment and recognized him as the friend of
Foujita Kavashima. This was quite fantastic as
one does not expect to see people one has not seen
for ten years on a Pyrenee.
One day we decided to have a picnic in the
woods. We bought sardines, bread, cheese and
some wine. We found a place with very green
grass. I thought at once of mosquitoes we
spread out some paper on the grass. After lunch
the paper was strewn all over the place. I said,
thinking of Hampstead Heath, " We must clean
the paper up. 95 Madame Foujita said, " Pourquoi! "
And I said, " It spoils the landscape, 55 and so I
dug a hole in the ground and buried all the paper
and sardine bones. After lunch Foujita saw a
large tree. It had a big trunk and no branches at
all. He said, " I will climb this tree. 55 I wondered
how he was going to do it. He took the trunk of the
tree with one hand on each side and climbed up
like a monkey. We all looked at him with astonish
ment and admiration. He could use his toes in the
same way that he could use his fingers. To enter
Spain one had to have a visa. None of us had one,
but we wanted very much to get to Port Bou, which
is the first Port in Spain. Madame Foujita, although
tiresome at times, was a woman of determined
character, and if she made up her mind to do some-
145
LAUGHING TORSO
thing, nothing, not even the police force, or the
customs officials, could thwart her. We heard that
there was a fete day in Spain. She had a brilliant
idea.
We would take the train to Cerbere, the last
station before Spain, and walk over the Pyrenees
into Spain. Madame Foujita dressed herself up in
her best clothes, with a pair of very high-heeled
patent leather shoes, not forgetting to put in
Foujita's pocket a pair of rope-soled shoes. This I
did not know about when we started and wondered
how she would climb the mountain, which was of
a respectable height. I wore a corduroy land girl's
coat and skirt, with pockets all over it, and looked
extremely British. We got to Cerbere and arrived
at the foot of the mountain. Madame F. took off
the high-heeled shoes, which Foujita put in his
pocket, and put on the rope-soled shoes and we
began to climb the mountain. About a quarter of
the way up we were stopped by the Customs, who
asked to see our passports. Madame F. took the
situation in hand, and explained in forcible language
that we were not climbing the mountain with a view
to descending the other side into Spain, but only to
admire, from the top, the Spanish scenery. I think
they were so terrified of her that they let us continue.
When we got to the top of the mountain we could see
thirty or forty miles of Spain. This mountain was
not nearly so high as the one that we had climbed
before; so we saw the view much more clearly.
We saw a square hole in the ground, which had some
steps leading downwards. We all walked down and
146
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
found a cellar with Spaniards drinking wine out of
bottles with long spouts* They held the spouts to
their lips, opened their throats, and down went the
wine. We ordered a bottle of wine and some glasses.
The Pole and the South American drank out of the
bottles. The French, who were entering Spain,
drank to the health of the Spaniards, and the
Spaniards who were about to enter France, drank
to the health of the French. We drank to every
body's health, including our own, and the Customs
House Officers. We then descended the other side
of the mountain and entered Port Bou. The cafes
were filled. The Spanish men wore black hats and
smoked cigars. When they saw me they screamed,
" Inglese! Inglese! " This, I realized, was regrettable,
but could not be helped. The Spaniards had little
fans, which they flapped all the time. We found a
restaurant and ordered a large lunch with a litre of
Spanish wine. It cost us a good deal of money, as
we had to change our francs into pesetas. The wine
was so strong that even five of us dared not finish the
bottle, which we left only three-quarters empty.
After lunch we visited the fete. There were re
gattas, and dances, and guitars, and what was de
scribed as pigeon-shooting. This rather horrified
me as the unfortunate pigeons were tied to posts
by their legs. The Spaniards shot at them. There
was a whole row of pigeons and if one was wounded
they very rarely killed one outright it flapped its
wings and frightened the other birds. It was then
time to return, as we had our train to catch at
Cerb^re. We passed the Customs, who were tactful
147
LAUGHING TORSO
enough not to ask us any questions, and returned to
Collioure.
After two weeks Foujita and his wife had to return
to Paris. We had a letter from a Pole, R., and his
wife, to say that they were coming to Collioure.
They had found an apartment near the port.
Madame R. was very fat and very bourgeoise, and I
thought rather kind. My Pole did not like her very
much. I think the same kind of person, if she had
been English, would have been quite impossible,
but we, being females, and of such different races,
got on very well. At least she was a change from
Madame Foujita. She was always suffering from a
different malady, she had indigestion, rheumatism,
change of life, stomach troubles, headaches, feet that
would not walk, and all kinds of other things. One
day we went to the seashore to bathe. R. very
seldom bathed, because he said that his figure looked
like a "sac de merde" which indeed it did. His wife
had the good sense not to bathe at all. My Pole
bathed with a pair of bathing -drawers, not the.
regulation kind that covers the chest. When he
walked out of his bathing box Madame R. gave a
scream of horror and said, " C'est indecent I " I then
gave another lecture about England and told her
what I thought about her views of morality in very
forcible language. One evening we were sitting in
our cafe, which had a terrasse in front and each side
a small wall about two feet high. It was about six
p.m. and quite light. Suddenly, on the other side of
the wall, a strange figure appeared; he had a black
beard, a cap, and scarf round his neck. He said
148
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
something in Spanish and my Pole said, of course,
in French, as he did not speak English, " He speaks
fifteenth-century Spanish." My Pole knew Spanish
literature very well indeed, and answered him, and
they had a conversation. We asked him to have a
drink, but he disappeared behind the wall in the
same way that he had appeared. We never saw him
again. My Pole said to me that it was a drole de
chose, and I agreed with him.
One morning I went out with my string bag to
buy the food for the day. I saw outside the butcher's
a cart full of pigs that had come to be killed. I
thought that perhaps they would kill them in a
slaughter-house and went for a walk to buy butter
and bread. When I came back I saw one pig sitting
outside the butcher's shop with its head on its front
paws, and large tears streaming out of its eyes. I
was told that its brother had been killed in the
street before its eyes and that it was crying. This
sounds a fantastic story. I walked away and told
my Pole. He said that it was true and that pigs
were so like human beings that they wept when they
were unhappy. An hour later I went back to buy
some pork and they gave it to me and it was warm
and I cried too. R., my Pole, and I went for walks
together. Madame R. could not and would not.
We were all glad about this as her only topics of
conversation were her diseases and her troubles.
We walked sometimes to Port Vendres. I sat in
the cafe on the front. There was a very high
mountain behind Collioure. We wanted to climb
it, but heard that it was very much further away
149
L AU GHING TORSO
and higher than it looked. I was determined
to do some mountaineering, so we found a nearer
mountain that was only seven hundred metres
high and from the top of which one could see
Spain. We started one afternoon. The first part
was easy, but as we got higher up we had to climb
over rocks, sometimes having to cling on to the
grass and shrubs. We got hot and thirsty and
found a spring. We wished that we had brought
some beer with us. When we reached the top the
view was wonderful. Spain was so entirely different
from France. The whole character of the landscape
was different. On the horizon was a small black
cloud. My Pole said that we must descend as
quickly as possible as, in a very short time, there
would be a terrific storm. Just as we reached the
foot of the mountain the storm broke. I had never
seen such lightning before and we had to take re
fuge in a shop. It was like a large cellar and the
whole floor was stacked with melons. We sat on
the melons, which were very uncomfortable, and
the old lady gave us some wine. The storm went on
for so long that we got bored with waiting and went
home. We had to take the path at the foot of the
fortress, where we had walked on the day we
arrived. The rain came down in torrents and within
a tew seconds we were all dripping. The lightning
struck the sea a few feet from us and I never expected
to get home alive. Our street was a pool of water.
We lit the charcoal fire and were not dry till the
next day.
At least every two weeks there was a fete, when
150
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
nobody did any work. A comic band appeared.
They played in a little square. There were four of
them in Catalan costume and they sat on four
barrels. Three of them played curious instruments
like clarionets, but they made an odd noise,, almost
like bagpipes, and the fourth one played a trumpet.
They played one particular tune over and over
again and the peasants danced Catalan dances. I
think that, during one week, there were three fete
days. As we lived near the square and as the band
played till after midnight we found it rather tire
some. We painted one motif in the morning and
another in the afternoon. I found a wonderful
scene with trees and houses. After I had painted
the usual blue sky for two afternoons a storm arose
and the sky became dark blue. I painted as hard
as I could and the painting was getting better and
better and then the downpour started and I had
to run for shelter. Of course, I never finished the
painting as there was not another storm. I always
think that it might have been a masterpiece. I
think one thinks that about every picture one has not
finished. We had painted about fourteen pictures
and the money was getting rather low. We had only
about three weeks 5 money left.
There was a curious old lady who paraded up and
down the streets. She was a beggar and moved
from place to place according to the seasons. She
spent the winter months in Paris. Everyone hated
her because she sang or rather croaked in a loud
and raucous voice. When she walked down our
street all the inhabitants put their heads out of their
LAUGHING TORSO
windows and aimed at her with the contents of
their pots de chambre.
The grapes were now ripe and the time had come
for the wine to be made. In the street in front of
our door a wine-press was put up. One had to step
over a part of it in order to get out. This continued
for about a week and the wine-press was removed.
One morning I went out with my string bag to buy
the lunch and was hailed by our landlady. She
asked me to come and taste the newly-made wine.
I went into her cellar where she packed the fish. I
met her beautiful sister coming up the stairs smelling
very strongly of sardines. It seemed to me odd to
find a woman, who looked so like the Virgin Mary,
smelling of fish. I went into the cellar, where I
found my landlady, who had lost another tooth,
surrounded by all her relatives, tasting the new
wine. I joined them. It was rather raw, but gave
one a pleasant feeling of amiability. When I left
I met, in the street, another neighbour, who also
invited me to taste her wine. I could not possibly
refuse and had some white wine. On emerging I
found still another neighbour and had to repeat the
process. I then arrived home without any lunch at
all and fell sound asleep. My Pole was very kind
and sympathetic and forgave my abominable be
haviour.
The patron of the caf< we frequented was a
charming man and now and then bought us drinks.
(Madame R. had already left for Paris.) When
he heard we were leaving he asked us to have
a Catalan breakfast. He said that we must arrive
152
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
at eight a.m. Breakfast consisted of a huge dish of
anchovies, swimming in oil and garlic, sausages,
olives, black and white bread, and first white wine
and then red. There were three bottles of white
wine and three of red and four of us to drink them.
At nine-thirty we left. My Pole, R., and I decided
that the only thing for us to do was to take a long
walk. We walked silently for about three miles
when we came to the sea-shore where we lay down
in a row on the pebbles and slept. There was, of
course, no question of the tide coming in or going
out as there is practically no tide at all in the
Mediterranean and some hours later we woke up
feeling rather worse and smelling horribly of garlic.
I have never since really appreciated either ancho
vies or garlic and hope that I shall not again have
to experience a Catalan breakfast. We had by now
just the railway fare back to Paris.
153
L AU GHING TORSO
CHAPTER XI BACK TO PARIS AND TO CELEBRITIES
I WENT to Modigliani's studio and stayed with the
Pole. It was very uncomfortable but I did not mind
as I was quite used to discomfort. My Pole sold
some pictures to the dealer and a collector, so we
had a little money to live on. We had a large coke
stove on which we cooked. There was no gas or
electric light., so we had an oil lamp. In the morn
ings the Pole cleaned and filled the lamp, and in the
evenings we read the French classics, sitting one
each side of Modigliani's old and scarred table.
The picture-dealer had a spare copy of Modigliani's
death mask. There were, I think, four taken. It
was rather horrible as his mouth had not been
bound up and his jaw dropped. It looked terrifying
through the door of the first workshop in the shadow.
We felt that we had to keep it with us, because if we
put it out or gave it away it would be a breach of
friendship. The Arab came and spent the evenings
with us. Sometimes we got a bottle of cheap wine
and talked about Montparnasse before the War.
The painter who lived downstairs came to see us
sometimes too. In the summer he became very
eccentric and did the most odd things. The first
thing he would do was to break the lock of his studio
door. One night we came home from the Cafe
Parnasse about midnight and found his door wide
open. In front of the door, on an easel, was a
painting of an enormous eye. It was done in great
detail and was about two feet wide and a foot high.
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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES
He was not in. We did not know what to do, so we
closed the door. We were quite certain that Modig-
liani was still with us and fancied at night that we
could hear his footsteps walking through the studio.
It was certainly a most sinister place.
We worked during the daytime. I painted Still
Life and worked at the Academy from the nude in
the afternoon. We did a great deal of work. We
had a tabby cat. Once we were all very broke,
myself., the Pole, and the Arab. For three days we
could not find a penny, we did not mind much about
ourselves, but we were so sorry for the cat, who had
to starve also. We had a lot of Modigliani's books
and in despair the Pole took one on philosophy and
read it to us. As he turned over the pages he sud
denly came to a HUNDRED FRANC NOTE.
Modigliani's wife used to hide money away from him
and this was one of his notes. We were so delighted
that we rushed into the nearest workmen's restaur
ant, taking the cat with us, and ate and drank to
Modigliani's health the whole evening. The poor
cat ended in a very tragic way. One evening we
were reading and the cat began to run round in
circles. We realized that it had gone mad so we
locked it up in the lavatory and went out. We dared
not come home until the next morning. We sat in
cafe all night and at eight in the morning came
home to find an apparently dead cat. We went to
bed as we were very tired and suddenly heard a most
dreadful howl. We opened the door of the lava
tory and found that the cat was really dead. The
next thing to do was to dispose of the body. We
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LAUGHING TORSO
decided that we could not put our poor friend in
the dustbin so we sat down and thought. In the
gutters of the streets of Paris are, at intervals,
small slits about a foot and a half long and about
six inches high. These lead to the sewers of Paris,
which lead to the Seine. We decided that at
night we would wrap our cat's body up and drop
him down, and he might eventually float down to
the sea, I thought of Alfred Jarry's remark about
dead people. I think it is in the Docteur Faustrol; I
can't quote it in French, but when he asks, " What
is the difference between live people and the dead? "
the answer is, " The live ones can swim both up
and down the river, but the dead ones can only
swim down. 33 We stretched our cat out straight and
wrapped him in two layers of paper and tied him up
with string. We made a handle of the string and he
looked rather like a parcel containing a long bottle.
At nine in the evening we went out, the Pole holding
the parcel by the string handle. We crept round
the neighbourhood, looking for a quiet spot. We
walked for some time round the Luxembourg
gardens and finally found a suitable place in the
Rue d'Assas. Both crying bitterly, we popped him
in and then went to the Gaf<6 Parnasse, and had
some drinks. Everyone asked why we were so sad,
but we did not tell them, and went home to bed.
The Pole knew many Spaniards and they came
to our studio and played and sang. . . , They were
much the same as the South American. I liked the
Spaniards. They seemed to spend their lives playing
guitars. Even so they really did a great deal of work.
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That is what I admired so much about them.
There was a Spanish hairdresser in the Rue Delam-
bre. I had my hair cut there. There was not a
ladies 5 place and I had to sit with the French
workmen, who were being shaved. The Spaniard
was a little man with a turned up moustache, who
danced on his toes as he was shaving the workmen.
One day his wife came in with a large bunch of
flowers. The Spaniard was delighted, and the
Frenchman whom he was shaving, said, " Why do
you buy flowers? I should prefer to buy bifsteak,"
and the Spaniard stood on his toes, waved the razor,
and said, " Pour nourrir Vesprit" and after that I
appreciated the Spaniards even more.
There was a strange old Spanish gipsy called
Fabian. He had been in England with Augustus
John and Horace Cole. He was at one time one of
the finest guitarists in Spain. He had taken to
painting and painted rather bad El Grecos. He
spoke frequently of Le Dessin and I went to his
studio, more to induce him to play the guitar than
to see his pictures. On an easel was an enormous
canvas with a crucifixion on it. It had a red
curtain in front of it and Fabian drew it aside with
great reverence. I finally induced him. to take
down his guitar from the wall. He began to tune
it. Guitarists are very difficult people I can
accompany songs of a rather questionable nature
myself and I have a good deal of sympathy for
them. Fabian being a Spaniard, and a gipsy at that,
was extremely difficult and tuned and tuned for
nearly an hour. At last he got it tuned and played
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LAUGHING TORSO
gipsy tunes and dances, which made one want to
dance. A Spaniard one day became very angry
with him and wanted revenge. It was not a very
serious quarrel and the Spaniard decided to have a
little fun and a quiet revenge at the same time. He
explained to Fabian that his eyesight was weak and
that he ought to see an oculist. They went off
together and found one. The oculist showed
Fabian some printed words in quite small print and
said, " Can you read that? " And Fabian said,
" No." He then showed him some larger print and
Fabian again said, * c No! " After showing him
some larger and larger print poor Fabian had to
confess that he could neither read nor write. This,
of course, the Spaniard knew already and went
home quite satisfied. There was another Spaniard
who came often, before the War, to Hunt Diederich's
studio. He was the laziest man I had ever met. He
did admirable woodcuts. I think he had done
about three in ten years. One day he was sitting
in the studio with his guitar and Hunt gave him
some money to go out and buy a bottle of wine. He
was so lazy that he could not even do that. He was
painted by Modigliani, a very fine portrait and like
ness. He was trying to sell it in 1920 for four
hundred francs. Alas! I could not find the four
hundred francs.
At this time, 1920, Nancy Cunard, Marie Beer-
bohm, T. W. Earp, Iris Tree and Evan Morgan, and
several other English people were in Paris and we
had wonderful parties at Charlie Winzer's flat.
Some more English arrived and found that the
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French drinks were not strong enough. After some
serious research work a drink was concocted that
satisfied them. It was named " Pernod (Susie) Suze
Fine/' imitation absinthe, gentian, and brandy.
The cheap French brandy is very much like
methylated spirits. I tried the mixture but found
it impossible to get down. This kept them happy
for some weeks, until a day came when one member
of the party, whilst attempting to cross a street in
Montmartre, became suddenly transfixed in the
middle of the street. He was rigid like a waxwork
and as immovable. His companion had, with the
aid of a friendly taxi-driver, to lift him bodily into
a taxi. After this incident the English satisfied
themselves with milder forms of alcohol. One day
I bought Odilon Redon's Journal, called, "a soi
meme" and, whilst reading it, came upon the follow
ing passage, which I thought rather beautiful:
" J'ai passe dans Us allies froides et silencieuses du
cimetiere et pres des tombes desertes. Etfai connu le calme
d* esprit" I thought that I would visit the Cimetiere
Montparnasse. It gave me a curious feeling of
gloom as I thought of Edgar. I walked down the
avenue of trees and came across a large section
which is set apart for Jews. Further on I found a
most curious tomb. It was the tomb of some
sale bourgeois. It consisted of a large bronze French
bedstead. At the top was a bronze angel and
at the foot a bronze india-rubber plant. In the
bed, on a bronze counterpane, lay Monsieur and
Madame Pigeon. Monsieur lay on his side in a
bronze frock coat, and Madame lay beside him
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LAUGHING TORSO
in dark bronze bombazine. Her hair was done in
a bun on the top of her head, in the same manner as
the ladies in the drawings of Forain and Steinlen.
In the middle of the bed, between them, was a dip
in the counterpane, which, when it rains, becomes a
large puddle. Further on, on the same side of the
cemetery, in the corner is a small grave covered in
ivy, with China jam-jars, filled with daffodils. The
tombstone was sculptured by Brancusi. It repre
sents two crouching figures glued together. A man
and a woman. The female is to be distinguished
only by her long hair and a slight indication of one
breast. The rest of her anatomy is shared by her
partner. This, I found out afterwards, was most
unsuitable, as the body in the grave the inscription
was carved in Russian, so I could not read it was
that of a young Russian girl of seventeen who was
infatuated with an elderly doctor who was mar
ried and did not love her. She committed suicide
and died a virgin. I crossed the road, as a road
runs through the cemetery and found the tomb of
Baudelaire. He lies on his tomb in a winding
sheet. At the head, looming over him, is a sinister
figure, the model of which, I believe, was Monsieur
de Max. A Frenchman whom I knew had a whole
nest of ancestors buried somewhere in the cemetery,
and on the anniversary of any one of their deaths
arrived with some friends and bottles of wine and
they drank to the health of the Oncle Augustin or
the Tante Emilienne. I found also Ste. Beuve,
who sits in front of a stone bookcase, containing all
his books, and these are quite enough to fill the
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whole bookcase. Further on I found an obelisk,
about twenty feet high. This is in memory of the
Admiral Dumont d'Urville who discovered the
Venus de Milo. Encircling it are his three tours
du monde. In the last one you can see the Admiral
in full uniform in a small boat, lifting from the ocean
the nude and stony corpse of the Venus de Milo.
By this time I had arrived at the part of the cemetery
which is near the Avenue du Maine. I found the
tomb of the Famille Guillotine and further on an
enormous and important-looking tomb. On each
side sat two lions, rather like those in Trafalgar
Square. On the tombstone, in the middle, are the
names of a Greek prince and a French countess,
with no explanation. I thought that this was very
romantic. I hoped that they had loved one another,
but thought afterwards that, perhaps, they had only
had business relations. I have never discovered
the truth about them. After this I returned to the
Cafe Parnasse where I had found that some English,
friends had arrived. They asked me out to dinner.
I had known them slightly before the War. We ate
oysters and dined at Baty's, did all the cafes, found
some pre-war friends, and ended up in the markets,
Les Halles, amongst the cabbages. When one visited
the markets one always arrived back at the Dome or
the Parnasse laden with flowers and cabbages, which
were very cheap. One day someone arrived back
with a sack of potatoes !
The English, at this time, were going very strong
indeed, they all had money and had not been back
to Paris since the War. My Pole did not really ap-
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LAUGHING TORSO
prove of them as they were only too glad to lead me
astray and, as almost every day one found someone
whom one had not seen for years, it was difficult not
to celebrate. On another occasion an old friend of
mine, after dinner, found a cellar near the Place
St. Michel called the " Bol de cidre" One entered a
cafe through a large door, which was down a little
passage. The patron was an enormous Norman in
a white apron. There were large barrels of cider
on the floor, and at the back a smaller room. On
the walls was a list of celebrities who had visited the
place. Paul Verlaine, Laurent Tailhade, Oscar
Wilde, and so many others that I have forgotten
their names. We drank cider out of a bowl and had
a calvados to cheer it up. Downstairs was a cellar
with Norman arches dated 1145. This place had
been the stable of Francis I. The street next to it is
called " La rue oil git le coeur." I always thought that
that meant, " The street where the heart lodged,"
but I was told afterwards that it meant something
different. Down a side street, at the corner, was the
river. There was a large house which had belonged
to Francis I, at the corner of the street on the quays.
In the time of Francis I the river came right up
to the house. At the other corner of the street was
a smaller house. Here had lived his mistress and
high up over the street was a footbridge connecting
the two houses. In the front room of the Bol was a
counter at which were standing a collection of
ruffians of both sexes. We went downstairs to the
cellar. There were wooden tables and chairs and
a small platform with a man playing an accordion.
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We sat down and ordered some cider mixed with
calvados calvados is made from apples and tastes
very agreeable. A singer got up on the platform and
sang vulgar songs. Having learnt my French in the
University of Montparnasse I could understand
every word; at times I rather wished I couldn't.
The songs were what Evelyn Waugh would have
called., cc Blush-making. 5 ' Sometimes there were
very unpleasant battles in the cellar, and as the
staircase was narrow and winding, it was not easy
to get out in time. One evening a man and a woman
were there who spoke English and tried to pick a
quarrel with us with a view to blackmail. Having
visited this kind of place before, the man was rapidly
disposed of.
One day I was sitting on the terrasse of theRotonde,
at about nine in the morning, reading the Continental
Daily Mail a deplorable habit and a figure ap
peared, having leapt over three tables. This was
Evan Morgan, who had just arrived back from
Marseilles; he was dressed in black and looked very
smart. He said, ec How do you like my clothes? "
I said, " How smart ! " He said, cc Oh, no, a sailors'
shop in Marseilles. To-day is my birthday, let us
have a dinner-party and you must be the hostess."
We walked down the Boulevard Montparnasse in
the direction of the station. Opposite the station
is a very good restaurant called the Trianon, where
James Joyce always dines. I had not met him at
this time. It had Plats regionaux, a different dish
each day from a different part of France. We
decided to ask twelve people, fourteen including
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LAUGHING TORSO
ourselves. I had discovered in Montparnasse an
artist's model who was the image of Evan. He was
much amused and said that we must invite her too.
We hired a private room and ordered the dinner.
We invited Curtis Moffat, who had a passion for
ecrevisses. Ecrevisses are like very small lobsters and
repose on a large dish covered in a very beautiful
sauce. We ordered fifty. We ordered hors
d'oeuvres, soup, chickens, a colossal dinner with
cocktails, red and white wine, champagne and
coffee and liqueurs. The patron gave us an estimate
of eight hundred francs, which was very cheap in
deed. Ivan Opfer, the cartoonist, came. He is a
Dane and had lived in America and talks with an
accent that is a mixture of Danish and American.
He looks like a Viking, and tells stories better than
anyone I have ever met. He is the only person
I know who can take a long time to tell a story,
and he is such an admirable actor that he can make
every word interesting. Curtis came and was de
lighted with the Ecrevisses. Eating them is a long
and messy business, because one has to use one's
fingers. Harrison Dowd was there and played the
piano to us. The artist's model turned up and
bored us so much that we regretted having asked
her. I must say that I behaved very well. I was so
flattered to find myself in the important role of
hostess that I was extremely occupied the whole
evening dealing with the needs of the guests, and did
not drink too much. Fortunately, the artist's model,
having decided that there was not much chance of
getting money for the honour of her presence, re-
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membered that she had an important engagement
with a rich man. We breathed a sigh of relief and
settled down to the coffee and liqueurs and to listen
to Ivan's stories. After a few liqueurs everyone else
remembered some stories, including myself, and the
party continued till the early hours of the morning.
I decided to do a series of water-colours of cafes
and street scenes, and have an exhibition in London.
Every day I did a drawing which I took home and
painted from memory. I was astonished to find how
quickly one can train one's memory and after a few
weeks I could do them with perfect ease. I was
thinking of the pictures that I had done at Gollioure.
I had about fifteen of them and decided that I ought
to go to London and try and make some money.
Walter Sickert had a house near Dieppe and I wrote
to him telling him that I was going to London by
Dieppe-Newhaven. He wrote asking me to stay
with him. I packed my pictures up and Sickert
met me at Dieppe. I did not recognize him at first
as he wore a sailor's peaked cap, oilskins, and a red
spotted handkerchief round his neck. He was
always difficult to recognize if one had not seen him
for some time. He might appear with an enormous
beard like a Crimean veteran or he would dress
himself in very loud checks and a bowler hat and
look like something off a race-course. We took a
taxi to Envermeu, where he had a house; it was
some miles away from Dieppe. We drove through
the forest of Arques, where there was a battle in
about 1600. The forest looked very beautiful, as it
was autumn, and the roads and the ground of the
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LAUGHING TORSO
forest were covered with red and yellow leaves.
Sickert had bought a house that was once a Police
Station. It was on the main street. As a matter of
fact there was only one street. It was a long, narrow
house, and the rooms were in a straight line and all
numbered. These had been cells. My room was
" numero 3." We ate in a large kitchen. The cook
and the gardener sat at one table and we sat at a
larger one in the middle of the room. Sickert talked
to the servants throughout lunch and dinner and
made them laugh a great deal. They drank red
wine and cider and we drank red wine and calvados.
Envermeu is a dull, flat place, and I never knew
why Sickert had chosen it. I don't think he painted
much there but went into Dieppe, where he painted
some of his best pictures. These are very different
from his Camden Town period. The Camden Town
ones are in a very low key of blacks, greys, and
Indian reds, whereas the Dieppe pictures were
painted in the most brilliant greens, blues, yellows
and reds. I think that it is quite impossible to com
pare their merits and that it is really a question of
personal taste. On the evening of my arrival I
showed him my pictures, hoping that he would like
them. He was, unfortunately, horrified and hated
them. This filled me with gloom. I rather admired
them myself at that time, but, having seen some of
them recently, am inclined to think that he was
right. I have come to the conclusion that the South
of France and I have nothing in common. Brittany
I can deal with, as it is more like England, but the
South, with its hard purple shadows, white houses,
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and perpetually blue sky is not a part of my " make
up. 55 We went into Dieppe to look at the Channel
and found it so appallingly rough that I waited
another day and then took the boat for Newhaven.
I arrived in London and went to the Eiffel Tower,
where I got a small room near the roof. The next
day a friend of mine bought a picture. I had not
enough pictures for an exhibition, but Mr. Turner,
of the Independent Gallery, said that he was having
a mixed show of English painters and that I could
exhibit four or five. I sold another small painting
and decided to return to Paris and to my Pole. I
was glad to be back. I was in no better position
than if I had not gone at all and felt that my life
was a failure and damned the South of France.
I continued my water-colours. I went daily to
the Luxembourg Gardens where I did some really
good work, I think. There is a statue there that I
always admired. It is of a lady standing up, with
- her feet crossed, in a very short skirt indeed, and a
strange little hat like an inverted soup plate. I did
a drawing of her. Some years later I went to the
Bal Julien dressed as her. I wore a pink silk
accordion pleated garment, that really was a pair
of knickers. They had no legs, but only a ribbon to
divide them. I borrowed them from a rich American
woman and cut the ribbon so that it looked exactly
like the skirt of the statue. They had garlands of
blue silk forget-me-nots embroidered on them. I
wore a short blue, tight-fitting jacket that I had
bought at the " Flea market " at Caulincourt and a
very small blue hat that looked like a comedian's
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LAUGHING TORSO
bowler. It was almost flat and looked very like the
one worn by the statue. I had a great success at the
ball, especially when I explained whom I repre
sented.
My friend 3 with whom I had gone to Russia in
1909, returned to Paris with her husband. They
were both very bright and cheerful and had met
Ferdinand Tuohy. Tuohy was a large, good-looking
and cheerful Irishman, who laughed perpetually and
wrote the most beautiful English. B., my friend's
husband, was a very amusing man and did extremely
funny caricatures. One day Tuohy had been
celebrating. I forget whether it was the finish
of a love affair, or the beginning of another, as
he was generally in love with someone. He arrived
at the Dome about breakfast time. I was with
B. and his wife. Tuohy ordered what he described
as " Turk's blood"; this was stout and cham
pagne mixed. We realized that any idea of spend
ing a serious day was out of the question. About
12 a.m. several other people had joined us and
there were a considerable number of stout and
champagne bottles. It suddenly occurred to Tuohy
and B. that they looked like soldiers and they pro
ceeded to divide them into regiments, the cham
pagne bottles representing officers, large and small,
and the stout bottles ordinary soldiers. This kept
them occupied for hours. Finally they took them
out on the terrasse and were joined by some workmen
and taxi-drivers who were much entertained and
described Tuohy and B. as " trts rigolo" which
indeed, they were. The English were still in search
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of new forms of alcohol and one day B. discovered
Mandarin Curasao. It is extremely powerful stuff
and, I think, must have some kind of dope in it as,
at any rate, one evening B. drank a great deal of it
and wandered off by himself No one knows what
actually happened to him, but he returned home the
next morning, very early, so badly damaged that he
was hardly recognizable, and said that he had tried
to fight the French Army, that the French Army
had won, and that he would never touch Mandarin
Curagao again.
We met another Irishman in the Quarter. He
was a journalist and spoke French as much like a
Frenchman as any Irishman can who already speaks
with a strong Irish accent. He had absorbed so
much absinthe before the War that he had become
completely paralysed. He went into a home and
had to be taught, by slow degrees, how to use his
limbs. He frequently went out to Montmartre and
Les Halles. One morning he arrived at the Cafe
Parnasse, about eight a.m., with a friend of his.
They had been out all night and had just come from
the markets. They had some dice with them and
decided to toss up for the possession of the next per
son who entered the cafe. The Irishman won and
they sat and waited. There were only very few
people who came in so early and they had to wait
for some time, meanwhile, consoling themselves with
a few Pernod Susie fines. After a time the door
opened and a dark respectable-looking man entered.
The Irishman jumped at him and screamed, " I've
won you! I've won you! You're mine! " The man
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LAUGHING TORSO
turned out to be a Spaniard and, when the situation
was explained to him, he quite appreciated the joke
and they all continued to drink together. I re
mained with them for a short time, but realized that
if I stayed very long an ambulance would have to be
sent for to carry me home to my Pole, who did not
appreciate the eccentric behaviour of the Anglo-
Saxons. The Irishman was very strange and
secretive about himself. He often hinted at the
unusual way in which he earned his living. We
knew that he was a journalist, but nothing at all
about the paper or papers he worked for. One day
I was with the War correspondent, Donohue, who
is now dead, and two other men. The Irishman
hurried past us. I said afterwards to him, " Why
on earth did you run away from us like that/ 3 He
said, " Those men know all about me." Eventually
we discovered that his great and terrible secret was
that he was on the advertising staff of a very well
known English newspaper. He was extremely good
at his job, and went all over Europe interviewing
Lord Mayors and important business men. When
he found out that nobody except himself seemed to
consider it a bore, and an undignified way of earning
one's living, he became quite calm. As far as we
could make out he got the sack regularly once a
week but, being apparently indispensable, was
taken back the following day.
One day when I was sitting in the Parnasse,
two strange females appeared. I was sitting with
Harrison Dowd, one of the few Americans whom
I knew in Paris. One was Jewish and the other
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was one of the most extraordinary looking creatures
I have ever seen. She had a whitish green face
and ginger hair, cut short like a boy's, with a
fringe. During the War, for a short period, I
cut my hair in the same way in London and every
one stared. It was no wonder, as I looked really
terrible. This girl had very large blue eyes, which
were rather beautiful. She had a very long body
and rather short fat legs. They were both Ameri
cans, and the strange-looking one had arrived from
New York with six dollars, which was all that she
had in the world. Dowd knew them and I was
introduced. The strange one's name was Bernice
Abbot. She was very shy and seemed to be only
half conscious. She drew extremely well and
wanted to become a sculptress. That seems to be
the ambition of every young American girl. She
took, later on, to photography and, I think, has
taken some of the finest photographs especially
of men that I have ever seen. I saw her last in
Paris. I did not recognize her at first, she looked
so beautiful and well-dressed. She was driving a
smart motor-car and had had a tremendous success
in New York.
It was now December and we were wonder
ing how and where we should spend Christmas.
Christmas Eve is the great evening, and all the
cafes and restaurants keep open all night. The
beautiful Russian, who had been in Finland with us,
had returned to Paris with her husband. She had
married an American theosophist, a devotee of
Rudolph Steiner, and I had met him with Arthur
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LAUGHING TORSO
Ransome in London. He had a very good job in
Paris as the European correspondent of one of the
largest American newspapers. She had two charm
ing children. The Dome and the Rotonde adver
tised Christmas dinners at midnight on Christmas
Eve. My Pole and I were very broke, and were
delighted when my Russian friend and her husband
asked us to dine with them at the Dome. It was
freezing during Christmas week. Our studio had a
large coke stove in the back room but, as it was not
one of the kind that burns all night, we had to
break the ice in the sink and the icicles from the tap
each morning. One's toothbrush also had an un
pleasant habit of freezing, and had to be thawed
before use. On Christmas Day I received a little
money from England. We went to the Cafe
Parnasse, in the evening, and waited till twelve p.m.
when we crossed over to the Dome. The whole of
the back part of the cafe was converted into a dining-
room with two long tables. It looked very gay and
bright with festoons of coloured paper, and we ate
through an enormous dinner. We got home about
four a.m.
New Year's Eve is a much more lively and serious
festivity than Christmas, as Christmas is a religious
celebration, and the New Year purely enjoyment.
We celebrated the New Year by visiting all the
cafes for miles around with B. and his wife. B.
conducted, with Ortiz, a bull fight at the Parnasse.
B. was the bull and Ortiz the picador. They very
nearly wrecked the place and all the Spaniards
joined in with professional interest. The ladies
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stood up on seats as the floor was entirely occupied.
At twelve, the lights were turned off for a second and
one kissed or was kissed by one's neighbour. In
order to avoid disturbance it was better to be found
at twelve p.m. sitting next to the person that one was
supposed to be kissing. I was sitting in the wrong
place and got into trouble because I was embraced
by quite the wrong person.
I had met once in London, at the Eiffel Tower, a
few months before, a very good-looking young man,
who had been at Oxford. He had told me that he
was coming to Paris, and hoped to get into the
Diplomatic Service. He spoke -French, German,
and Italian extremely well, and suddenly arrived in
Paris from Italy. He had a charming voice and sang
in all three languages. He visited exhibitions with
me, and took to wearing a large black hat, corduroy
trousers, and black sand shoes. This I strongly dis
approved of, as they did not suit him at all, and
finally induced him to abandon them and wear his
ordinary clothes. By this time I had had quite
enough of artistic-looking people, long hair and
shabby clothes, and was only too thankful to be seen
about with a presentable person. Evan Morgan
was still in Paris and knew him well. Aleister
Crowley was there and they were very anxious to
be introduced to him, having heard the most dread
ful stories of his wickedness. Crowley had a temple
in Cefalu in Sicily. He was supposed to practise
Black Magic there, and one day a baby was said to
have disappeared mysteriously. There was also a
goat there. This all pointed to Black Magic, so
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LAUGHING TORSO
people said, and the inhabitants of the village were
frightened of him. When he came to Paris he
stayed in the Rue Vavin at the Hotel de Blois. I
asked him if I could bring some friends to see him
and he asked us to come in one day before dinner
and have some cocktails. He said that he had in
vented a beautiful cocktail called Kubla Khan
No. 2. He would not say what it was made of. I
told Evan and he, I, and two young men went to
try it out one evening. Crowley had only a small
bedroom with a large cupboard. He opened the
cupboard and took out a bottle of gin, a bottle of
vermouth, and two other bottles. The last one
was a small black bottle with an orange label on it,
on which was written " POISON." He poured
some liquid from the large bottles, and then from
the black bottle he poured a few drops and shook
the mixture up. The " POISON " I found out
afterwards, was laudanum. I believe that it is
supposed to be an aphrodisiac but it had no effect
at all on any of us except Cecil Maitland, who was
there also. After we left he rushed into the street,
and in and out of all the caf<6s behaving in a most
strange manner, accosting everyone he came into
contact with. I introduced J. W. N. Sullivan to
Crowley. They got on very well together, as they
both were very good chess-players and very good
mathematicians as well. I don't think that Sullivan
was much interested in magic, but they found
plenty to talk about. Crowley had taken to painting,
and painted the most fantastic pictures in very bright
colours. He painted a picture about a foot and a
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half wide, and nine inches high, of a man on a white
horse chasing a lion. It was very interesting, a
little like the Douanier Rousseau; it had a great
deal of life and action. I would have liked to have
bought it, but I was very broke, and he wanted a
high price for it. He gave me a painting, on a
mahogany panel, of a purple negress, with a yellow
and red spotted handkerchief round her head, and
a purple rhinoceros surrounded by oriental vegeta
tion. The rhinoceros had got rather mixed up with
the vegetation, and it was rather difficult to distin
guish between the trunks of the trees and the
animal's anatomy; it was quite a beautiful colour
however. His wife arrived from Cefalu. She was a
tall, gaunt Jewess, very thin and bony, with a
strangely-attractive face and wild eyes. She had
been a schoolmistress in New York. She had had a
child by Crowley which had died, and Crowley was
very much upset about it. He showed me a photo
graph of himself and her and some children standing
up to their knees in the sea, with no clothes on. I got
on very well with them. They were very anxious for
me to go to Cefalu. I did not care for the type of
person who clung round Crowley. They seemed so
very inferior to him and so dull and boring that I
could never understand how he could put up with
them.
Betty May, whom I had known in London in
1914, with Basil, arrived in Paris one day. She
had been one of Epstein's models and one of the
principal supports, with Lilian Shelley, of the Crab
Tree Club, which was started in 1913. I only went
LAUGHING TORSO
to it once with Basil in 1914. Betty had married
recently her fourth husband, a most brilliant young
man called Raoul Loveday, who was only twenty
and had got a first in history at Oxford. He was
very good-looking, but looked half dead. She was
delighted to meet me and we all sat in the Dome
and drank. They were on their way to Cefalu as
Crowley had offered him a job as his secretary. He
was very much intrigued with Growley's views on
magic. He had been very ill the year before and
had had a serious operation. I had heard that the
climate at Cefalu was terrible; heat, mosquitoes,
and very bad food. The magical training I already
knew was very arduous. I urged them not to go.
I succeeded in keeping them in Paris two days
longer than they intended, but they were deter
mined to go and I was powerless to prevent them.
I told Raoul that if he went he would die, and really
felt a horrible feeling of gloom when I said cc Good
bye " to them. After five months I had a postcard
from Betty on which was written, " My husband
died last Friday; meet me at the Gare de Lyon."
I could not meet her as I got the postcard a day too
late and she went straight through to London. He
died of fever. There were no doctors at Cefalu and
one had to be got from Palermo, but it was too late
when he arrived. There is a long and very interest
ing description of life in Cefalu in Tiger Woman,
Betty May's life story, but not half so good as the
way in which she told me the story herself.
Cecil Maitland and Mary Butts were very much
interested in Crowley and went to Cefalu. Everyone
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in the temple had to write their diary every day
and everyone else was allowed to read it. The
climate and the bad food nearly killed Cecil and
Mary, and when they carne back to Paris they looked
like two ghosts and were hardly recognizable.
Growley came to Paris from time to time. He
gave the appearance of being quite bald, with the ex
ception of a small bunch of hairs on top of his head,
which he twiddled into a point. He shaved the
back of his head and appeared entirely bald. One
fete day I was sitting at the Rotonde and a most
extraordinary spectacle appeared. It wore a mag
nificent and very expensive grey velours hat.
Underneath, sticking out on each side was a mop
of black frizzy hair and the face was heavily and
very badly painted. This I recognized as Growley.
He said, " I am going to Montmartre and I don't
know of any suitable cafes to visit/ 3 I could not
think of any where he would not cause a sensation,
but I suspected that that was exactly what he
wanted. I told him the names of a few suitable
places and he disappeared. I never saw him in this
disguise again and did not dare enquire whether he
had a successful evening or not. He appeared some
times in a kilt and got howled down by the Ameri
cans, who were rude enough to sing Harry Lauder's
songs at him. He had a passion for dressing up.
One day the Countess A., a Frenchwoman, asked
me to lunch. I had been to her home several times
before and we were becoming very friendly. She
spoke excellent English and had heard about
Crowley, She was most anxious to meet him. I
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LAUGHING TORSO
refused to introduce him to her as she had been very
kind to me and I knew how fond Crowley was of
pulling the legs of people whom he suspected of
being rich and influential. It was a curious kink that
he had which had lost him many opportunities and
people that would have been useful and friendly
to him. It was a kind of schoolboy perversity. A
friend of mine introduced him to her and she asked
him to her house to lunch to meet some distin
guished and rich women who were longing to have
their horoscopes read. I was not at the luncheon
party, but Crowley, I heard, had a great success and
told them all kinds of things about themselves that
they were dying to hear. He looked at the Countess
and said, " I have met you in another life." She
was naturally very intrigued and asked him when
and where, and he said that, in fact, he had written a
story about her that had been published and that he
would send her a copy. This he eventually did and
to her horror when she read it, it was a perfectly
monstrous story, about a perfectly monstrous and
disreputable old woman bearing, of course, no re
semblance to her. She was naturally furious and
refused to see him again. One evening, before the
unfortunate incident took place, a man whom we all
knew, asked us to come to his flat and try a little
hashish. I had never tried any, but only a few days
before, the Irish journalist whom I knew, had told
me about his experiences when he had tried some.
It is not a habit-forming drug and does not do any
one much harm. The Irishman went to see some
friends one day and they gave him some. I believe
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that one loses all sense of time and space. It takes
about a hundred years to cross quite a narrow street
and, as Maurice Richardson pointed out when I
told him the story, probably a hundred years to
order a drink. The first effect is a violent attack of
giggles. One screams with laughter for no reason
whatever, even at a fly walking on the ceiling. The
Irishman went through all the stages and finally
decided to go home. He had to walk across Paris
and cross the river by Notre Dame. When he
reached it he found that it was at least a mile high,
and, giving it one despairing look, sat down on the
quays to wait till its size had diminished. He had
to wait for some time, but finally he decided that it
had grown small enough for him to continue his
walk home. The Countess had asked Crowley to
dinner, and he appeared in what he considered to be
suitable evening clothes. He wore black silk knee
breeches, a tight-fitting black coat, black silk stock
ings, and shoes with buckles on them. The coat had
a high black collar with a narrow white strip at the
top. On his chest he wore a jewelled order and at
his side he carried a sword. I asked him what the
order was. He said, " The Order of the Holy Ghost,
my dear." We went to our friend's fiat after dinner.
He had a large pot on the floor which contained
hashish in the form of jam. On the table were some
pipes, as one smoked or ate it, or did both. I tasted
a spoonful, swallowed it, and waited, but nothing
happened. The others got to work seriously and
smoked and ate the jam. I felt no effect except that
I was very happy, much more happy than if I had
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LAUGHING TORSO
drunk anything. I sat on a chair and grinned.
The others entered the giggling stage. This was for
me a most awful bore as I could not say a word of
any kind without them roaring with laughter. I
got so bored that I went home to my Pole. Growley
eventually returned to Cefalu, taking his wife with
him, and so we had no more Kubla Khan No, 2.
There was a charming Frenchman who visited
the quarter. He wore a black hat and had curly
black hair which was going grey. He was a very
important person at the Prefecture of Police. He
was a great friend of all the artists in Montparnasse
and bought many pictures from the Polish picture-
dealer. He had several very fine Modiglianis. He
sang old French songs very beautifully, including
one which had been the favourite song of Henry the
Fourth. It was a most charming song and I wish
that I had learnt it. One day I had to visit the
Prefecture of Police about my carte (Tidentite. He
had told me that if I wanted any help to come and
see him in his office. I went one morning and
mentioned his name. I was shown to the office by
several policemen, who were very polite. The door
was opened and, sitting at a desk, was Monsieur S,
looking very unlike a Chief of Police. The walls
were covered from top to bottom with modern
paintings very good ones indeed and for the
moment I completely forgot why I had come. I
had no wish to remember either, as I was much too
interested in the pictures. Unfortunately he was a
very busy man and I had to explain my difficulties
and go away. I tried to know as few English and
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Americans as possible, as an evening spent with the
French or the foreign artists, who had known
Montparnasse for years, was very much more enter
taining. There was a big man called Ceria, with a
large beard. He was a Frenchman from Savoy. I
always called him Francois Premier, which pleased
him. He painted very well, in fact I found some
pictures of his at the Leicester Galleries the other
day.
Each year the Academic Colorossi gave a fancy
dress ball. In 1920 I did not go. The result was
that neither the Pole nor I had any sleep at all
that night. The Academy was only divided from
our studio by a small garden and the din was awful.
I decided that the next party I should be there.
Although we worked at the sketch class, and at the
Cours libre, we rather despised the art students,
who consisted mostly of silly Americans, French
bourgeois, and imbecile English. Oddly enough the
ball was entirely run by the French, in fact by the
Professor, Bernard Naudin, a funny little man, who
is a very famous illustrator and a great friend of the
Fratellinis 5 , the three famous clowns from the Cirque
Medrano. He was an admirable clown himself and
came to the dance dressed as a comedian. He
brought with him a wooden horse on wheels, which
he dragged behind him on a string. Ceria came
dressed as Edouard Manet, and he looked exactly
like him. He wore a brown square bowler hat and
had grown his beard in the same shape as Manet had
worn his; he had sponge bag trousers and white
spats. He was acting as barman and mixing the
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L AUGHIN G TORSO
most deadly cocktails. The French still think that
it is very " chic " to spend the whole night drinking
cocktails. I knew only too well what that might
lead to and stuck to wine. I wore my workman's
blue trousers that Basil and I had bought for six
francs in the Avenue du Maine in 1914.5 a sailor's
jersey,, and espadrilles. We danced and danced,
every kind of dance, jigs, polkas, old-fashioned
waltzes and jazz. I met a most charming woman
whom I had met once before. She was Polish and
a very talented sculptress. She was very ugly, but
with that kind of ugliness which is attractive. I sat
on her lap and told her how much I liked her works.
She was delighted, and we became great friends
afterwards. She had, a few years later, a success in
the Salon d'Automne. Naudin did some stunts
with one of the Fratellinis, whom he had brought
with him. We successfully chased any boring
English or Americans away. I was permitted to
join in the fun, as I was of the pre-War brand, and
my Montparnasse and Apache French amused them.
As the night wore on, I remembered more and more
French and finally went home about five-thirty a.m.
feeling very tired.
One day Rupert Doone, the ballet dancer, came
to Paris. He was then just beginning to dance. He
was very poor and had posed for Cedric Morris and
Dobson. He had a very fine head. He sat for the
Academies to make a little money. I wanted to
paint him. I did some drawings of him in my
studio for which I paid him a little, but I could not
afford to give him longer sittings. I introduced him
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THE ACADEMY COLOROSSI
183
LAUGHING TORSO
to the Professor of Colorossi, and he gave him a
month's sitting in the portrait class. The portrait
class had not got a cours libre and one had to have
criticisms from the professor. This amused me as I
had not been taught in an art class for years. I
started a small head which went very well. On
Friday the Professor arrived. I have forgotten his
name, but he is a well known exhibitor at the Spring
Salon. He was a sweet little man with a grey beard;
he stared at me a good deal and gave me a very good
and true criticism. I took his advice and it turned
into, I think, one of my best portraits. It was
bought in 1926 at my Exhibition in London by Mr.
Edward Marsh and is now in his collection.
I had met at the Sitwells' house in London, a most
charming South American. He had a large flat in
Paris and one day came to Montparnasse, where he
found me. He had with him Christopher Wood,
who was staying in his flat. He was a very promising
young painter and had been originally discovered
by Alphonse Kahn. I found him a most charming
young man. He had a studio near the Boulevard
St. Germain. I dined with him and we danced at
the Cafe de Versailles. He knew many people whom
I had known in London and we had a very enter
taining evening. He had models in his studio and
asked me if I knew of any good ones. I recom
mended Rupert Doone and brought him with me.
We all had lunch at the studio and afterwards drew.
I am afraid we were very cruel as we wanted a kneel
ing position from the back and Kit tied the unfor
tunate model to the gallery of the studio with a
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table napkin, and although the balcony was not
very much higher than the model's throne, the
strain on his wrists nearly killed him. We were,
however, very satisfied with our drawings. I often
went to the studio and drew and did some good work,
and also had some very good food and drinks, which
more often than not, I badly needed. The Pole
knew a certain number of very respectable French
and Polish bourgeois friends who came occasionally
to have coffee at the Dome and at the Rotonde.
One day, things were very bad indeed, and I went
to the municipal pawnshop with a ring. There are
no pawnshops like those in London, but only the
State ones. I entered an enormous building in the
Boulevard Raspail, that looked like a bank and
waited in a queue. I was given a number and
shown into a large room, where, to my surprise, and
to their embarrassment, I found several of the
French bourgeois that I knew. Conversation at
moments like this is a little awkward, and even I
was at a loss to know what to say. I thought that
the situation was rather funny, but the poor things
were only disturbed. We all sat on benches and, at
a little office at the side, our numbers were called
out, and at the same time an offer of the price that
they were prepared to give. This really was most
humiliating and nearly always disappointing. I
waited my turn and suddenly my number was
called out, " Number 12, thirty francs." Everyone's
head turned in my direction and, with a strange
feeling in my throat, I said " Out" On another
occasion my Pole and another Pole went to pawn a
185
L AU GHING TORSO
piece of jewellery which had been in before for
seventy francs. It had been redeemed and had to
go back again. They were given a number and
waited their turn. Suddenly the man in the office
called their number: " Number 5, eighty francs/ 3
and they were so delighted and astonished that they
both screamed " Out " together in such a loud voice
that everyone stared.
One day I received a letter from my elderly
Canadian cousin, the one who had lived at my
Grandmother's flat and thought that I had gone to
the devil, when I abandoned corsets at the age of
seventeen. I had not seen her for some years. She
was living with another elderly lady in a pension
near the Luxembourg Gardens. I went to lunch
with them. The pension was one of the dreariest
that I have ever entered. It reminded me of
Balzac's Eugenie Grandet. We sat at a long table.
My cousin and her friend drank water. Bottles,
with table napkins tied round their necks, and names
on the labels, were placed on the table belonging to
the French. I drank water and had an abominable
lunch. After lunch my cousin handed me two
one pound notes. I was getting very bored with the
ladies and had an inspiration. I said that I had just
remembered an important engagement at three
p.m. at my studio with a picture-dealer. I arranged
to meet them at a teashop in Montparnasse later.
I took a taxi and went to the nearest exchange,
which was in Montparnasse, where I received quite
a respectable number of francs. I went to the
Parnasse Cafe, where I bought the boys and girls
186
BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES
drinks, much to their astonishment and delight.
I had some also, and arrived at the teashop in very
good form. In Paris teashops wine is sold and
generally spirits. It was a very cold day and I told
my cousin and her friend that rum was a very good
thing to prevent people from catching cold. I
ordered them two hot rums, and they were so
pleased that I ordered them two more. They were
quite lively and almost human, and I sent them
back to their dreary pension feeling very happy.
They had a curious existence, these women, they
refused to learn a word of French, and became
furious with the French servants because they could
not understand what they were talking about.
Their whole lives consisted of economizing. They
had apparently no ambitions of any kind. They
had wasted all their youth, having been taught when
young that it was only necessary to behave like
ladies and wait till a suitable, and preferably rich
husband, turned up. Of course, the husband never
did turn up. I often wondered what would become
of them if they were suddenly to lose all their money.
They toured Europe and wintered at Hyeres,
Beaulieu, and Bordighera, where they stayed in
pensions, with elderly Colonels, Generals, and old
women, w r ho were as bored with life and each other
as they were. Everyone that I know has at least
three or four relatives exactly like mine. They re
minded me of my Grandmother, who, for quite
thirty years, had patiently awaited death. Anyway,
they had given me two pounds and my feelings
towards them were of the kindliest.
LAUGHING TORSO
I met, about this time. Ford Madox Ford. I
had read his books and admired them very much.
He talked a great deal and so well that nobody else
wanted to, or felt that they could, say anything
interesting. He told stories very well indeed. He
had most amusing stories about the time that he was
in the Welsh Regiment. He learnt to speak Welsh,
as many of the soldiers could not speak English.
He and Stella bought some of my drawings and
were very kind to me. I met Gertrude Stein at his
house. I had been taken to her studio once in 1914
by Charles Winzer to see her pictures. She was one
of the first people to discover Picasso and had a fine
collection of his early blue-and-pink pictures. She
had a magnificent portrait of herself by him. She
was, when I met her again, writing her book, the
Making of Americans. I never read the whole of it,
but read parts of it in the Transatlantic Review, which
Ford published later in Paris. I read one chapter
on marriage, which I thought a very remarkable
piece of writing, and hope to read the whole book
one day. I spent in Paris, afterwards, every Christ
mas Day, with Ford and Stella. We had Christmas
lunch in the Boulevard Montparnasse, at a restaurant
called, " Le Mgre de Toulouse'' Ford had a small
daughter, and in the afternoon there was a children's
tea-party, with a Christmas tree and a real Father
Christmas. Ford dressed up as le phe Noel. He
looked magnificent as he was very tall. He wore a
red cloak with cotton wool representing fur, and a
red hood, and large white beard. He appeared
with a large sack and spoke French, as nearly all the
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children spoke French better than they spoke
English, and Ford's child did not speak English at
all. Gertrude Stein nearly always came. These
occasions were the only ones when I ever had a
chance of talking to her; she was very interesting
to listen to, but I always ended by getting into an
awful state of nerves. She wore in the winter thick
grey woollen stockings and Greek sandals. The
stockings had a separate place for the big toe, as the
sandals had a piece of leather which went between
the big toe and the other four toes. She sat with
her legs crossed, and the sandal on the crossed leg
dangled and swung from her big toe, to and fro;
it never stopped swinging for an instant and ended
by nearly driving me mad. The grown-up people
drank punch and vermouth, and played snapdragon
with the children. I did not like children very
much, so sat by the punch -bowl and talked to
Gertrude Stein. She used to drive about Paris in a
very small and old-fashioned motor-car with a
woman friend of hers. Ford gave me a copy of his
book, Some Do Not, with an inscription inside, on
Christmas Day in 1925. Stella painted very well in
a very precise and accomplished manner. She did
an excellent portrait of Ford asleep. Ford was not
too pleased, because she caught him when he had
fallen asleep and was snoring with his mouth open.
She said that he posed much better when he was
asleep.
One day Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell came
to see me. I asked them if they would like to
come to Brancusi's studio. We went in the after-
189
L AU GHING TORSO
noon and knocked on the door. Inside we heard a
noise of approaching footsteps and Brancusi, dressed
in overalls, with wooden sabots on, opened the door.
He showed us all his work and his photographs,
including the Princess., We left after about an hour,
all covered in dust, as one cannot sit down in a
sculptor's studio without getting covered in plaster
and clay. Willie Walton was also in Paris, and we
all dined together that evening. Osbert said that
he would like me to meet a friend of his. Sir Coleridge
Kennard, who would like to meet Cocteau and
Radiguet. Sir Coleridge had a Rolls-Royce, and
Osbert said that if I arranged a day they would
come to the studio and fetch me. I put on my
best clothes and waited, hoping to impress the
neighbours, and especially my concierge. I waited
behind the front door, but to my bitter disappoint
ment they came in an old and very shaky taxi.
We went to the Rue d'Anjou, the house of Madame
Cocteau, Jean's Mother, where he had some rooms
to himself. We were shown into a very large room
which was filled with all kinds of amusing and
wonderful things. On the wall was a portrait of
him by Marie Laurencin. A bust of Radiguet, by
Jacques Lipschitz, which was very good. A portrait
of Cocteau by Jacques Emile Blanche, one by Derain,
drawings of Picasso, a glass ship in a case, and on
the wall by the fireplace, a most wonderful photo
graph of Arthur Rimbaud, looking like an angel,
that I had never seen before. Cocteau went to a
cupboard that was filled with drawers and, out of
each drawer, produced a drawing or a painting of
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himself by, I think,, nearly every celebrated artist in
France. We had tea and everyone talked a great
deal. I had been taken by Marie Beerbohm to a
restaurant in the Rue Duphot, called, La Cigogne,
and was kept by Moise, an Alsatian, and specialized
in foie gras de Strasbourg and hock. Lady Cunard,
Stravinsky and all " Les Six " went there very
often and, after dinner, they played the piano
and danced. I did not know Lady Gunard at
this time but I knew her daughter Nancy, whom
I had met in London. Jean Cocteau and Raymond
Radiguet dined there every night. It was a very
nice, warm, and comfortable place and the foie gras
was perfect. One day I met a friend of B.'s, who
had been at Oxford. He introduced me to a tall
and very good-looking young man, who was a
great athlete, and had been the champion long-
jumper of Oxford. He was six feet-four and asked
me out to dinner. He spoke French very well,
which is always a great help in Paris, and saved
me the trouble of talking to the waiters. I sug
gested that we should eat at the Cigogne. As
we got out of our taxi we saw Jean Gocteau also
getting out of a taxi. I said, " I would like you
to meet my friend, who is an athlete." Cocteau
said, " Enchanti; f adore Us athletes" My friend
and I had dinner and Cocteau joined us afterwards
for coffee. We had a very amusing conversation,
as Cocteau can talk marvellously and is not at
all a snob and will talk brilliantly to anyone whom
he finds sympathetic. I asked the athlete if I
could paint his portrait. He lived in a very small
LAUGHING TORSO
room behind the Pantheon, It was in the next
street to a street filled with Bal Musettes and in a
very low quarter. This I thought very chic and also
very economical. I went to his place and painted
his portrait. He sat every morning at a table with
his hand on a book and a pipe beside him. I liked
him very much but found him rather boring after a
time. I went out with him and danced. He danced
beautifully and was nice and tall. He made great
friends with Cocteau, who adored Englishmen.
The English are still very highly considered by the
French. Principally, I think, because of what
Baudelaire said about their clothes. I saw Radiguet
often with Gocteau. He was a most charming boy
and spoke the most beautiful French that I have ever
heard spoken. He also spoke very slowly and dis
tinctly. He had white, regular teeth and greenish-
grey eyes, which were of a very fine shape. His
father was a very good draughtsman and worked
for a French paper. The best draughtsmen in
France, and there are many good ones, are very
badly paid and he was very poor/ He had three
other children and Raymond was the eldest.
Cocteau had met him and thought that he was very
talented and Radiguet had become a protege of his.
I think, at the time I met him, he was nineteen or
twenty. I met also, about this time, for my memory
is not quite exact about dates, Georges Duthuit,
who afterwards married the daughter of Henri
Matisse. Georges was very tall and very good-
looking and had lived at Oxford. He spoke extremely
good English and had large blue eyes.
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Cocteau told me that he and Moi'se were opening
a new night club and cafe in the Rue Boissy d'Anglas,
near the Rond Point, I saw Cocteau quite often
and met Erik Satie with him. Satie was a divine
old gentleman with a most malicious tongue and
diabolic face. We got on very well and I saw him
almost every day at the Dome. He lived at Arcueuil,
not far from Paris. No one had ever been to see him
except, I think, on one occasion, Jean Gocteau. I
liked him very much as he was quite old, and when
I was with him I always felt rather young and
girlish. I was at this time beginning to feel rather
old and wondered if I should not take on an attitude
of middle age. Now and then, when feeling really
depressed about my age, I would remember what
my Catholic convert aunt would say to me, " Those
that the Gods love always die young/ 3 She care
fully explained, I was eighteen at the time, that this
saying did not mean that one died at a youthful age
but that one's spirit remained young when in years
one was old. This I have found out is true as a most
divine lady. Lady EL, died not long ago at the age
of eighty-four, much younger in spirit than many of
the young things of to-day, who, as far as I can see,
have never been young at all. She had a most
wonderful figure, the figure of a girl of twenty.
Her face, it is true, w r as lined. I never, alas, met
her, but I have seen her dancing until the early
hours of the morning with all the best looking young
men in London. Satie had been a contemporary
of Debussy's and of Alphonse Allais, whose works
nobody in England has, as far as I can make out,
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LAUGHING TORSO
ever heard of. Allais was the first man to start the
fun and nonsense school of French literature and
was the man who said that " Mont Blanc a Fair tres
vieuxpour son dge" He also visited a French landlady
with a view of hiring a room. The landlady showed
him over her hotel, and, after having visited all the
rooms he said, " Madame est-ce que ily a des purtaises? "
The landlady was horrified and said, " Mais non,
Monsieur, mon hotel est tout a fait propre! " And
Allais said, " Madame, queldommage, autrement f aurais
pris une chambre toute de suite" Satie always carried
an umbrella, it was known as Le parapluie celebre.
I never saw him open it, but he always carried it.
After his funeral, to which I went and which I will
describe later, there was a sale of his possessions, and
I met Sauguet, the composer of the Russian ballet,
The Cat, in London. He told me that he had been
to the sale and I asked him who bought the um
brella. He said that there were twenty umbrellas
and that he had bought fifteen.
Moise and Cocteau told me that they had ar
ranged the date for the opening of their new cafe
and restaurant, which was to be called, " Le Boeuf
sur le Toit" Marie Beerbohm saw Cocteau and
Radiguet quite often, and I was generally there too.
Radiguet adored Marie. Cocteau made us laugh
the whole time. We were talking of ghosts one
evening and Cocteau told us a beautiful ghost
story. There was a man one day waiting at the
Gare du Nord for a train and a man walked past
him whom he had not seen for years. He said
to the man, " Hullo, M., I thought you were
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dead/ 5 and M. said, " Do you believe in ghosts? "
And the man who was waiting for the train said,
" Of course not." And M. said, cc Well, I do," and
vanished into space! Some years afterwards I met
a ghost at Juan les Pins, and a very unpleasant one
too. I will describe this later.
I made friends with a young French lawyer. He
did not speak any English and as a result of talking
to him my French improved. I introduced him to
Raymond Radiguet and he asked us both to dine
with him. The lawyer was only twenty-two and
quite amusing to talk to. At the age of fifteen he
had apparently become a cocaine fiend, but had
broken himself of the habit. We had a long and
complicated dinner, cocktails, red and white wine,
and ended by each smoking a very large cigar, to
the astonishment of the other diners, who looked at
us as if they thought we might all suddenly be sick.
A friend of mine, a very nice Spaniard, came to
Paris. He had been at Oxford and spoke perfect
English. He took me out to dinner at the RitZ',
and we told each other our adventures during
the past two or three years. He was one of those
very pleasant people who take the trouble to
entertain their guests. So many people expect
to be entertained the whole time. We both had
a great deal to talk about and had a very amusing
evening. I asked him if he would care to come
with me one evening to the Boeuf. Cocteau had
told me that one evening, some days before the
official opening he and some friends would be there.
I dined with the Spaniard at the Swedish Restaurant
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LAUGHING TORSO
in Montparnasse and we went to the Rue Boissy
cTAnglas about eleven o'clock. We found there
Marie Beerbohm, Picasso, Madame Picasso, Marie
Laurencin, Cocteau, Moise, Radiguet and Brancusi.
They were drinking champagne and we joined
them. In front of the entrance was a wooden
screen, one of the kind that will roll up, and everyone
was much intrigued with, and decided to experi
ment with it. The Spaniard put it on the floor and
rolled himself up in it, much to the delight of the
company. He rolled and rolled on the floor. Some
times we caught glimpses of him and sometimes he
was entirely entwined with the screen. The evening
was an enormous success and I left for Montparnasse
with Brancusi and Radiguet, who had on a dinner-
jacket. Brancusi lived near Montparnasse and said
that he would see me home. We arrived at the
Dome at five minutes to two, just in time to buy
some cigarettes. Brancusi had an inspiration. He
said to Radiguet and me, " Let us go to Marseilles
now/ 5 I 5 being very stupid, said that I must go
home. I did not really think that he meant it and
went home to my Pole, Brancusi and Radiguet, the
latter still in his dinner-jacket, took a train for
Marseilles a few hours later, without baggage, just
as they were. On the way to Marseilles they decided
that, being once started, they might as well go on to
Corsica. When they arrived at Marseilles Radiguet
bought some clothes from a sailor's shop and they
took the boat for Corsica. They remained there for
two weeks . I have never regretted anything so much
in my life as not having gone with them. The only
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other thing that I regret was having married Edgar.
Anything else that I have done does not seem to
matter.
Some nights after was the official opening of the
Boeuf sur le Toit. I was taken by the athlete. We
dined at a restaurant near the Madeleine and went
there about eleven-thirty. Cocteau, whom I had
last seen at the unofficial opening, showed me a
telegram which was from Corsica and from Brancusi
and Radiguet. It said that they were having a
splendid time and would return to Paris perhaps
soon and perhaps not. Cocteau was much dis
turbed at the complete disappearance of Radiguet.
We talked about it for a short time and came to the
conclusion that he would be quite safe in Brancusfs
care. They returned a few days later, having had a
wonderful time with the peasants and the Corsican
brandy. When members of the pre~War School of
Montparnasse went out " on the bust " they did
things in the pre-War style. It is a much better way,
I think, than going out for two or three evenings a
week. When once they started and that was not
very often, as they usually worked very hard, they
continued for days, and sometimes, if the money
held out for weeks. On one occasion, during the
fourteenth of July celebrations, Brancusi and Braque,
the Cubist, painted their faces in Cubist designs,
in red, blue, and white. I did, alas, not see them,
but I am told that they looked really fantastic.
They began by walking up the Boulevard St.
Michel. Everyone was so startled at their odd
appearance that they ran away in terror. They
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L AU GHING TORSO
stayed out three days and three nights and finally
ended in Les Halles. That is what I was told, and it
is quite possible that, after Les Halles, they took the
train to Chartres. The cathedral of Chartres and
the Palace of Versailles were two very popular
places for people who had been out for some days.
They seemed to have, especially Chartres, a curious
calming and soothing influence on them. I dined
often at the Boeuf sur le Toit, with Marie. It
was quite a small place with one room only. The
walls were quite plain with one or two photographs
of Stravinsky, Picasso, and Cocteau. At the end of
the room was a high bar with chairs where the
drinks were a little cheaper and were produced more
rapidly than if one was sitting down. All kinds of
celebrities were to be found there and, at any rate,
the first year it was a most amusing and interesting
place. Moise was a most charming man. He was,
of course, Jewish, but was very tall and fair and I
would not have known it if I had not known his
name. It was here that I met Erik Satie. He did
not stay often in Paris for the evening, but when he
did he brightened up any place that he was in and
was most witty and amusing. Les Six had published
a small pink paper. It was not in the form of a book
but a large sheet which folded up. In this were
published various remarks of Satie; for instance,
written sideways round the edge of the paper was
" Monsieur Ravel a refusi la Ugion (Thonneur, mais toute
sa musique Vaccepte" Ravel had been offered the
Legion of Honour and had refused it. Satie simply
could not resist an opportunity to be witty and,
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more often than not, very " catty. 35 There was
another remark of his that I thought very funny:
cc Quand fetais jeune tout le monde m j a dit, c Quandvous
aurez cinquante ans, vous verrez> maintenantfai cinquante
ans etje rfai rien vu* " I had some copies of this paper
which, unfortunately, I have lost. At the beginning
of the Boeuf there were hardly any English or
Americans. Mo'ise, I, Nancy Cunard, Iris Tree,
Evan Morgan, Tommy Earp and a few others, but
no tourists at all. Later on it became filled with
dreary and rich Americans, who simply got drunk
and either fought or fell asleep.
Tommy Earp was still rich and gave us a wonder
ful time. He seldom said, " Will you dine on
Friday, or lunch on Wednesday," but would arrive
at the Parnasse and suddenly ask, " Will you have
a small dinner with me? " The dinner nearly
always ended at seven-thirty a.m. in the markets.
On one occasion we took a taxi to Montmartre to a
restaurant in the Rue des Martyrs called UAne
Rouge. It is a very expensive restaurant and
frequented almost entirely by French people. A
band played special tunes that Tommy called for
and we had a really stupendous dinner with white
wine, not champagne, but much better and nicer.
Tommy said that the night was too young to start
on champagne. After dinner we started out to
" do " Montmartre. We went to the Savoy and
ordered a bottle of champagne. This one has to do
in any case. The champagne in these night clubs is
mostly sweet and horribly expensive. The sweet
kind is really more drinkable than the sec, which
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LAUGHING TORSO
tastes like vinegar. There were lady dance partners
of all ages and sizes. There was one very fat lady,
far from young, dressed, or rather c "upholstered "
in red velvet. As I was very thin, Tommy thought
it would look very funny to see her dancing with me
and called her over. The lady was delighted and,
much to my embarrassment seized me round the
waist and whirled me round and round. Tommy
handed her twenty francs and insisted on her
repeating the process. I was becoming really
exhausted and we asked her to join us in some wine.
She sat down and entertained us with the story of
her life, which was much the same as that of any
other lady in any other night club. We then went to
La Pigalle, which is, I think, the gayest and most
lively of all the Boites. There people seem to be
really enjoying themselves and, at most of the other
places, the gaiety seems to be forced. Paper
streamers were being thrown about, and little
muslin bags, containing coloured cotton-wool balls,
were handed to us to throw at our neighbours. In
the middle of the room was a table, and, sitting at it,
I recognized Little Tich. I was thrilled, as I had
seen him on the stage but never in real life. It was
impossible not to recognize him. In front of him
was a bottle of champagne in a bucket, and Tommy
and I pelted him with our stock of ammunition. I
hit him on the head twice, which I don't think he
liked much. I was a very good shot as I had learnt
the accomplishment of throwing straight from the
bathing-machine boys in Tenby. The third time
I hit the bottle of champagne, which was apparently
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empty, as It rolled round the ice bucket and made a
clattering noise. We thought that Little Tich had
had enough attention and devoted our time to trying
to hit a fat blonde. After a time we got tired of
Pigalle's and decided to move on. Tommy's pet
place was La Perle, in the Rue Pigalle, quite
close to the Pigalle. We went to see Angele, an
incredible old woman, who must have been a great
beauty in her youth. At the door was a small page
boy dressed in red with brass buttons. We found
Angele, who was dressed in a magnificent evening
dress of corded purple silk. She was very fat and the
dress was very low. When she leant over the table
the front displayed to view a very fat paunch. She
was delighted to see us and bought us a bottle of
champagne. Suddenly a row started between one
of the ladies, a very tall, fat one, and the page-boy.
They had a battle and finally fell on to the floor and
rolled over and over. This was a really funny sight
and I wish I had been able to do a drawing of it.
It was now about two a.m. and we thought that we
would see if the " Boeuf " was still open. We wan
dered down a side street in search of a taxi. The
street was very dark, there appeared to be no street
lamps at all. We saw a dark shadow which turned
out to be a taxi, and, standing beside it, was an
upright form, completely black. On our approach
ing it we found that it was a negro chauffeur. At
this time " Batouala " was having an enormous
success and we had the brilliant idea of hiring the
chauffeur and bringing him to the Boeuf and intro
ducing him as Batouala himself. We took his taxi,
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L AU GHING TORSO
but unfortunately lost our nerve when we arrived.
The Boeuf was very lively indeed and I danced and
Tommy talked for some hours. We then went to
Les Halles and had supper or breakfast or both,
and some white wine, and returned to Mont-
parnasse about eight a.m. At the Dome, having
breakfast, was Sisley Huddleston, who Tommy in
troduced me to. He was perfectly charming. I
think I fell asleep shortly after, but no one seemed
to mind. I eventually woke up feeling rather ill and
went home -to bed.
I had done a good many water-colours and
thought that it was time that I had an exhibition
in London. I wrote to Mr. Turner of the Independ
ent Galleries, and he said that I might have one
in the autumn. As it was the middle of summer I
decided to go to London almost at once. Tommy
had already gone back and was living in his flat in
Regent Square. My friend, who wanted to get into
the Diplomatic Service and who sat for me, was
going back to England and said that if I cared to go
back the same day on which he did, he would pay
the extra fare for me to go first-class Calais-Dover,
rather than third-class Dieppe-Newhaven, the way
that I always went. I was delighted, The train
was packed. On the boat was a French Diplomatic
Mission, I think, with Monsieur Briand; any way,
there were glorious creatures in uniforms and
covered in medals. The boat was packed and we
had to sit on the deck on some life-buoy boxes and
dangle our legs. Suddenly the most handsome and
magnificent officer came up and shook my friend
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by the hand. He was some important diplomat's
aide-de-camp, and was covered with medals of all
THE PLOUGH, MUSEUM STREET
kinds and gold braid. I was introduced to him and
we became the centre of interest of all the old ladies
and gentlemen. My friends still had my flat in
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LAUGHING TORSO
Great James Street and I thought that I would stay
there. When I got there I found that they had gone
away and had taken the key with them. I went to
the Eiffel Tower where I found Tommy Earp.
Tommy said that he had a spare room at Regent
Square and I could stay there until I could get my
key from my friends. I had dinner at the Eiffel and
we decided to call on the way back to Regent
Square, on a friend of ours who lived in Bedford
Square. We rang her up and she asked us to come
and see her. When we arrived she unfolded a tragic
story. Her father had gone away that morning
leaving a very old mahogany box in the drawing-
room, containing bottles of brandy and wine, but
the key could not be found. We all gazed at this
very solid looking box, with its iron lock and enor
mous keyhole. Silently Tommy took the poker, I
took a corkscrew, our hostess took a nail file, and
another girl took a fork and got seriously to work on
the box. We wrenched and dug and poked furiously
for about ten minutes with no success at all. Finally,
Tommy attacked the hinge with the poker and it
showed signs of opening but, alas! the box lifted
from the ground and then dropped down with a
thud and a dreadful noise of smashing glass. Out
of it poured a long river of red liquid. Tommy, with
great presence of mind, seized a tumbler and held
it between the lid and the box. He filled the glass.
From another portion of the box a small stream
trickled along the parquet floor and made rivulets,
which formed into a small lake. This was all very
disheartening. We shared the glass. It tasted like
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brandy, red wine, and mahogany. Later on our
friend went out to replace the bottles. She bought
whisky and red wine. Next morning she found
the key of the box in an envelope addressed to
her brother in the hall. The bottles did not con
tain whisky but brandy. After this disaster we
went to Regent Square. Some time before, the
flat had been shared by Aldous Huxley and his wife.
Upstairs lived two elderly ladies. They made,
sometimes in the evenings, a great deal of noise.
The landlord was a retired vicar. Aldous wrote a
letter complaining of the noise and asked him if he
would be kind enough to ask the ladies to stop their
nocturnal " bombinations "; the French slang for
raising hell and disturbing everyone is to faire la
bombe, and this word was an invention of his. The
Vicar wrote a pained letter back and said that he
was quite certain that the Misses A. were quite
incapable of committing any kind of abomination.
The flat was, at this time, shared by Russell Green
and his wife. Russell had been a contemporary of
Tommy's at Oxford. Facing the Square was a large
room with two windows and book-cases with very
fine books. First editions of Restoration Plays and
all kinds of rare and interesting works. By the
window was a telephone and in front of the fire was
a large wicker " Oxford " armchair. Near the door
was a divan on which Tommy slept. As I had
travelled all day and was tired I said that I would
like to go to bed. Tommy gave me a bottle of Bass
to drink, if I was thirsty during the night, and went
into the kitchen, saying that he was going to cook
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LAUGHING TORSO
some onions. He showed me my room, which was
at the back and facing some roofs. I had been
foolish enough to register my luggage only as far as
Calais and had no clothes at all except what I had
on. I had to sleep in a very old,, short, and ragged
chemise. About five a.m. I woke up choking. The
room was full of smoke and smelt as if something
was burning. I did not take this very seriously as I
thought that Tommy had probably burnt the
onions. I tried to sleep and suddenly there was a
banging on the door and I heard Tommy say,
" Don't you think that you had better get up, you
know the house is on fire." I jumped out of bed and
opened the door. In burst flames and smoke. The
smoke was so thick in the passage that I could not
breathe, and I seized a towel, which I stuffed into
my mouth, and held my nose. I found my way
downstairs, still in the very short chemise and, stand
ing at the bottom of the staircase, was the vicar with
his hat on. I found out afterwards that the reason
that he wore his hat was that he usually wore a wig
and during the excitement was unable to lay his
hand on it. I felt slightly embarrassed and so, I
think, did the Vicar. I saw an umbrella-stand and
hat-rack and on it hung a clergyman's top coat. I
grabbed it and put it on as, after the fiery furnace
upstairs, I felt rather cold. Russell Green had gone
to the nearest fire alarm and sent for the Fire
Brigade. He came back and he and his wife and I
took some of the clergyman's chairs and sat in a row
just inside the front door waiting for the firemen.
They arrived in a few minutes and laid on the hose,
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We still sat on our chairs and rested our feet on the
hose pipe. Tommy never came down at all. He
was upstairs in the kitchen handing the firemen
beer. We asked them if they considered that it was
a good fire and one fireman said, " Not 5 arf, burnt
the 'ole bloomin' floor out. 35 We asked Tommy
afterwards why he did not come downstairs, and
pointed out to him the risk he was taking of being
burnt to death. He had, apparently, not thought of
that and explained that he objected to " Personal
injury. 3 ' I suppose he meant fighting his way
through the flames and smoke. The fire, fortun
ately, did not get as far as the kitchen, although it
raged outside. Suddenly, Russell Green remembered
that he had left the manuscript of his novel up
stairs and I realized that my passport was in my
room. We took each other by the hand and went
upstairs through the flames and smoke. He found
his manuscript and I snatched my passport from
the dressing-table, which I was able to feel my way
to. It was impossible to even open one's eyes, the
smoke was so thick. To have one's lungs filled with
smoke is a most disagreeable feeling and I hope that
I shall never be in another fire. Apparently it
started by Tommy having gone to sleep, probably
having left a lighted cigarette end on the floor.
The whole of the floor of his room was burnt out
before he woke up. It was only when the sleeve
of his pyjamas became singed that he woke up.
He was very ill for days afterwards. A great many
of the books were destroyed, but fortunately he was
insured. I felt awful and arrived at a friend's flat at
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LAUGHING TORSO
about eight a.m. She said, " Where on earth have
you been to, you smell like a smoked herring? " I
said, " I am." I had a bath and was regaled with
brandy as I felt very sick.
The next day I found my friends who had my
flat and got the latch-key and stayed there. I had
to arrange about my show and get my water-
colours framed. I had hardly any money and felt
very gloomy. I could not pay for the frames so
decided to visit a kind uncle who had a business in
the city. He was the brother of my terrifying aunt.
I explained my troubles and he was kind enough
to lend me the money (I have never paid him back,
I am ashamed to say, but I will some day) to pay
for them. My luck was in a very bad way as the day
my exhibition opened there was a coal strike. I
had a good private view, that is to say, all kinds of
people came, but all I sold during the whole show
was one drawing for seven guineas. Nancy Cunard
was in London. She asked me to a luncheon party
that her mother was giving in Garlton House
Terrace. During the morning I had arranged to
do a drawing of Stulik, the proprietor of the Eiffel
Tower Restaurant. I worked for several hours and
did a drawing in pencil which, although I don't
think a good drawing, is, at any rate, an excellent
likeness. It occurred to me that I might as well
take it to the luncheon party and show it to Nancy,
as she knew Stulik so well. I arrived, feeling rather
nervous, and left the drawing in the hall with my
coat. The footman showed me into a drawing-
room. I had never seen Lady Cunard before, but,
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of course, knew her at once by her resemblance to
Nancy* She was perfectly charming and I felt at
once at my ease. I met Lord Inchcape and Lady
Cynthia Asquith and then Aldous Huxley, the Sit-
wells and several other people came in. I sat next
Lord Inchcape at luncheon and was rather fright
ened, but Lady Cunard is such a wonderful hostess
that no one could possibly feel nervous for more
than a second. After luncheon she sat beside me
and asked me what work I had been doing. I said
that I had spent the morning drawing Stulik and
she said how much she would like to see it. I said
that I had got it with me. I fetched it from the hall
and they all liked it very much. Lady Cunard
asked me if I would do a drawing of Nancy, and
how much would I charge ? I said boldly, " Ten
guineas/ 3 and I arranged a sitting a few days later.
I did, I think, quite a good drawing and got my
cheque the next morning. If only more patrons of
art would treat artists in this way we would not be
so frequently " in the soup. 33
I visited my exhibition every day and felt gloomier
and gloomier. In the evening I went to the Eiffel
Tower and wondered if I should ever get back to
Paris. After the show closed, some kind person
bought a small picture and I took the first train
back to Paris. During this visit to London I had
looked with interest at the river and the dirty streets,
and began to think that I might be able, some day,
to paint them. I felt, however, that I had not yet
got all that I could from Paris and that I should
have to stay there for still some years. I had my
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LAUGHING TORSO
water-colours sent back to France. It is impossible
to find out the reasons for people buying pictures.
I had excellent criticisms and the pictures were very
bright and gay. I have since sold them nearly all
and destroyed a few that I did not like. It is really
the greatest mistake to destroy one's drawings or
paintings. The last time I was in Paris, three and
a half years ago, I went to the studio where the
Pole still was, bought a bottle of wine, and burnt
about fifteen oil paintings and two hundred drawings
in a fit of rage. I have learnt a lesson since, as, not
so very long ago, a man turned up and said that he
would like to buy some drawings. He looked
through dozens of drawings and finally asked me if
I had any oil paintings. I looked in cupboards and
in corners and found some, and at last came to a
still-life, that I had very nearly put into the dustbin.
I took it out and showed it to him. He gazed at it
for some time and asked me how much I wanted for
it. I said " twenty guineas. " He thought for some
time and said, " I will give you fifteen guineas
down." I said, " Yes." Having not seen it for
s some years I realized that it was not so bad as I had
thought.
I still lived in Modigliani's studio and painted
portraits of any kind of odd-looking person that I
could find. A friend of my Pole's had been to
Marseilles and there had found a Tunisian who was
a very tough character. He had brought him back
to Paris to be his cook, valet, and general servant.
He had very black eyes, in one of which was a cast.
He wore a check cap and a blue linen suit, no collar
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and espadrilles. He would suddenly appear late at
night at the Parnasse to fetch his master home. One
suddenly turned round on the terrasse and saw him
standing like a statue. I asked him if he would
come and sit for me and one afternoon I heard a
knock on the door. The staircase was very long
and, as a rule,, one could hear people pounding and
groaning up the staircase. He sat without moving.
He was quite terrifying, as, like Landru, he never
blinked his eyelids. I became almost hypnotized
and had to ask him to rest about every quarter of an
hour. I did a good painting of him, which was
eventually accepted by the Salon d'Automne. I
sold it the other day to Miss Ruth Baldwin, and it
now hangs near the cocktail bar in her house in Chel
sea. If one paints a good picture it is a little sad to
think that one will never see it again. I am not
actually speaking of that one, but some of mine have
gone to America and Africa and some have been
bought by people that I do not even know. I think
writers are so much luckier than painters. In the
first place it costs them nothing to write. To paint
costs money. If one paints a good picture, even a
very good one, it may have a success at an exhibition
and be sold, and it is never heard of again until
one is dead, or, perhaps not even then. If a writer
writes a book its reputation, if it is a good one, goes
on for years and the writer continues to get money
for it.
An extraordinary man came daily to the Cafe
Parnasse. He was very tall and frequently wore a
top-hat, a tail coat, and white spats, and carried
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over his shoulders a pair of field-glasses, and he wore
an eyeglass. He did not seem to know anyone.
We could not make out what his nationality was.
He appeared to be so conceited that the Arab and
the Pole nick-named him " Mezigue "; this is the
argot for " I," " me. 53 " Sezigue " is the argot for
" he/ 5 " him/ 5 just as " tezigue " is for " thou,"
" thee." One day Ortiz spoke to him and found that
he came from Chili. His father was a merchant from
Lancashire, who had gone to Chili and married
there a Chilian lady. We picked him up and found
him quite mad but very funny. He had come to Paris
to study opera singing. We pointed out to him that
Paris was not the place to study and that he ought
to go to Milan. This had not occurred to him be
fore. Later on in the evening he sang; he had a
most wonderful voice of a very beautiful quality and
most awfully loud. It shook the whole cafe. He
sang us " Pagliacci " and other operas. He was, ap
parently, quite broke and had only one other suit
of clothes besides the top-hat. He confessed shame
facedly to us that he earned his living by accompany
ing Cook's tourists round Paris in a char-a-banc.
He spoke English very well, but not so well as
Spanish, and I asked him if he would come and sit
for me in his top-hat. He was delighted and I
bought a large canvas in order to paint him life-
size. I arranged him sitting down with his legs
crossed and holding his stick and the top-hat. In
the background I put a Moroccan rug, which was a
very beautiful colour; reds and blues. This rug I
bought from one of the carpet-sellers who infest all
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continental cafes, and who will walk up and down
in front of the terrasse selling rugs. We had one
particular carpet-seller who also sold coats and
necklaces and sometimes had really beautiful things
for almost nothing. One day he was pestering a
very drunken American and the American said,
" Go away, I don't want any of your goddam
stinking carpets/' and our Moroccan answered, in
a deeply pained voice, " Sir, it is not the carpets that
stink, it is me." In the background of my portrait
I put my guitar and a pot of red flowers on the
floor. The white pot, his white collar, and the
spats were the only white spots in the picture. The
canvas was over five feet high, and I had to work
like the devil, even to cover it up. My Pole was
painting in the next room and now and then came
and gave me criticisms. He was an extremely in
telligent man and knew a great deal more about
painting than I did. The top-hat was indescribably
difficult, not only the drawing, but the shadows,
they were so intensely black. I used no black at all
in my palette but only dark blue, and had to paint
the rest of him in a much higher key than I would
otherwise have done. He was a splendid model
and very vain, and it was almost impossible to
stop him posing when he had once begun. One
day his Father arrived and I was asked to meet
him. He was a charming old gentleman of seventy-
six, but he did not look as old. He had long
fair whiskers and dressed in a dark blue-serge suit.
He had rather a nautical appearance. He could
not understand why I wanted to paint his son,
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LAUGHING TORSO
whose face certainly was not what the English
workman would describe as an " oil painting." He
said, "I have seven sons, this one is the best, you
can imagine what the other six are like/' I very
much wanted to know but I did not like to ask him.
I sent his portrait and four others to the Salon
d'Automne. I saw Othon Friesz, whom I knew
quite well and who liked my work and, knowing
that he was on the committee, asked him to look
out for them. This is done in Paris as elsewhere.
I received a notice, to my astonishment, to hear that
they had all been accepted. I went to the Varnish
ing Day and found, to my surprise, that they were
not in Friesz's room at all. Each member of the
committee has a special room, where he can hang
the paintings of the people that he approves of. I
looked round the Salon and found that all mine
were very well placed in a group " On the line/ 3 in
the Salle of Andre Lhote. This was very odd, as
apparently Friesz had not. been able to find my
pictures on the day that the committee had judged
them, but they had been discovered by Lhote, who
was not on speaking terms with Friesz at the time and
he had placed them in his salle. I had met Lhote
one day in 1920 at the Rotonde with Wassilieff, but
I don't think he had even seen my work and cer
tainly did not know my name, so that I considered
that it was a great compliment I had a few press
notices in the French papers and one in Polish that
was very complimentary, I decided to have a
<c One man show. 55 I had met Monsieur Lucien
Vogel at the Boeuf sur le Toit. He had a very nice
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MADAME WALTER DURANTY
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Gallery in the Rue St. Florentin, just behind the
Place de la Concorde. I showed all my water-
colours that had been in London, the ones from the
Salon, the paintings of Gollioure, and some draw
ings. It really looked quite nice. In Paris artists
nearly always get a well-known critic to write a
notice. I had made the acquaintance of a promi
nent critic-editor who said that he would be de
lighted to write one for me. He came up to my
studio. The Pole hated him, he had a dreadful
voice. He wrote to me asking me to visit his office
he was the editor of an important art paper I
arrived one day in the Boulevard Raspail to see his
article. I think it mentioned my name once. It was
a long discourse on English painting and nearly all
about Roger Fry and P. Wyndham Lewis. He then
demanded two thousand francs. I was furious and
told him what I thought about him. He then told
me what he thought of me and opened the door,
pushed me out, and kicked the door to with his foot,
so I had no notice. Cocteau and Radiguet came
to the show and were most awfully nice. Gocteau
said, as he said about anything that he appre
ciated, that the drawings were, " Plus vrai que le
vrai" And Radiguet said the most charming
things: I think he had the best manners of anyone
I have ever met. Brancusi came also and was very
sweet. I think he thought they were too realistic,
which, of course, they were. I sold very few, as it is
very difficult to sell pictures in Paris if you are not
French, and have not got a picture-dealer to back
you. As, however, it often happens one sells more
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L AU GHING TORSO
pictures after a show than during it, and during the
few weeks after I did quite well.
I visited the home of my friend the Countess quite
often. She was very kind to me. One day she
invited me to a dance. I had some quite good
evening dresses that Marie and Nancy had given me
and so, fortunately, I could go out looking quite
respectable. I arrived about eleven p.m. There
were mostly French people there, very chic women,
and Miss Elsa Maxwell was playing the piano with
great vigour. I danced a lot and when the people
began to leave, the Countess said to me, " Don't
leave but stay on, we will get rid of the dull respect
able people and have some fun, avec des amis.
Leading out of the ball-room was a small room
where supper was laid. There were only about ten
people remaining. Lady Michelham who, alas! is
now dead, the Marquis de Segur, Cecile Sorel,
Madame M., a beautiful Russian, and several others
whose names I do not remember. I wore a most
beautiful dress that the Countess had given me. It
was long and straight and was covered all over with
golden spangles, which looked like fishes 3 scales. . . .
It fitted quite tight and exposed the lines of the
figure to view and I was very much pleased with
myself. The Marquis de Segur played the piano.
He played very loudly and we pelted him with
oranges, Cecile Sorel and myself. She was a most
marvellous person, magnificently dressed, with a
most interesting face. I had seen her act and was
very much impressed with her. She was very nice
to me. She seized a large ham and said to me.
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" Hold the bone while I carve it." I was at the
other side of the table and grabbed the ham bone
and pulled, as she had the fork in the ham. The
bone was only an imitation one and came out in my
hand and I fell over backwards. It was one of those
very grand hams that had been filleted. She then
grabbed me by the shoulder of my dress and said,
" Take this off and dance." This amused me as I
thought of WassiliefFs studio and my performances
there, but I said nothing and did not dance. Lady
Michelham was charming and asked me to come
and see her at her home at Passy. I knew that she
had the most wonderful pictures and was delighted.
The party ended about four a.m. and I went home
to Montparnasse. Some days later I went to see
her. She had an enormous apartment and the foot
man showed me into a small room leading into a
big drawing-room. I sat and waited. There were
cases containing the most wonderful pottery and on
the wall the sketch for Gainsborough's cc Hay Cart/ 3
which is in the National Gallery. The sketch I
thought very much more beautiful than the finished
picture. The finished picture had, unfortunately,
been so much cleaned that half the paint had been
removed also. Lady Michelham came in and sent
for some cocktails. We had a long talk about life
and gossiped about our friends. She then asked me
if I would like to see the rest of her apartment. We
went into a huge ball-room with a very fine Law
rence portrait of a lady and many other splendid
specimens of the English School. In a flat, glass
case, in the middle of the room were the most
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LAUGHING TORSO
wonderful jewels. There was one about an inch
and a half long. It represented a semi-nude man.
His torso was composed of a natural pearL The
head had been modelled in gold but the pearl was
so shaped that it represented perfectly the body of a
man. I don't think he had legs but a fish's tail that
was made of gold. There were other jewels in the
rest of the design. The case was filled with equally
beautiful pieces of jewellery. I said, with a gasp,
cc Whatever are these? " As a matter of fact I had
already guessed. Lady Michelham, whose memory
was very bad, said, " I can't remember the man's
name." I said, " Benvenuto Cellini," and she said,
"Yes, that is his name." I said that I must be
going, and she said, " Before you go my maid will
give you a little box." I guessed that it would
probably contain some clothes, as all my women
friends were most thoughtful and kind and realized
the importance of clothes, consequently I always
looked well dressed. If one is smartly dressed, even
if one lives in a garret, one can always ask more for
one's pictures. The maid handed me a cardboard
box about a foot and a half in length and a foot wide
and three inches deep, which was so heavy that I
could, only with difficulty, lift it. I placed it on the
pavement outside and waited till a taxi appeared.
"When I got it home I opened it and found four
most splendid evening dresses. They were covered
in beads and that was why the box was so heavy. I
tried them on and they fitted me perfectly. They
were long and straight and all being French models
would, to-day, have been most fashionable.
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I had left the studio and was living in a small hotel
in Montparnasse. I had behaved rather badly to
the Pole and had neglected him. I found it much
better to live by myself and to have no one to wait
for one's arrival home. I found one day, at the
Countess A's, Harry MelvilL She gave a cocktail
party. Teddie Gerrard was there. I had met her
during the War when she was in Bubbly with Con
stance Stuart Richardson and Arthur Weigall, the
Egyptologist, who had designed the Egyptian set
tings. Sessue Hayakawa was also there. He was
sitting on the floor on a small stool by the fire-place
and I sat on a mat beside him. He was very fond of
painting and we talked about art. He was most
charming and very intelligent. It is such a pity that
one never sees him now as he was such a good actor.
Harry Melvill I had met in London just after the
War. One day I was going to Chelsea on the top of a
'bus and in front of me was a very smartly-dressed,
elderly man, with a fat, rather elderly, lady. She
looked rather like Marie Lloyd, They talked and
laughed a great deal and I wondered what they
were doing on a 'bus, they looked much more like
people who would own a Rolls-Royce. A few days
later Mr. " Bogey " Harris, whom I had met at the
Omega Workshops with Mr. Fry, asked me to
lunch at Treviglio's* TrevigHo's was at that time
frequented by smart and amusing people; Lady
Cunard went there a lot. I got there rather early
and sat alone at a table and waited. Presently, to
my astonishment, the elderly man I had seen on the
'bus came in alone. He sat down and seemed to be
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LAUGHING TORSO
waiting for someone. Mr. Harris arrived and the
elderly man and myself both rose to our feet. I was
introduced to Harry Melvill and we all sat down
together and had lunch. Harry was most enter
taining and never stopped talking. Certainly no
one wanted him to. I did not tell him until years
afterwards about the 'bus incident as I thought that,
perhaps, he did not want to be seen on that occasion.
He laughed very much when I did. During the War
he had been the head of the passport office in Paris,
as he was too old to join the Army, in fact he was
much older than he looked. He died, unfortu
nately, for all of us, last year. He was the kindest
person imaginable. At the cocktail party he talked
French incessantly to the French, lots of French.
He spoke French very fluently and correctly
but in the same way that he spoke English. Con
sequently, unless one was close to him one thought
that he was speaking English. I met Mrs. Reginald
Fellowes and she asked me to dinner at her home.
Some days later I went. I wore one of my grand
evening dresses and some large pearl earrings and
looked, I thought, very fine. Mrs. Fellowes had an
enormous apartment in the Rue de Galilee. Lady
Michelham, the Princess Murat and Lord Wim-
borne were there and several other people. There
were some fine Fragonards on the walls and the
dining-room was decorated with large still-lives,
representing pheasants and fruit and flowers. They
were by some eighteenth-century Master and were
very beautiful. I was rather terrified as there were
three butlers and so many knives and forks that I
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felt myself turning pale with fright. However, after
a glass or two of wine I regained my courage and
did not eat my meat with a fish fork. Hugo Rumbold
was there and he played some of his songs, including
the Madame Tussaud song about the Chamber of
Horrors. I sang some of my silly songs. I Wandered
through the rooms of the apartment and found a
large life-size painting of Nijinsky; this was by
Jacques Emile Blanche. I thought it very fine in
deed and the best thing of his that I have ever seen.
I arrived home about two-thirty, feeling very much
pleased with life and with myself.
My friend, Marie Beerbohm, spoke to me often
about two friends of hers, F. and R. F. was half
French, his Mother being English, and R. was
an American from Boston. One day at the Boeuf
she introduced me to them. F. was one of the
first people, with Fauconnet, the French painter
who died, and who was a very fine artist, to discover
the Douanier Rousseau. They had seen his pic
tures at the Salon des Independants and had written
him a letter beginning " Cher Maitre " and had
bought a picture. F. was a great friend of Gocteau,
Radiguet, Max Jacob and, in fact, had known
everyone of interest in France for the past twenty
years. They were both most amusing and intelli
gent and we had a wonderful evening. Marie
Beerbohm was as witty as all the rest of her family
and we all laughed so much that we went home
quite exhausted. Marie lived in a service flat
near the Avenue Wagram. She had a room
and a bath. This part of Paris and the Bois de
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L AU GHING TORSO
Boulogne is very tough indeed, and it is round here
that nearly all the criminals are found. The neigh
bourhood from the point of view of living there is
very respectable, but there are side streets with very
bad cafes frequented by criminals. One evening
I was going out to dine with Marie, and we stood
on the doorstep we were both in evening dress
to wait for a taxi. Suddenly she ran across the
street and stopped a taxi and then called for me. I
ran across and found that she was being spoken to
by a most dreadful looking tough with a real
criminal face. He wanted to take us off somewhere
in the taxi. We ran quickly back to her house and
shut the door. We then asked the concierge to fetch
us a taxi.
I met at the Parnasse an American who had the
brightest, reddest hair, I had ever seen. He had
small blue eyes, the colour of a turquoise, and a
freckled face. He was very tall and looked as if his
arms and legs might come unhooked at any mo
ment. He spoke very slowly. I had not been in
love since the incident of the Pole and immediately
on seeing this vision with such red hair, I began to
cc sit up and take notice/ 3 I have always liked red
headed people of both sexes. They seem to me to
be very much alive and very intelligent. I met him
a few days later. We arranged to dine on the night
of the Bal des Quatz 5 Arts. I never went, for reasons
that I have explained before. It was too rough. I
still saw my Pole and worked at the studio, in fact
stayed there sometimes. During the afternoon of
the day of the ball, Arthur Rubens tein appeared.
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He knew all the Poles In Montparnasse, who adored
him. He arrived at the Parnasse about three in the
afternoon. He ordered drinks all round and the
saucers began to pile up. He explained to my
Pole, whom I was sitting with, that he wanted to go
to the ball and wanted to pay rather less than five
hundred francs for his ticket. It is almost impossible
for a man to get in who is not a student without
having to pay an enormous sum of money. Even
if hundreds of francs are paid,, very often people are
thrown out, the few clothes that they have arrived
in being torn off them. It is also necessary to know
the name of one's supposed Professor and the
" massier " of the class. This has to be learnt from
memory from one of the real students. Any woman
can get in free as they are considered the property
of the students to do anything they like with. My
Pole was able to obtain a ticket for fifty francs and
then the great question of costumes had to be dis
cussed. The period, as I have said, was Greek.
No other kind of dress is permitted after the students
have decided on a certain period. My Pole was not
unlike Charlie Chaplin, and Rubenstein, although
of a distinguished and imposing appearance, did not
look very like a Greek. They decided to go to the
Bon Marche and buy suitable material and that I
would make them clothes at the studio. I went
home and waited for them, collecting needles,
cotton, and scissors. They came back with yards
of tussore silk, with red and blue swastika patterns on
it, bunches of imitation grapes for head-dresses, and
sandals and ribbons to put round their waists. I
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LAUGHING TORSO
cut the silk in half and sewed each side up, leaving
only a hole for the head, and holes each side for the
arms. The ribbon was tied round the middle under
the armpits. I made two wreaths of the grapes and
the vine leaves, and helped them to paint their faces.
They looked very fine indeed and were extremely
proud of themselves. I dined with the red-haired
American and we went to watch the people enter the
ball at Luna Park. We did not see the Pole, or
Rubenstein, but many wonderful costumes. An
American got in without a ticket, as he saw the stu
dents unloading a wagon of champagne and helped
them, and so got in without being noticed. I saw
two English Guards' officers who had come dressed
in togas made out of sheets. They could not have
looked more like the Grenadier Guards in their uni
forms than they did in the sheets. They got in
safely. The American and I went to the Bois de
Boulogne after and sat on a seat as it was a very hot
evening. He lived in a Hotel which is on the Quays
at the corner of the Pont Neuf, and near the statue of
Henry IV. We went to Les Halles and bought
two bottles of white wine which we took back to the
hotel. His conversation I thought completely
" gaga, 55 but the red hair made up for it and we
drank the wine. I stayed at the hotel and at eight-
thirty in the morning we decided to take one of the
river boats and go down the river. It was a beautiful
day and very hot. I had on a pair of sandals which
I had had in London and were wonderfully made.
I had very nice feet with long toes and was very
proud of them. I had a check dress, very tight
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fitting., with a long full skirt, and on the chest, round
yellow buttons like marbles. He wore a bright
green shirt and no hat. We had to change at
Auteuil, as we had decided to go to St. Cloud.
When we got there we lay on the bank of the river
and waved a bottle of beer at the passing bargees,
who seemed to be much amused at us. We then
took the boat back and I returned to Montparnasse
to hear what happened at the ball.
The cafes were filled this was about twelve a.m.
with very dirty and very tired people most of whom
were still drunk. Nothing much was to be got out
of them. I knocked on the Pole's door but he was
still asleep and so I went to the Academy and did
some drawings. Later on I found the Pole at the
Dome and he told me what had happened. Ruben-
stein and he had collected Heifetz the violinist, and
they had all gone together. They had a wonderful
time and afterwards had gone to Montmartre to a
night club. It was a place mostly frequented by
French people and had a band consisting of a
rather bad pianist and a rather worse violinist.
Rubenstein said to the pianist, " Give me the
piano/' and the pianist, who did not know who
they were, said, " Oh no, Monsieur, you might
break it! " However Rubenstein sat down. Heifetz
said to the violinist, " Lend me the violin?" and the
violinist said, " Oh no, Monsieur, you might break
its chords! " but Heifetz took it and they both began
to play. They played Hungarian dances, and most
marvellously well. The whole cafe was entranced.
A distinguished looking diplomat wept, the pianist
225
LAUGHING TORSO
wept in one comer and the violinist in the other, and
the ladies of the house were so filled with emotion
that they paid for the champagne. The next day
at the Dome I met Eric Satie and told him the
story. I spoke to him in French and finally ex
plained, " Et a la fin Us c grues 3 out paye pour le
champagne" He drew himself up and said, " Made
moiselle nous rfavons pas de c grues ' en France" and I
said, " How funny, we have lots in England/*
However, I managed to pacify him and we had a
drink together. That evening I saw Russell Green
at the Dome. I said, " Hullo, how did you get to
the D6me?" He said, " Is this the Dome? I
thought it was the Rotonde." I said that I was glad
that he had made a mistake as otherwise I should
not have found him. He had never been to Paris
before and said that he strongly suspected that the
whole place was a fraud and that there was nothing
really interesting to be seen. I said, " Have you any
money? " He had a little and I said that I would
show him the town as I knew it. He had taken a
first in French at Oxford and spoke the most
beautiful French. We started for the Bol de Cidre,
off the Place St. Michel. Here Russell's French was
not very well understood and so I did the talking
in my bad French. We then went to some Bal
Musettes and then to some low haunts in Mont-
martre. He was delighted. We started out again
the next day, where I met him at the Dome, and after
ten days he went back to London a changed man.
One day I met P. G. Konody at the Dingo, a
small cafe in the Rue Delambre. He speaks every
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kind of language perfectly, and is a charming and
most entertaining person. He was in Paris for a
few days on business and was at a loose end in the
evenings. I said 3 "Would you like to meet Eric
Satie, I have just left him at the Dome? " Konody
was delighted at the idea, as, of course, he had heard
of Les Six and all the modern painters and poets
and writers, but had met very few of them. We
went to the Dome and I introduced them. I then
had an inspiration. I said, " Come back with me
and see my French friend, F., who knows everybody
in Paris, and afterwards, perhaps, we can go and see
Romeo and Juliet at the theatre in Montmartre. It is
a French interpretation of Shakespeare's play by
Jean Cocteau." I rang F. up, and we took a taxi
to R.'s flat in the Rue de Conde, where F. was
staying. We had some cocktails in the garden. It
was a beautiful place on the ground-floor, part of a
very good eighteenth-century house, and had a
courtyard covered in grass with a fountain in the
middle. The fountain was very pretty and repre
sented a Cupid pouring water. We said that we
thought of going to Romeo and Juliet and F. said,
" Ring up Cocteau and he will give you some seats if
there are any going. 3 * I rang him up and told him
with whom I was and he told us to come and that he
would keep us two seats. We had a very good dinner
and went to L* Atelier, the theatre where the play was
on. The stage dicor was done by Jean Victor Hugo.
He is a descendant of Victor Hugo and has a most
remarkable talent for stage decoration and cos
tumes. The back cloth was of black velvet, and
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the floor also. The actors were dressed in black.
The men wore black tights, and painted on the
tights were legs drawn in the style of the Sumerian
artists. I met afterwards Jean Hugo and told him
how much I admired the stage setting, especially
the legs. He explained to me that the actors' legs
were so ugly he was forced to design new patterns
for them. The effect was startling and it was
almost impossible with the black tights against the
black background to see what shape they really
were. Yvonne George took the part of the nurse.
I had met her once or twice at F.'s house. I
will write a lot about her later on as she became
afterwards one of my best friends. She was a mar
vellous actress and had one of the most expressive
faces that I have ever seen. The show was great fun.
I don't know what Shakespeare would have thought
of it. We went to the bar afterwards and I intro
duced Konody to Cocteau and Yvonne. As we
were already in Montmartre I suggested that we
might do a tour of the night clubs. F. and R. came
with us to Zelli's in the Rue Fontaine. Jo Zelli is
an Italian and certainly has the night-club spirit.
There is a bar with high perches on which, nightly
and all night long, sit rows of drunks, mostly journal
ists. Very few French people are tp be found there.
There is a very large dancing hall with a negro band.
I had been there once before with the Princess Murat
and Lady Michelham. When I came with them Jo
" Zelli rushed up to them and screamed at the waiter,
"Royal Box for the Princess 53 ; I did not think
much about that and we sat down at a table. On
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this occasion when I was with Konody, Zelli re
cognized me and said, cc Royal Box for the Prin
cess/ 3 I said, " Oh, Mr. Zelli, I think you have
made a mistake, I am not a Princess," and then I
realized that he always said that to any female who
looked expensive or who was with expensive-looking
men. We drank champagne and danced until very
late.
One day F. asked Marie and myself to have
some cocktails at the flat. We found Yvonne George
there, Cocteau, Radiguet, Stravinsky and Diaghilev.
They asked me to bring my guitar which I did, and
sang the " Drunken Sailor, 55 the " Servant Girl in
Drury Lane," and the song about Nautical William.
They were delighted with the tunes. Yvonne
dressed herself up in cushion covers and a pair of
white kid gloves, which she arranged on her head
as a hat. She sang some of her songs and she,
Cocteau, and Radiguet did an imitation scene from
an imaginary play. They were very funny and we
had a magnificent time. Marie and I stayed to
dinner and we went to the Boeuf sur le Toit after
wards. A few days later I dined at the Boeuf with
F. and R. and later on Satie came in. I wore
my golden dress covered with spangles. Cocteau
and Radiguet were there and also Diaghilev
and Boris Kochno. Satie was very affectionate
and planted his bearded chin on my shoulder, it
tickled a good deal, but I did not mind. He asked
me to dance for him and the pianist played a suitable
tune and I did various snake-like movements and felt
rather like Salome dancing before Herod. It was
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great fun at the Boeuf when the dull people and the
Americans went away and we were left to ourselves.
Everyone did turns, either sang their songs, danced,
or did acrobatics.
I was introduced one day to a very nice American
called Frank. Curiously enough, two years before,
I had seen him in a small restaurant and always
liked the look of him. He used to roll his eyes about
and get up and do ridiculous dances by himself when
he had drunk a good deal of wine. He was tall,
with large blue eyes, and wore old-fashioned
knickerbockers, the kind that we christened cc Minus
twos " after the appearance of " Plus fours. 53 I
have recently discovered that his line of conversation
and his method of dancing were strongly influenced
by Mr. Groucho Marx. He was extremely funny
and amused me. I was very broke and very bored
with life in Montparnasse and, although I had a
fine time with my French friends, and at the Boeuf
sur le Toit, I felt that I was not making any kind of
progress, either from the point of view of painting or
finance. One day Frank said, " I am bored here,
let's go to Brittany." I said, " All right, I have no
money at all." He said, " That doesn't matter, I
have a few thousand francs and can live on that
for a month, come along with me. 35 I bought
some paints and a long roll of canvas which was
wrapped round a wooden pole, and one afternoon
we took the train to Brittany. We took some bottles
of wine with us, as no one in France ever dreams of
entering a train without some refreshment. We
had to change at Rennes and also wait there for
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nearly an hour for another train. We went to the
bar and drank some Calvados, We had decided to
go to Douarnenez, which is a very long way from
Paris and, it seemed to us, from anywhere else. We
got to Quimper about seven-thirty a.m., feeling very
tired, and changed for Douarnenez. Frank had had
some friends who had stayed there and knew of a
hotel. We had to walk over a huge suspension
bridge to get to the hotel. The board and lodging
was very cheap, about five or six shillings a day, and
we took a very nice room at the back of the hotel.
Douarnenez is at the mouth of a river and we were
about half a mile from the port on a high cliff.
There were no English or Americans in the hotel,
for which we were very thankful. Frank spoke
very good French as, when he had arrived in Paris
with some friends, they had the sense to live in the
workmen's quarters and learn French. He spoke
in very much the same way as I did. He wanted to
become a writer. He brought with him a copy of
Ulysses, which he read every day while I worked. I
think he was one of the nicest young men I have
ever met, he never worried one or got on one's
nerves. After we arrived we went to bed and slept
for hours. The food was extremely good. Magnifi
cent lobsters and course after course for luncheon
and dinner. We drank cider for lunch, which made
us feel very amiable towards the rest of the world,
and sometimes sleepy, and wine for dinner. After
dinner we wandered round the town and found the
port. We discovered a little cafe kept by a charming
lady and her daughter and filled with sailors. We
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decided to come here every evening. It was right
on the quays and we drank Vermouth Cassis and
sometimes Calvados. I found many subjects to
paint and started by doing a water-colour. I then
found, in a little street leading up to the town from
the quays, a pale blue and cream-coloured ice
cream barrow with white and grey stone houses
behind. I painted this every morning, starting quite
early. Frank sat outside the cafe, drank Ver
mouth Cassis, and read Ulysses until I joined him
when I had finished painting. I found life extremely
agreeable and remember my stay in Douarnenez
with the greatest pleasure. One day there w r as a
Breton fete and all the peasants came out in the
dresses of their ancestors. They looked wonderful,
and played the Cornemuses, which are little bag
pipes, and very much like the bag-pipes that are
played by the peasants in Auvergne. The fete was
held in a large field some miles from the town and
we walked there and sat on long wooden benches
to watch the dances. A few days after we arrived
we found another little cafe near our hotel. It had
a penny-in-the-slot piano which played a strange
selection of war-time popular tunes, including an
English one; its respectable title I don't know, as I
can only remember the unprintable version of it.
The cafe was kept by two buxom peasant women
who wore, as in fact all the women did, little white
caps and black dresses. On the counter were
barrels of cider and in the cafe there were only
sailors and no women at all except myself and the
proprietresses. Barrels were used as tables and we
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sat round them on small stools. The sailors always
drank beer out of half-pint bottles. We ordered
a round one evening. No glasses were provided
so the patronne produced fifteen bottles for fifteen
sailors, and they and we drank out of the bottles.
The sailors danced together and I danced with
Frank. We got on very well with them, especially
when I explained that I was " Galloise/ 3 This
was not strictly true, but I was certainly born in
Wales and could say, " Good health " in Welsh,
which pleased them, as it is the same as in the
Breton language. This reminded me of a story
that Gedric Morris told me. He is, of course,
Welsh and when he was quite young his family
sent him to France to learn French. Unfortun
ately, they chose Brittany as a suitable spot for
his studies. When he got there he found that it
was quite unnecessary to learn French as everybody
understood Welsh and he returned to England
knowing as little French as when he started out!
In Douarnenez there was no sand or beach from
where we could bathe, but two miles along the
coast there was a wonderful beach with two or three
miles of hard sand. The sea was generally rough
with huge breakers. I could not swim and was
rather nervous. We were the only people on the
sea-shore and took our clothes off. Frank could
swim very well. The waves were much higher than
ourselves. They were about ten or twelve feet
high. Frank grabbed me round my middle and
pushed me head first through the waves as they
approached us and just before they broke. I never
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LAUGHING TORSO
expected to come out alive. This, however, did not
teach me how to swim.
Our hotel had a little cafe attached to it, and be
fore dinner we would have aperitifs there, and I did
drawings of the peasants. There was an enormously
fat woman of whom I did many drawings.
We had been in Douarnenez for nearly three
weeks, and Frank had to sail for America in about
ten days' time. We stayed a few more days, and
decided to see some more places, before leaving for
Paris. We went to Goncarneau, which is a most
beautiful place. On the quays were about fifty old
ladies and gentlemen with easels, all painting boats.
This was a depressing sight and so we entered a
small sailors 3 cafe and had some Calvados. The
place was delightful, but the English and Americans
awful. We spent the night there, and started the
next day for Pont Aven, which I had read so much
about in Horace Annesley VachelPs book, The Face
of Clay. It was also the place where Gauguin and a
large colony of artists had lived. It was a dreadful
place. We went to a hotel which was full of really
terrible English Colonels with their wives and
daughters. The proprietor of the hotel recom
mended us to an old lady near by as the hotel
was full, who let us a charming room, with lace
curtains, family photographs. Virgin Marys, and
Crucifixes. It was pouring with rain when we
arrived; I think it poured for two days. I sat in
our room and painted a portrait of Frank in oils
with an oleograph of the Virgin Mary behind him.
We crossed the road to the hotel for our meals.
234
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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES
Next to us was a really frightful family, an elderly,
hard-faced Englishwoman and her daughter. They
wore blouses with whale-bone to hold up the collars,
which came up to their ears. The anatomy of
their chests was quite hidden by whale-bones and
stuffing. They gazed at us with horror as Frank and
I held each other's hands and whispered into each
other's ears during lunch and dinner. The next day
was a fete and the Bretons danced reels and quad
rilles in the street. We joined in, which again
shocked the English. It seems unkind and rude to
always be objecting to one's fellow country-people,
but those one so often finds abroad are frequently
a blot on the race and should stay at home in some
dismal village from which they probably came. We
had to go to Quimperle to catch the train for Paris.
Quimperle is a pretty place on a river and we had
several hours to wait. We found a church and sat
inside, in fact I think we knelt down and said a
prayer, I forget what for. We then sat gloomily
in a cafe till the train came in. It was full and
we had to stand or sit on the floor of the corridor all
night, it was very uncomfortable and very much
worse than my voyage to Gollioure. We got to
Montpamasse about nine a.m. Frank had to leave
that same afternoon and we were both very sad.
I shook him by the hand outside his hotel and then
ran up the Boulevard Montpamasse to the Dome.
It is too dreadful seeing people into trains.
I found my friends and a woman I had not seen
for some time who bought some of my Brittany
drawings and gave me a thousand francs, which
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consoled me a little for Frank's departure. I visited
the Pole, who, I think, had missed me a good deal.
I started work at once and was able to afford a
model. A Polish girl came and I painted her por
trait in a fawn coloured " cloche " hat. I met, one
day, a rich American woman. She was very amus
ing and had an enormous apartment near the
Champ de Mars. She drank a great deal of cham
pagne and asked me to paint her portrait. She was
fat, very smart, and heavily painted. I was to be
given four thousand francs. I got a large canvas
and began. She sat very badly, and very soon got
angry with me, as she said that I had insulted her.
All her enemies were delighted with it. I went
occasionally to her flat, but life there was much too
rough for me. When she got angry she would
become violent. One day she got annoyed with
some man and seized some geraniums that were in
a pot. She rooted them out and threw them at him,
and the pot afterwards. Fortunately, the man had
just slammed the door and the pot crashed against it
as the door closed. She paid me about fifteen hun
dred francs, but I never got any more, and I believe
thatit was eventually hung up in the butler's bedroom.
She afterwards lost all her money, got some kind
of job, and behaved in a very courageous manner.
I met at the Dome two very charming men. One
was Meriel Cooper and the other was Ernest B.
Schoedsack. They had just come back from the un
explored parts of Persia and had done their first big
film called " Grass." Cooper was a small fair man
with a large forehead, and Schoedsack was one of the
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best-looking men I have ever seen. He was six feet-
five in height, and had the most beautiful eyes. I
made great friends with Cooper. Schoedsack was
known as " Shorty "; he adored very small women.
Afterwards they both made the film " Chang/ 3 and
the last one, and I think the finest, is " Rango,"
which " Shorty " made himself. He is a man with
a most delightful sense of humour, as one can see in
" Rango." He went afterwards on the expedition
to the Sargasso Sea with Dr. Gann and, I think, is
now married. I have never seen either of them
since, but hope to do so some day.
I met Sinclair Lewis at the Dome. He was with
Stacy Aumonier, who is now dead. We had an
amusing evening, and told stories of all kinds.
Sinclair Lewis tells stories very well and has the
most remarkable ones about life in the Middle West.
He would come from time to time to the quarter
and bring Mr. Howe of Ellis Island fame. One
evening I came into the Dome and found Sinclair
Lewis and Mr. Howe. I was sitting with them when
in came two young American " College boys/'
They were so impressed with meeting the great man
that they sat silently and listened to him. This was
quite right as he is well worth listening to. I had to
go out and dine with someone, and came back about
nine-thirty. I found, sitting at the back of the
Dome, the two " College boys/ 9 alone and looking
very frightened. I said, " What has happened to
you? " They unfolded the following extraordinary
story. They had a good many drinks, and foolishly
opened their mouths. One of them said, " Say, Mr.
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LAUGHING TORSO
Lewis, I guess that as far as style goes Flaubert has
got you all beat, but as far as characterization goes
youVe got Flaubert all beat. 53 Whereupon appar
ently an appalling battle started and Sinclair Lewis
left the Dome having practically won on a " knock
out/ 3
I met a young American, called John; he was a
curious creature, not good-looking but tall, and with
a very nice voice. He was a writer and wrote for
Ford's paper, the Transatlantic Review. I liked him
very much. He seemed to have almost every kind of
complex possible; I thought him interesting. He
lived near Paris in an old chateau, which was owned
by a Greek lady and her husband, whose fortune was
not so large as it had been before the War. They
took in paying guests. They had several children
who were very nice and well behaved. I went out
to see him about once a week. All the pensionnaires
had to speak French. There was a large garden,
and after lunch we all played croquet, a game that
I am very fond of. There was no grass on the cro
quet court, only hilly earth, and to get the balls
through the hoops was purely a matter of luck.
The chateau was of a very fine design and I should
think late seventeenth century, with large windows
opening on to the lawn. There were some very fine
pictures, two small Gauguins, a Sisley, and a Manet.
After the croquet game was finished we walked
round the countryside, occasionally stopping to
consume some Vermouth Cassis. In the spring the
landscape was really beautiful, there were orchards
everywhere, and one could see nothing for miles
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around but white blossoms. I never dared to
try and paint them. Much later on, when I at
tacked a pear-tree in bloom in the South of France,
to my astonishment I did, I think, the best land
scape I have ever painted. Anyway, I sold it for
twenty pounds and it was only a small one. I
took the train back to Paris about eight o'clock
with my arms full of roses which the Greek lady
gave me. Sometimes John carne back to Paris with
me and we dined there and he went back later
on. I enjoyed his company and we had a very
pleasant and romantic friendship. I brought the
roses to the Pole, who painted still lives of them
when they were fresh, and through every stage of
decay until they were quite dried up, painting
about three different still lives out of each bunch of
ros^s.
From time to time the artists hired the Bal Bullier
and organized dances. One time the Poles would
have a ball, another the Russians and various other
nationalities. It was not necessary to wear the
national costume, but everyone wore some kind of
fancy dress. One day the Poles gave a ball. They
hired a salle near the Porte d 3 Orleans, as it was
not to be such a big affair as the Bal Bullier. I
found, during the afternoon, Jemmett the " Chelsea
giant/ 5 He was six feet- ten and used at one time to
be seen each morning in Piccadilly wearing a top-
hat and tail coat. He was a really magnificent-
looking creature, as he was perfectly proportioned
and very good-looking. I asked him if he would like
to come with me and he said that he would. I had
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LAUGHING TORSO
not got a fancy dress and had not time to think of
one, so I wore a very fine oyster-coloured evening
dress. Jemmett appeared in very old tattered
trousers, a check shirt, a cap, and a red handkerchief
round his neck. Later on in the evening his braces
burst and I had to stand on a seat and attach the
braces with a safety-pin to his shirt. We found, at
the Dome, Claude McKay, the coloured author;
we took him with us. It was surprising how good
Jemmett was at folding himself up in a taxi. We
took another woman with us as well and we all got
in quite comfortably. When we got to the ball we
found a Pole who was six feet five strutting about
being admired by everybody. When I walked in
with Jemmett the Pole became pale with rage and
nobody took any notice of him at all for the rest of
the evening. I danced with Jemmett. He danced
beautifully, but my head only came up to his chest,
so one dould not see anything or anybody while one
was dancing. I found I had lost my hotel key after
wards, and decided to go to the studio and stay
there. I walked up the long flight of stairs which
was quite dark. I lit a match and saw, to my
surprise, standing motionless outside the studio door,
a man in the uniform of a Samurai Warrior, com
plete with two swords sticking out, one each side of
him. He explained that he had dressed in the
studio and had left his trousers inside and was wait
ing for my Pole to come back. We both waited and
finally he arrived. I put on the uniform the next
day and looked very odd in it and the Pole did some
drawings of me.
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I met James Joyce one day; Ford Introduced me
to him. He was a most charming man and h^d a
most beautifully proportioned head. I asked him
if I could do a painting of him. He said that I
could, but I sent telegrams to him and he sent
telegrams to me, and all of them arrived too late or
too early and so I never painted him at all. He
dined every evening at the Trianon and one evening
I did a drawing of him when I was sitting at another
table and he did not know that I was doing it. It
was a very good likeness and I believe was repro
duced in an American paper. The drawing is un
fortunately lost and I never got paid for it. I met
him and his wife whenever I went to the Trianon
which, alas, was not often as it was rather expensive.
Joyce is the most respectable and old-fashioned
man that I have ever met. He also has the most
beautiful manners, which is a pleasant change from
most of the modern young men. He has a most
charming voice and occasionally will sing. I think
he is a little older than I am, but we were discussing
old-fashioned songs one evening, " Daisy, Daisy,
give me your answer, do, 55 and others of the same
kind and I said, " Did you see many years ago a
show that was a kind of Magic Lantern show with a
ship going down? The ship was attached to the
screen and heaved up and down and voices sang a
song called, c I'll stick to the ship, boys, you save
your lives '? " It was a tragic story of a ship that
sank and the Captain stuck to his ship because he
was a bachelor and the crew had wives and families.
Joyce remembered it and knew the whole song. I
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LAUGHING TORSO
remembered only the chorus and we sang that
together. I went to the show (it was called some
body's " Diorama ") with my Grandmother, who
wept, as she always did, at the sight of a ship.
Joyce, I have heard since, paid me a very nice
compliment and said I was one of the* few vital
women that he had ever met. I don't know if that
is true, but I have very big lungs and can make a
great deal of noise if encouraged. Joyce spoke with
the most charming accent. His wife was fair and
extremely nice; he had two children, a son and a
daughter, who did not speak very much.
Yvonne George had got an engagement in
London to sing at the Alhambra, and I had decided
to go to London anyway to try and collect some
money. Yvonne was a great friend of the Countess
A. 3 s and she said, " I will pay your train fare to
London if you will look after Yvonne. " We all met
at the Gare du Nord. The Countess brought our
lunch with her, and two bottles of champagne.
When we got into the train, we discovered an old
friend of ours who said, " Are you having lunch on
the train? " We said, " No, we have got our lunch
with us. 59 He said, " Would you like some cham
pagne? " And we said, " Yes/ 5 We had our lunch
and he joined us afterwards, bringing some wine
with him. The Countess had engaged a cabin on the
boat for herself and Yvonne and they went below.
I wandered up to the bar. There I found Sachy
and Osbert Sitwell and Sir Gerald du Maurier and
Sir James Dunn. We had a drink and I sat on the
deck with the Sitwells. It was a beautiful day and
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the voyage was very agreeable. Yvonne had
arranged to stay at the Hotel Metropole In Northum
berland Avenue. The Countess had to stay with a
friend of hers. Yvonne and I went to the hotel. I
had a room on the fourth floor and she had a room
lower down. We were very tired and so we both
went to bed.
The next morning about nine-thirty I went down
stairs and tapped on her door. The maid had
drawn the blinds and outside it was completely
dark. There was not actually a fog but an overhead
one and it was just as dark as night. Yvonne gave
a scream of horror and said, " This is dreadful, I
shall return to France at once! " I said, " Give me
some money and you will not want to return so
quickly/* I went to Soho and bought a bottle of
pre-war absinthe, a copy of the Matin, and some
Maryland jaunes. When I arrived back we pushed
the bell and sent for the waiter and told him to bring
some ice. We drank a few absinthes and felt very
much better. The fog then lifted and we went to
the Alhambra, where she had to rehearse. I sat on
the stage and translated to the conductor. That
evening she appeared and had an enormous success.
After die first house, which I did not go to, but
waited for the second one, Yvonne returned to the
hotel, and, finding me alone, said, " Now take me
to somewhere amusing, not the Ritz or places like
that but somewhere that is amusing and unique/*
I had already been thinking of places to take her to
that would amuse and possibly astonish her. I said
that for the moment I had only three-and-sixpence.
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She had just got some money from the theatre and
produced a ten-pound note. At this time ten- or
even five-pound notes were not, I think, legal
tender, I looked in horror at it and said, " You
must get some change for that/ 5 but she said that
it did not matter. I had a horrible presentiment
of the trouble that we might land in. We took
a taxi to Dirty Dick's in the City, near Liverpool
Street. I paid for the taxi which came to nearly
three-and-sixpence. Yvonne was delighted with
the City and could hardly believe that Dirty Dick's,
with the mummified cats and rats, existed. She
had not troubled to remove her stage make-up,
which really was very sensational: bright blue eye
lids and enormous eyelashes. All the local custo
mers, sailors, bank-clerks, and old ladies in shawls
stared in astonishment. We went in to the farthest
bar, where there are festoons of dead cats and rats,
old policemen's hats and huge keys, all covered
with dust. Dirty Dick was the son of a rich City
merchant and lived in the eighteenth century. He
was engaged to a young woman who had died on
the day of the wedding, and as he had sworn never
to wash again, he became known as " Dirty Dick."
All the cats from the neighbourhood crowded in
through the windows and died there, and he kept
a tavern. The port is very good there and we had
several glasses and some sandwiches. Yvonne was
blissfully happy. I was nervously watching the
clock and wondering what would happen when
the ten-pound note was produced. She saw the
time and she said 3 <c Mon Dieuje dois Stre a VAlhambra
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en vingt minutes! " She asked for the bill. The
waiter looked at us as if we were crooks and sent
for the manager who looked worse, and I said,
" Stay here and give me the ten-pound note! "
I rushed up the staircase and into the arms of a
policeman. I said, " I am in Dirty Dick's with
the Star Turn of the Alhambra and we only have
a ten-pound note and the manager thinks we are
crooks and he won't change it." The policeman
smiled and said, " Well, Miss, I know it's a bit
*ard on two ladies like yourselves. Take it to
the Great Eastern Hotel/ 3 pointing out to me the
way to get there. I ran round the corner and asked
for the cashier. I was breathless by the time that I
arrived and gasped, " Dirty Dick's, Star Turn,
Alhambra, ten-pound note ! " and I wrote all this
information on the back of the note and he gave
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LAUGHING TORSO
me ten one-pound notes and we just got back in
time.
Gwen Farrar was acting on the same bill as
Yvonne. I went round to the theatre one day and
arrived during the first house. Yvonne had dressed
herself up as Gwen and was engaged upon imitating
her in her dressing-room. She was a marvellous
mimic. I left the Hotel Metropole, sold some
drawings, and returned to Paris, leaving Yvonne
and the Countess in London.
One evening I was sitting in the Dome with some
Americans, Harold E. Stearns was there, and they
were speaking of Hendrik van Loon, the writer. I
had not read any of his works, but as it had been
suggested to me on one occasion to do a book of
drawings of famous people, I listened for all the
information that I could get. I gathered that he
was expected to come that evening to the Dome and
asked them if I might sit with them and meet him.
It was rather like waiting for the arrival of the
Almighty. About eight-thirty he arrived with his
wife. I was introduced to them. I said, " Mr, Van
Loon, may I do a drawing of you? " and he said,
" Yes, certainly, will you have lunch with me at
Foyofs to-morrow? " I was delighted. He was a
very tall man and most awfully nice and amusing.
Foyot's had probably the best food in Paris and is
a nice, warm and comfortable restaurant near the
Luxembourg Gardens. It is much patronized by
the French Senators as it is directly opposite the
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Senate. Some of the wicked English who used to
dine there, on one occasion were discovered popping
an indecent book through the Senators' letter-box.
It was a French one too, which they had bought,
and, owing to its incredible indecency, they were
rather embarrassed with its presence in their hotel.
I met Van Loon at one-thirty. He handed me a
packet of a hundred blank visiting cards and said,
" I dined last night at Larue with two friends of
mine and we did a hundred and fifty drawings; I
thought that you might find these useful for making
drawings in public places. 55 I thanked him and, I
think, we did one or two drawings then to christen
them. He also bought me a history book of his
called Ancient Man which he had illustrated. He
did very amusing little drawings. I wished that,
when I had been a child, I had been given such an
interesting history book, I might have taken some
interest in the subject. We had ordered sole and
on the first page he did a drawing of a sole and
underneath wrote, " To N. H., in memory of a
common sole." I was delighted and we had great
fun. Van Loon drank Vichy water and I had some
wine. Suddenly he said, " My God, this is Thanks
giving Day! I had quite forgotten it, I must give
you a present, what would you like? 55 I could not
think of anything for a minute, but after thinking a
little I said, " I would like a guitar. 55 He said,
" That is splendid, I play the violin myself, and we
will go and inspect the music shops. 55 We went
round the back streets in the neighbourhood of the
Boulevard St. Germain which was quite near. I
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LAUGHING TORSO
tried all the guitars and Van Loon played all the
violins. We could not find anything that we liked
so moved on to the Boulevard Montparnasse.
There were several shops that I knew of there, and
we tried more guitars and more violins. Alas! we
could not find a single guitar that we liked and I
had to content myself with a large bunch of red
roses. He came and sat for me a few days later and
I did a drawing of him which was a bad drawing
but a good likeness. I went often to his hotel near
the Rue de Rivoli, and met his wife " Jimmy/ 5 who
was charming and we all went to a Russian restaur
ant in the Rue du Bac and dined. I saw them quite
often. One day they asked me to go to a large hotel
in the Champs Elysees to dance and have tea or
cocktails. Van Loon fetched me in the Daimler,
which he always had in Paris, As we were walking
down the corridor of the hotel leading to the ball
room I saw, walking ahead of me, a man with a
wonderful figure and wide shoulders. I walked
quickly on and caught him up and saw as I passed
him that he was Carpentier. I saw him. dancing
afterwards. "Jimmy" and Van Loon's Dutch
sister were waiting for us. I danced with Van
Loon, who, like nearly all big men, danced very
well. His wife and sister did not care about dancing.
We all left together and stepped into the Daimler.
As we drove away the sister said, " Hendrik, what
kind of men are they that frequent this hotel;
distinguished people, attaches at Embassies, I sup
pose? " Van Loon said, " No, my dear; bastard sons
of bitches! " And Jimmy said, " Oh, Hendrik! "
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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES
Nancy Cunard was at this time in Paris and asked
me if I would like to meet George Moore. I was
very much thrilled and felt as if I was going to be
introduced to one of the Old Masters. He stayed
at Foyot's when he was in Paris. He was charming
and asked me to lunch with him in the Place de
TOdeon. I showed him some reproductions of my
paintings, they were nearly all portraits, including
the one of Sickert, He said, " I see you are a clever
woman, but why do you paint people larger than
life? " We went after lunch to the Galeries Durand-
Ruel, and Georges Petit. This was most interesting,
as, of course, George Moore was known there in the
days when he wrote his book on the Impressionists
and the manager said, " Ah, Mr. Moore, do you re
member what Edouard Manet said to you that day
in his studio in 1875? " Impressionist pictures were
brought up from the cellars. Sisleys, Pisarros,
Jondkinds and Manets, which I had never seen
before. He told me how he had studied Art but
had never found himself until he took to writing.
He said to me, " My dear, you may do a lot with
your talent and your life but not until you have got
a point of view; some day you may develop one;
/have got a point of view."
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LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER XII SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
THE Countess A. asked me if I would like to motor
with her from Vichy, where she was about to take
a cure, to Juan-les-Pins, where her brother-in-law
had a house. She was going alone to Vichy for two
weeks and I was to join her for the last week and
we could motor South together. I had often wanted
to see the Riviera, and was delighted. I arrived at
Vichy one evening after a long dreary journey and
she met me at the station. She thought that I was
lost as the train was about an hour and a half late.
She was not allowed to eat in the evenings, so I had
to dine alone. After dinner we sat and talked till
late in her sitting-room. The next morning she had
to go off early to the cure, and I wandered about the
town. It is a most dismal place, with many Arab
chiefs; and in the gardens are kiosks, one side of
which sit the chiefs and the other side their Arab
servants. Everyone looked bad tempered and
liverish; afterwards I was told that they were all
suffering from that complaint. Before dinner we
went to the Celestin Spring. The first day I hired a
little mug and it was hung up on a hook with the
other mugs. I, of course, was not a patient, but
could drink the waters. I found it so agreeable as it
poured out of the rock and had so much more kick
in it than when it was bottled that I swallowed it in
one gulp, to the horror of the attendant and the
other patients. Afterwards I had to sip it.
I had arrived on a Tuesday and spent most of the
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
day alone* On the following Saturday the Countess
said, " The motor will come round to-morrow mom-
ing and we will have lunch at Moulins. There is a
fine cathedral and a museum and the food and
wine are very cheap and good in the town/' As we
left Vichy I noticed that the whole population
seemed to be leaving also. The Countess then ex
plained that as the clinics were shut on Saturdays
and the patients were free to do as they liked,
feeling very hungry and well, they took any kind of
conveyance to the country, where they ate and
drank to their heart's content. We visited, first the
cathedral, which has a very fine picture in it, and
then the museum and afterwards a little hotel,
where we had a magnificent dinner and very good
wine. I think the whole bill came only to fifty
francs. We stayed at Vichy for a week and then
started for the South.
It was a most interesting voyage for me, as the
Countess had studied architecture at the Sorbonne
and knew a great deal about French history and
painting. We spent the night at St. Nectaire in
Auvergne; there is a most beautiful twelfth-century
church, where, inside, the pillars are painted and
in a state of almost perfect preservation; also a
twelfth-century statue of Saint Baudime. He is a
most beautiful and rather terrifying figure and had
had an adventurous career, having been stolen
several times from his safe by robbers. We had
lunch at le Puy, which is a most strange place.
There are volcanic rocks, which are very high and
steep, sticking out of the town; on these rocks are
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LAUGHING TORSO
statues and churches. I suppose one has to climb
up them. They are very high and almost perpendic
ular. On the top of one is a statue which looked
to me exactly like the Statue of Liberty, and appar
ently quite as large. It all looks as if it had been
created by Gustave Dore. We found a museum
with many Roman remains and visited the Cathe
dral. We walked round inside, the Countess explain
ing the architecture to me, and suddenly we were
attacked by the rudest and ugliest priest I have ever
seen. He flew at us and told us that we were dis
turbing the people at prayer. We could only see
one person present, and he was asleep. The priest
stormed and the Countess told him what she thought
of him and waved a hippopotamus stick, which she
always carried. She told me that she only wished that
she had had the courage to beat him with it. She
succeeded in frightening him into believing that he
was going to be beaten and he finally slunk away.
We were both trembling with rage and on leaving
the church we found outside a stall, with hand-made
lace and embroidery for sale. A small girl was
standing by the stall. She said that her mother had
gone home for a minute. We asked her what the
priest's name was and told her what a rude, horrible
man he was, knowing that this would be repeated to
her mother, who would, in detail, explain the whole
incident to the entire town. We gathered from the
little girl that Monsieur B. was a far from popular
figure and we left the town triumphantly.
We spent the next night at Alais and from there
we went to Nimes. We took rooms at the Hotel de
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
Luxembourg and came out to a neighbouring cafe
to have a drink on the terrasse and to buy some
cigarettes. The Countess said, cc Wait for me, I will
go into the c tabac ? and get a paper and some
cigarettes." I waited and she stayed there rather
a long time and came out laughing and said, cc I
have found two of your friends inside. 35 I could
not imagine who they could be. She would not tell
me, but said that they were both men and that they
had arranged for us all to dine together at a restaur
ant opposite the Roman Arena and then go to a
travelling circus that they had found just outside
the town. At seven o'clock we hired a horse-drawn
vehicle that the Americans in Paris call a " sea
going hack " and drove to the restaurant. We
went upstairs and there were F. and R. We were
delighted to meet each other, and as we had a great
deal to talk about, it was a most entertaining dinner
party. F. and R. had just come from a place near
Bordeaux, where Cocteau, Radiguet, and Max
Jacob had stayed. The Countess had hired the
carriage for the evening and after dinner we all
got in and drove to a circus. Afterwards we went
back to our hotel as F. and R. were staying there
too. They had brought several bottles of wine,
called Vin de Carthaglne. They had bought it be
cause they liked its name and also the shape of the
bottles, which had spouts. The wine was very
sweet and sickly. They also had a bottle of PEau
de VArquebuse, which they had bought for the same
reason. This was really terrible, and, as all the
occupants of the hotel had gone to bed, we had to
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LAUGHING TORSO
go to bed ourselves without a drink of any kind.
The next day we had lunch at the hotel as both
my friend and F. and R. knew the proprietor. He
gave us a magnificent lunch and insisted upon us
tasting all kinds of wine from his cellar. After
lunch F. wanted to show me the Roman pond and
fountain in the public gardens. Afterwards F. and
R. had to go and we continued our pilgrimage.
We stopped at Tarascon where the Countess sent
a postcard to Leon Daudet and went and looked
at the fortress. We arrived at Avignon and took
two rooms at a hotel where we found Tommy Earp
and his wife. The next day we all motored to
Villneuf and saw the frescoes in the monastery. We
also went to see the Palais des Papes in Avignon itself.
I have a horror of looking down from high places.
F. has it too, and it makes him really ill if he is
any higher up in a hotel than the first floor. The
tower of the Palace is very high and has more than
four hundred steps. I, feeling brave, walked up it
alone as no one else had the energy. When I got
out on to the roof I could see the country for miles
around. There is a very fine early Corot of this
tower in the National Gallery. There is no railing
round the edge and I thought that I would like to
see if I could really look down. I did for a second
but ran very rapidly away from the edge and down
the four hundred steps. The frescoes in the palace
are most beautiful and perfectly preserved, having
only been discovered under some whitewash, fairly
recently. We went on to St. Remy-en-Provence.
The Countess and I photographed each other
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
sitting on the Arc de Triomphe. We also saw the
asylum that Van Gogh was in. Near St. Remy,is
Les Baux, a lonely ruined town on a rock. Only
about eighty people live there, it is most grim and
sinister; and after drinking a bottle of very good
white wine we were glad to get away from its
gloomy atmosphere. We passed through Aries,
which is a very bright and gay and paintable place,
which can clearly be seen from Van Gogh's pictures.
I was sorry that we could not stop.
We got to Aix-en-Provence at nine-thirty p.m.
and took rooms at the Hotel des Thermes Sextius.
Darius Milhaud was living at Aix with his family
and we found him the next day. He said that he
would take us and show us over Cezanne's house and
then take us some miles further out to see Mont
St. Victoire, the famous pink mountain. Milhaud
came to our hotel and we started in the motor for
Cezanne's house. It was then owned by some very
bourgeois people. I believe they did quite a trade in
Cezanne's hats. It was curious to see the garden,
as everywhere one saw Cezanne's pictures and how
realistic they are! At the top of the house is a very
small studio where he worked. On one wall was a
large painting of a cow, most certainly not by
Cezanne. We drove on, and saw, on turning a
corner, Mont St. Victoire. It was a high and most
beautiful mountain, much more beautiful and quite
distinguishable from those surrounding it. We
stopped at a little cafe from which we had a fine
view of it. Cezanne used this cafe when he was
alive. We drank some Vin de Tavel, which is a
255
LAUGHING TORSO
local wine, and found some old-fashioned postcards
of the early 'nineties, representing the smart visitors
to house-parties in the neighbourhood. There was
a particularly fine specimen of a General's house-
party, the ladies wearing leg-of-mutton .sleeves and
sailor hats. We then had tea at Milhaud's parents 3
house. Milhaud told us many amusing stories, one
of Georges Auric, who was very absent-minded and
who was asked to a party. By some mischance he
was not introduced to the great man of the after
noon, the Academician, Edmond Jaloux. Jaloux
came up to Georges and said, " Je suis Jaloux " and
Georges turned round and said, " De qui? " Aix-en-
Provence is a town of fountains. There are several
in the main street, very pretty ones, covered in moss,
with the water dripping from the moss.
We then started on the last lap of our journey.
We had lunch at Brignoles, where all the English
stop on their way South. There is a restaurant
there famous for its ecrevisses. We got to St. Raphael,
where we sat in a cafe by the sea and had a drink.
The weather was beautiful and we felt very pleased
with life. Juan les Pins is not very far away and
we got there about seven-thirty. Our chauffeur
could not find the villa and asked an old man the way.
He directed us and added, " Cest la maison construite
comme urn mine" This did not sound to us very
promising. What he really meant was that it had
a tower with battlements and although quite
modern it was built like an old castle. It was on the
sea with a little garden leading to the sea-shore.
The Prince M. and his wife and daughter and a
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
crowd of others came out to meet us. The villa
was filled up and so we had to stay at the house next
door. This house was let out in rooms by an Aus
trian Countess. It had been sequestrated during
the War. The Countess was a very beautiful woman
with white hair. My friend had a room at the back.
I thought the whole place most sinister. The room
had a padded door with a tiny window in it that had
bars for someone to peep through at the occupant
of the room. All the windows and cupboards had
wires over them; in fact it was a complete padded
cell. My room opened out of it and faced the sea.
Outside was a small conservatory and then a garden
leading down to the sea-shore. At this time the
Casino at Juan les Pins was only partially construc
ted. The beach was nearly empty most of the time.
We had our meals with the Prince M. and his party.
There was a Russian Baroness staying there who had
gone through the War in the Russian Army as a
Cossack orderly to a general. She had won the St.
George's Cross. I saw a photograph of her in her
uniform. She came from the Caucasus and was short
but very strong. She gave me a Cossack's coat and
some cigarettes. All the servants were Russians and
in the evenings we would sit round a charcoal fire in
the garden with our legs crossed and cook " Shlas-
lik," which is mutton and bacon put on a long
skewer and held over the burning charcoal. We
looked like a gipsy encampment. The Russian
servants had mostly been officers during the War
and had either to be servants or to keep restaurants.
When the whole party went into Nice the servants
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LAUGHING TORSO
would spread themselves round the drawing-room,
drink the drinks, read the newspapers, and smoke
cigarettes. Our rooms always gave me a strange.,
creepy feeling. One evening I decided to go to bed
early and went to my room about nine-thirty.
Some hours later I woke up and found myself star
ing at the window, which was a part of the con
servatory. I was so terrified that the whole bed
shook and it was some minutes before I could turn
on the light. I opened the door of my friend's room
and saw that she was sound asleep. I thought that
there were probably burglars, as she had some
valuable jewellery. I did not think any more about
this until the day we left, and on our way to catch
the train at Antibes for Paris, a Russian lady, who
had been a member of the house-party, said, " Oh,
you know your house was haunted and the last
people had to leave? " I had cold shivers down my
back. I suppose that at some time something awful
must have taken place in the house. I hear that
now it has been turned into a restaurant, as no one
would live in it.
F. and R. were staying at Nice and came over
to see us often. Sir Hugo de Bathe was at Antibes
and came over too. At an enormous house in
Juan itself lived the Hudnuts. Mr. Hudnut's
daughter had married Rudolph Valentino. Sir
Hugo knew them and one day they asked him if he
would bring his friends to tea, meaning all of us.
Half the party were thrilled but the other half were
too lazy and comfortable at home to move. As
most of our party were poor and the Hudnuts were
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
rich we decided that, at least, we must make a
good impression. Three of us actually went: Sir
Hugo, who took us, a Russian Count, and myself.
We brought two motor-cars with us. The house was
enormous with a huge marble hall with life-sized
bronze statues in Watteauesque costumes. Mr. and
Mrs. Hudnut were there, Valentino and his wife,
and two English people from Nice. Everyone was
rather nervous. In the middle of the room was a
grand piano. Sir Hugo was looking very imposing
in an enormous check overcoat that looked rather
like a horse blanket, and of which he was very
proud. He explained to the company that I sang
sea shanties and other songs. I was horrified that
I should be made to perform. Valentino sat me
down at the piano and sat on the piano stool with
me. He poured me out some whisky to encourage
me. His wife, Natasha Rambova, sat on the other
side of me. I have no voice but the songs were
funny and I can sing in tune, so I got away with it.
I found Valentino charming. He was tall and fine
looking, but, of course, his face was photogenic
and looked much finer on the screen than it did in
real life. At this time I had never seen him on the
cinema as I hardly ever went at all. I think he was
rather pleasantly surprised that I didn't go into
raptures over his performances on the screen. I
talked to him a good deal about myself, which
seemed to amuse him and we got on very well to
gether. After tea and some cocktails we drove away
to a cafe to find our friends, who were anxiously
waiting to hear how we had got on. I was taken to
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LAUGHING TORSO
Nice. This was very interesting to me, as, when I
had been in Russia I had read the life of Marie
Bashkirtseffand was very interested in her. A great
part of her life was spent in Nice. My Countess's
mother-in-law, who was staying at the villa, was a
Russian lady of nearly eighty and had known the
whole BashkirtsefF family and told me a great deal
about them. There is a fountain in Nice in memory
of Marie. I was taken to see this and to the Museum,
where there are some of her pictures and a large
marble figure of her in a smart dress with a bustle.
I am now severely reprimanded, if I ever mention
this lady's name, for being old-fashioned: but I
still have a great deal of admiration for her char
acter. If she had only had the sense to realize that
during her life-time the great man was Edouard
Manet and not Bastion Lepage! She fell in love
with Lepage and was completely influenced by him.
In any case both their paintings seems to lack sensi
bility so completely and to be so sec. Whatever
critics had to say about her, she did influence the
fashions of her time and attained the most amazing
amount of knowledge during her short life.
I was taken to Monte Carlo also, which I thought
was a charming place, and filled with comic police
men and the strangest old Englishwomen who earn
their livings at the Casino. We saw them parading
about the town. I saw one with black stockings
and white shoes, a white coat and skirt, a large
hat with purple flowers in it, and a purple spotted
veil. The whole head-dress looked like a meat safe
covered in muslin. The Lower Corniche was the
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SOUTHERN FRANCE AGAIN
most terrifying road that I have ever been driven
on and the Prince drove faster than anyone I had
ever driven with. He tore round the hair-pin bends
just missing the other cars. It was rather a nerve-
racking experience. We had been away from Paris
for five weeks and had to go back* We took the
train from Antibes as the motor had been sent back
a few days before. We had a w agon-lit > which I
found a pleasant change from my journey to
Brittany and Collioure, as one went to sleep in a
comfortable bed and woke up in Paris,
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LAUGHING TORSO
CHAPTER XIII PARIS
IN the late autumn Paris was very pleasant as all
the tourists had left and only the serious people re
mained behind for the winter. There was a Russian
Ball at the Bal Bullier, arranged by Larionof. The
balls at the Bal Bullier were the best of all if one got
in intact. Outside one had to wait in a queue,
sometimes for nearly an hour. One very cold winter
night we had to wait for a long time and the people
behind started rushing the doors. If I hadn't been
protected by two men and a policeman I think I
should have been killed; as it was, a great many
people were badly hmt with the broken glass. B.,
my old friend, the man who had played soldiers
with Tuohy and the champagne bottles outside the
Dome, were at the Ball. When he got excited, after
Mandarin Curasao, he had a passion for climbing.
He would climb anything, trees, church -steeples,
pillars, anything he could find. He found a row of
pillars holding up the balcony and swarmed up one.
After becoming rather tired he descended slowly on
to the head of an infuriated Swedish diplomat. It
required a great deal of tact and some champagne
,to calm the Swede. The little dwarf who played in
Romeo and Juliet was there. He was about three feet
ten high and had a large head. He came dressed as
a baby and wore imitation hands and arms and a
baby's mask over his face. Many people really
thought that he was about four and said, " Va te
coucher! Oil est ta Maman? Cest un scandale" The
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PARIS
dwarf was certainly not younger than thirty-five.
He is an excellent actor and I have seen him in
several French films. I knew him quite well and
one day he came to the Dome in a pair of check
plus-fours with a little gun. He said that he had
been shooting sparrows on his estate; he looked
very funny.
My friend Marie was staying at Foyot's and intro
duced me to a rich man who bought pictures and
had a magnificent collection of old Masters and
sculptures. He was a great friend of Augustus
John's. He asked us to dine with him and we took
him afterwards to see some friends of Marie's,
George Adam and his wife. Pearl, at their flat.
Marie's rich friend came to my studio and bought
some drawings. He knew a great deal about food
and drink and whenever one dined with him it was
a wonderful experience. I took him to see the
Countess A. They got on very well, but I think she
found him a little out of date. One day I dined with
him and we decided to go to the Swedish Ballet. It
was not supposed to be very good but some of the
dtcor was interesting and also the music. During the
interval we went to the bar where everyone met. I
found the Countess A., Lady Michelham, and, in a
comer, James Joyce. I introduced them. Joyce
was rather frightened of them at first, but not so
astonished as when, a few minutes later, Valentino
came in and I introduced them both. They were
the last people in the world who I should think
would have met in the ordinary way, and they were
almost speechless.
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LAUGHING TORSO
It sometimes occurred to me that I should go
back to England and live there and that I was not
really getting anywhere either in life or in painting.
Of course, life in Paris for foreign artists is extremely
difficult if they have not enough money coming in
regularly to pay for food and lodging. I could just
scrape along. When I exhibited at the Salon
d'Automne or the Salon des Independants I had
good notices and encouragement from people like
Friesz and Brancusi, and now and then did a drawing
or a portrait which I sold. I had heard that things
were brightening up in London. The Countess A.
asked me to spend a few days at her country house
near Versailles. It was a large converted farmhouse,
the sitting-room had been a barn and it had been
built with paving stones outside and looked very
much an English country house. It was in the
middle of a large orchard, one part of which was
just a field of rose-bushes. There were several white
goats, including a huge billy-goat, who was tied up
with a chain; he smelt horribly and would make a
dive at anyone who approached him.
I had often spoken of Ronald Firbank, and the
Countess was most anxious to meet him. He had
taken a house at Versailles from a French Colonel,
and we decided to call upon him. I wrote him a
note to say that we were coming. We went to
Versailles the following day. When the motor
stopped we saw a tall figure peering through the
curtains. We were shown in. Ronald was in a
particularly nervous mood that day and shook us
by the hands and rushed to his writing desk, seized
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PARIS
a stuffed bird of paradise, and pressed it into the
hands of my astonished friend. He hardly spoke at
all, but we asked him to lunch the next day, which
was Sunday. One or two people had been invited to
lunch from Paris to meet him and we waited and
waited. After nearly an hour late Ronald appeared
In an ancient barouche which he had hired. He
refused to eat or to drink and hardly said a word.
The minute coffee was finished he presented the
Countess and myself with a copy of his latest book
and made a dash for the barouche, which he had
kept waiting, and returned to Versailles. I was
severely reprimanded for producing an obvious
lunatic, but Ronald was a person who was so
temperamental that he could really not be relied
on to do anything at any stated time.
In the afternoon Cecile Sorel came to tea with
" Coco " Chanel, the Couturiere, and Monsieur and
Madame Van Dongen and several other people.
Everyone spoke French and after tea we drank
cocktails and danced. Van Dongen danced with
Sorel, they both danced marvellously. Van Dongen
is very tall and very thin, with a long beard. Sorel
was not very tall but with a most elegant and
serpent-like figure. Everyone stopped to watch
them and no one else had the courage to dance.
The Countess motored me back to Paris the fol
lowing day.
A negro night-club had been opened by Bricktop,
a coloured singer. Her name was explained by
the fact that as she was not entirely coloured her
hair was slightly reddish. One night after dinner
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LAUGHING TORSO
I went with the Countess. It was a gay and lively
place and many English people who objected to
spending the night in bed went there as it kept
open as long as anyone was there. I saw across
the dance floor, sitting at a table with two South
Americans, a very beautiful girl. She saw me and
we stared at each other. I waved to her and she
waved back to me. This was a most remarkable
girl who had been at Brangwyns at the same time
as I had. She was Irish and came from a very
good family. She was about fifteen and a half
or sixteen when I had known her first. She aston
ished and rather frightened the whole Art School.
I had not seen her for years. Even when she was at
the Art School she was pursued everywhere by
men; she was even stopped in the street. She was
supposed to be engaged to a bourgeois little man whom
I think she had met at a dance. He was at the time
engaged to some very dull girl. I think it was out of
pure devilry and perhaps the feeling of irritation
that such a silly, stupid woman should have got hold
of any man that she encouraged him. She was so
good-looking and attractive that it needed very
little encouragement, if any. The wretched man
asked her to marry him and she accepted. Of
course, she did not care at all for him, and I believe
that, in despair, at the other girl having refused to
have him back, he jumped off a Transatlantic liner.
I used to gaze in admiration at her and wish that
I was so beautiful. Now that I am so much older I
wonder if it is such an advantage and think perhaps
I. am better off as I am. We rushed across the
266
"NOW THAT I AM SO MUCH OLDER I THINK PERHAPS I AM BETTER
OFF AS I AM "
(I93 2 )
PARIS
dance floor, nearly upsetting the dancers, and em
braced each other. She did not look more than
twenty-two and was marvellously dressed; she had
two large, real pearl necklaces on, and diamond
rings. She had been for some years in South
America and had had so many adventures that she
said it would take weeks for me to hear them all.
I had always called her Prudence; we christened
her by that name at Brangwyns because her con
duct was so rash. She had been a dancer in South
America and had danced with Pavlova's troupe.
She had now become an acrobatic dancer and
was looking for a job in Paris. She had arrived
at an hotel with two monkeys and a snake, and
a very old and wicked-looking Spanish woman,
who was her maid. The old lady looked exactly
like the keeper of one of the more sinister "Joints "
in Montmartre. The hotel did not consider very
highly the idea of lodging the snake and the mon
keys, but they said that they could stay for the
night. The next morning Prudence went out,
taking with her the maid, who had never been
to Europe before. When they returned they found
the whole hotel in an uproar and a miniature
Niagara Falls pouring down the main staircase.
The monkeys had got into the bathroom and
turned on the taps and hidden themselves. The
snake's behaviour was beyond reproach and it lay
curled up in an armchair. I introduced her to
my friends, who were delighted with her. Her de
scriptions of her adventures were most amusing and
she did not mind telling them with the fullest detail,
267
LAUGHING TORSO
I must say that I think that the fullest details can
be told to a select company of sympathetic people,
but not written down for everyone to read.
She had just taken an apartment in the Bois de
Boulogne on the ground floor. It was horribly dark
and the lights had to be turned on almost the whole
time. I went to see it the next day. The monkeys
had a whole room to themselves and lived in a large
wooden cage that had been made specially for them.
The snake had disappeared, apparently up a pipe in
the bathroom. We put mice at the bottom of the
pipe to try and entice it out, but nothing happened
except a horrible smell and we think it must have
stuck inside and died there. She had an instructor
who taught her acrobatic dancing; he had worked
in a circus. A mattress was placed in the hall,
which was large, and she, in a bathing dress, would
do remarkable feats with her anatomy. We
christened the instructor Adalbert, because his
name was Albert. He would roar instructions at
her. Acrobats are fiends and nearly always want
everyone else to become one. Prudence and Adal
bert did their best to induce me to break up my
extremely well-preserved anatomy, but I firmly re
fused. I introduced her to many people and they
all liked her and found her most entertaining. We
also went about a good deal together and I had a
wonderful time.
I saw Pascin from time to time. His studio was
always filled with the most extraordinary mixture of
people. He had the genuine descendant of the
Baron Munchausen, who was a shy young man,
268
P ARIS
many Germans, generally some negresses, and
several artists' models. One day when I arrived a
terrible battle was in progress between a young lady
from the south and another one from the north.
Hair was being pulled out and they had to be
forcibly separated. There was a very amusing
young model who came from the north, who was
known as " Lafille du cure" At any party she would
always undress. She was quite small in height, had
long golden hair below her waist, rosy cheeks, and
a fine and not too much developed figure. She was
a most charming and unspoilt creature. She had
been at the Folies Bergeres and danced very well.
On this occasion there were three very bourgeois
negresses sitting in a row. Pascin had collected
them from some place in Montmartre, certainly not
a night-club, for they were the height of respecta
bility and looked rather startled at the chaste but
nude dance of the Fille du cure. Pascin said that
there was a party that we must all go to, the other
side of Paris, near the Rue de Vaugirard, and that
we should take our food with us. We collected string
bags and baskets and the Fille du curt and the negresses
and went shopping. We bought sausages, wine,
olives and ham, and took several taxis, as there were
about twelve of us. The party was held in a large
studio. The three negresses sat in a row and said
nothing. La fille du cure stoked up the fire and re
moved her clothes. No one took much notice of her
as we had seen her performances so often. The host
told us to collect some more people, so several of us
went to the Dome and the Rotonde. I found there
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LAUGHING TORSO
a well-dressed young Englishman who had just left
Oxford. He came along. He looked so respectable
that we made him dance a tango with La fille. I
think he felt that he really was starting out on a
career of adventure. Pascin suggested that we
should remove the negresses' clothes. We ap
proached one and induced her to remove her dress.
She wore purple cotton underclothes and looked so
dreadful that we urged her to replace it. Parties in
Paris are always supposed to be so wicked and
immoral, but I can't say that I have ever, during
the whole of my career, seen or taken part in any
thing worse than I have so far described. It is true
that I have been asked to places where I suspected
that things would get rather rough and so have
refused.
Pascin asked me to sit for him. He did a portrait
of me which he did not like and, I think, destroyed
it. One day I was dining in Montmartre with him
and some of his German friends. After dinner we
were sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and he was
talking about Les Belles Poules, and how he had
done many drawings there. I said, " What kind of
place is that? " He said, " Cest un bordel: est-ce
que vous riavezjamais itt Id? " I had to confess that
I had not. He said, " Then we will go now. We
will go back to my studio and get some paper and
pencils and spend the evening drawing the girls. 35
The Belles Poules is near the Boulevard Sebasto-
pol and we went down a long passage. The
patronne was a most evil-looking old lady, exactly
270
PARIS
like a drawing by Toulouse-Lautrec. The walls
were covered with tiles, representing the Palais de
Versailles. Floating on the lakes were swans and
seated on their backs were nude ladies, clothed only
in black stockings. This made a strange and rather
beautiful background for the inhabitants of the
cafe. A very loud mechanical piano was playing.
We sat down at a table and the girls stood in a row
in front of us. Everyone who comes in has to choose
a girl to drink with and dance with. There were
about eighteen of them, very heavily painted and
with very little on. They all wore socks and high-
heeled shoes. Their hair was most elaborately
curled and some wore coloured bows of ribbon; it
would have made a marvellous painting. They
lined up and said, " Ckoisissez, Monsieur, 'Dame"
I chose a large, fat one, with red hair and Fascia
chose a small and I thought, rather disagreeable
young woman. They said they would like some
wine. We asked them if we might do drawings of
them. They were delighted and sat motionless for
about ten minutes. All the other girls crowded
round and left their men and insisted on sitting for
us too. They took each of our drawings, folded them
up and put them down their socks. They kept their
money there and, as we explained that we found
their conversation and company quite sufficient, we
had to produce ten francs from time to time. At
12 o'clock we were quite exhausted, I had done
eighteen drawings. I took a taxi and went home.
Pascin stayed behind and made friends with the
271
LAUGHING TORSO
red-headed one, who told him the story of her life.
Poor Pascin is now dead. He became very depressed
and suffered a lot from his liver and, I think, felt
that he had worked himself out. He hanged himself
and cut his throat.
272
HY&RES AND NICE
CHAPTER XIV HYERES AND NICE
F. and R. had gone to live in the South of France.
They had taken a small villa some miles from
Hyeres, on the coast, and had frequently asked me
to stay with them. I was generally in debt in Paris
and could not go, but one day an Englishman came
over and bought a painting and I wrote to say that
I would come down. I took a train for Toulon;
it was, of course, late and I had to take a taxi eventu
ally from Hyeres. Harry Melvill was staying there
too. The Villa was owned by an eccentric Professor
of Harmony from the Sorbonne, Monsieur Koechlin,
who appeared generally with a sack. There was a
fat and most wonderful cook and two Russian men
servants. The only shop was the Post Office, kept
by Madame Octoban. She was the postmistress and
had a cafe, also a shop. Round the countryside
were dotted villas. In order to get to the Post
Office we had either to walk along the sea-shore or
along the railway line. A very small train crawled
along an absurdly small line at the bottom of our
garden. That was at the back of the house, the
front looked on the sea. We could bathe from the
rocks below. F. refused to, as he said that no one
would admire his figure, but R. and I did, and lay
about on the rocks in the sun.
Georges Auric, I knew, was coming to stay after
Harry Melvill had left, and about a week after my
arrival he turned up, I had met him often at the
Boeuf, but I did not know him at all well and re-
273
LAUGHING TORSO
garded him as a rather terrifying person. The day
after he arrived,, F. and R. had to go to Cannes.
They had seen a most beautiful old Chateau with
ninety acres of land, on the top of a hill. It had
not been inhabited for a long time and was for
sale. They said that they would be gone for a
day or so and told Georges and I to take care of
the house and entertain each other. They left early
in the morning and I gave one despairing look at
the fat Georges, and went into the garden and sat
under the trees amongst the freezias, which were in
bloom and smelt very nice. I was wondering
whether or not to just walk away into the landscape
and not come back at all, when I heard, " Je cherche
apres Titine " played, not once, but thirty-five times
on the gramophone. I thought that Georges must
either be a very interesting person or to have become
suddenly demented. I returned to the house and
the Russian butler brought us some cocktails.
Neither Georges nor I knew how to open the shaker.
We finally discovered and made some more and by
the time that lunch appeared we were on very good
terms. He explained at lunch that he had just come
from Monte Carlo, where he had been with Diaghi-
lev, Stravinsky, and the ballet, and had written
two acts of a new ballet called " Les Matelots" It
was all about sailors and sounded most interesting.
He said that he had come to stay with F. to write
the last act. He said he had so far got no ideas
about it and was getting rather worried. I said,
" When we have finished lunch I will teach you all
my English sea songs, you will soon learn the
274
HYERES AND NICE
accompaniments and that will give you an inspira
tion. 35 I whistled him the tunes and in a hour or
two he could play the accompaniments marvellously
well. I did a drawing of him playing the piano,
which eventually appeared in the Burlington Maga
zine. That night there was an appalling thunder
storm. Georges was terrified and pulled the blinds,
and hid in a dark corner with his head covered up.
The next day F. and R. returned and were
delighted to find how well we had got on. We
spent the rest of the day singing the songs to them.
Georges worked hard at his ballet. He managed
to weave into it nearly all my songs so cleverly
that it was almost impossible to detect which
was which. The finale was most impressive, and
one could easily recognize " Nautical William/ 3
Georges said, " If you see Diaghilev don't say any
thing about the third act!" Later, when I went
back to Paris I went to the first night, and after the
ballet, in the promenade, Diaghilev came up to
me and said, " And how is the fair young lady? "
which is a quotation out of the song. The ballet
was a great success and, I think, one of the best of
the post-war ones. Georges refused either to walk
or to bathe and spent all day at the piano composing.
Drieu la Rochelle lived a few miles away and
came over to see us. He was a most brilliant writer
and spoke English very well. F., R., and I walked
daily up and down the railway line. We walked
one day in the opposite direction to Hyeres. F.
said there was a place called Le Datier. The
railway was very near to the sea and all the places
275
LAUGHING TORSO
that it stopped at consisted of just a house or
two. I asked why Le Datier was particularly
interesting. He said that there was a very large
date palm and a very old negro with white hair.
We got to the station and saw the date palm. Beside
the palm was a farmhouse and in the farm-yard,
sitting on the doorstep and feeding the chickens, was
the old negro. There were a few tables in the yard
and we sat down to celebrate our arrival. The old
negro had been in France for years and was married
to a Frenchwoman. We did not like to ask him if
he had brought the palm with him from his native
country as it looked too old. Afterwards we took
the train back. It rattled horribly and was very
uncomfortable. When we took our walks along the
railway line we walked in single file. I went first,
then F.y and lastly R. F., who was a great expert
on women and clothes, gave me instruction on how
to walk. He said that I carried myself well, and
knew how to wear my clothes, but my principal
fault was that I swung my arms like a windmill.
This I endeavoured to correct.
Our villa had a little stone terrace outside with a
few steps leading to the garden, which contained
two orange trees with about half a dozen oranges on
each of them. We gazed through the window in
admiration at our beautiful oranges, and as they
got riper I longed to eat one, but this was strictly
forbidden. In any case, F. pointed out, they
would be very sour. One day our landlord ap
peared with his sack. We went for a walk and when
we came back we found no landlord and no oranges.
276
HYERES AND NICE
The cook said that the " Vieux Monsieur " had taken
them away in his sack. F. and R. had to go to
Nice to see their tailor and buy various things,
and as I had to go back to Paris in a few days
they said that we would all stay at the Hotel West
minster. I had a room on the front with a bath
room and they had a room next to mine.
The Hotel Westminster is filled with nice English
families, so we did not spend much time there. The
meeting place for all our friends was Chez Vogade,
in the Place Massena. Here we saw daily Cocteau,
Milhaud, Poulenc, Stravinsky and his family. They
all came to the tailor for their clothes. Stravinsky
had a wonderful tweed coat of all colours. F.
ordered a pair of burnt sienna plus-fours, which
very nearly fitted him. At any rate they were
all delighted with themselves. I found Frank
Harris and his wife at Vogade's and had tea with
them. The next day was the Carnival. It was a
glorious spectacle with enormous figures of the most
beautiful colours; I should imagine very much like
a Roman festival, the sculpture of the figures was
magnificent. We wore wire masks with faces
painted on them. On one day of the carnival little
balls of plaster confetti are thrown by the population
at each other and anyone else who is there. The mo
ment the confetti hits you it becomes powder and it
is extremely dangerous. People have had their eyes
injured for weeks afterwards. We dined at Caressa's,
near the Place Massena, and walked round the
town. We found somewhere in the back streets a
cafe with the noise of a mechanical piano and went
277
LAUGHING TORSO
in to find French sailors, the cc Marine Militaire "
dancing. We joined them and bought them drinks.
R. and I then went to the bar of the Hotel Negresco
and sat amongst the Americans and English. Un
fortunately, I had to leave the next day and my
friends saw me off at the station. I started on
the dismal return journey to Paris. I had stayed
nine weeks with my friends who seemed to have
liked my company and asked me to come back as
soon as I could.
278
PARIS AND BRITTANY
CHAPTER XV PARIS AND BRITTANY
THERE were two very nice American boys called
Ralph Sabatini and Julian Levy. They were friends
of Frank's and also spoke very good French. We
spent a lot of our time together; they were both
talented and very enthusiastic about everything.
Ralph wanted to do a copy of the Uccello in the
Louvre. This is the other half of the one in the
National Gallery, but it is in very bad condition,
whereas the one in London looks as if it had been
painted only recently. Ralph bought a canvas half
the size of the original; this was about eleven feet
long, and we set it up on an easel in the Louvre.
The attendant of the room he was working in came
up to him. On seeing what he was about to do he ex
plained to him that during his career in the Louvre
he had seen many people start copying this picture;
so far, he had never seen anyone finish it. I don't
know how many times Ralph went to the Louvre,
but I remember that, one day, Julian and I arrived
at his studio near the Sorbonne and there it was,
half finished. We condoled with him and he said
that he had bought a large number of photographs
and had already put indications of the colours on the
canvas and proposed finishing it at home. Julian
and I were delighted; we said that we would come
and help him. Julian went out and bought some
bottles of wine and we all three started. We worked
away for hours, it was great fun, and it really de
veloped into a most extraordinary picture. I would
279
LAUGHING TORSO
do a helmet, Ralph would paint the body, and
Julian would do the legs. It was an imposing pic
ture, distinctly reminiscent of Uccello, but somehow
different. Ralph took it back to America with him
and, I believe, sold it to a museum. Ralph and
Julian both went back to America, unfortunately,
and the detachments of Americans sent over got
steadily worse and worse.
One day I found Tuohy in Montparnasse. He
said that he and a friend of his, Kinko, an Irish girl,
and two other friends were taking a cottage in
Brittany on an island called Brehat. They asked me
to join them, but I could not for some reason or
other. One day the Dingo, where I went often,
became inundated with most of the crew of the
American flagship " Pittsburgh They talked to
everyone, they fought and drank, they ate beef
steaks with bottles of tomato sauce, and bought
everyone drinks. All the ladies from miles around
arrived, and the Quarter brightened up. I made
friends with a fat electrician, who was charming,
and made more noise after, as he described them,
" a flock of ginfizzes," than anyone I had ever
met. I painted his portrait, which he sent to his
Mother; he also paid me for it. The sailors who
did not get fighting drunk I found very amusing,
and quite different from any other kind of person
that I had met. My fat friend, if he was not on
leave at a certain time, would send his friends to me
to look after. He sent two ridiculous little creatures
one day, who were about eighteen. I looked after
them and told them where to go. Even in London
280
PARIS AND BRITTANY
when I got back in 1926, I found two American
sailors in their bell-bottomed trousers and white
hats waiting for me in the Fitzroy Tavern, much
to the amusement of everybody. I found it rather
embarrassing as I did not know what to do with
them.
My friend Prudence was still in Paris and was
engaged to perform at the Four Hundred Club.
She worked daily with a pianist in a large room
which was let out for dancers to rehearse in. I
went, in the afternoons, to watch her. I went with
my French friends to see her the first night. She
looked perfectly beautiful, although I do not really
like acrobatic dancing; I think it is ugly and un
gainly. We then went to the Jardin de ma Soeur and
to Montmartre.
One day Tuohy and Kinko came from the island
in Brittany in their two seater Citroen. They said,
" Come back with us." I took my water-colours
and a rucksack with a few clothes and got in. One
of us had to sit on the back of the seat on the folded
hood. They both drove in turns and one or other
of them would change places with me. I was de
lighted with the idea of seeing Brittany again.
They said that there was no need to hurry and that
we could take our time and see some of the towns
on the way. We spent the night at Dreux. Tuohy
told me that they had invented the " Anti-omelette
club/ 3 as none of them liked omelettes. The first
thing to do on arriving at an inn or restaurant was
to say, before stepping inside, " Pas omelette s'il
vous plait" He said that, frequently, when motoring
281
LAUGHING TORSO
up the drive, approaching the hotel, you could hear
them beating up the eggs. At Dreux we had no
omelettes. We spent the next night at Mayenne,
which amused me as this was where Edgar had been
stationed after he left England and I had received
from him many picture postcards of the place. We
went further and further north and finally came
to Paimpol, which was not far away from the island.
We stopped for a drink and then drove to FArcouest.
The motor was put into the garage there and we
took the "Vedette/ 5 a small motor-boat, to the
island.
Brehat, at this time, was quite unspoilt, and a few
French people came there year after year. There
was a hotel and cafe by the port and a comfortable
hotel with bath-rooms somewhere else. We walked
down a path as there were no roads and only one
horse and cart on the island. We came to the
square where the Town Hall was, a rather battered-
looking thatched house which was labelled
" MAIRIE " in stone letters. Just outside the square
was a rather new cafe. In the square was a covered-
in terrasse on one side of the path leading to an inn,
and on the others, chairs and tables under the trees.
We rested ourselves and I was introduced to Madame
Balet and her husband, who had been a chef. We
then walked across the island through flat fields.
The house was the other side and faced many little
islets, mostly uninhabited and consisting of yellow
ish rocks which became as bright and yellow as
gold when the sun shone. It was a most beautiful
place. The sea was so blue; I thought a much finer
282
PARIS AND BRITTANY
blue than the Mediterranean. The whole atmo
sphere of Brittany reminded me of Wales and I felt
quite at home there.
The house was in a row with three or four other
houses. I slept in a large room underneath the roof
with beams; it had windows on each of the four
walls. Our house was surrounded by a small garden
and not attached to the houses each side. I found
many subjects to paint and started some water-
colours. There were some charming French people
who lived on the island and we had aperitifs with
them at Madame Balet's before dinner. There was
Monsieur Negroponte, who was really a British
subject, having been born in Egypt. He had had a
son in an English regiment during the War, but he
could only speak a very little English himself. He
had been a very good-looking man when he was
young and still was most amusing and attractive.
He wore a sailor's peaked cap and a check coat.
There were some French painters there and a French
marquis who lived in a chateau near Guingamp,
not very far away on the mainland. They gave
dinner-parties at the hotel with enormous fish,
cooked specially by Monsieur Balet, and to which I
was sometimes invited. The native women, mostly
the older ones, wore the national costume. Black
clothes and enormous black poke bonnets with
strings under their chins. I did some drawings of
them. Tuohy wrote most of the day and I drew
and painted. Sometimes we took the boat to the
mainland and motored round the countryside.
Kinko knew Brittany very well and had, in fact,
283
LAUGHING TORSO
written articles on it for papers. The Bretons liked
us very much and I always said that I was Galloise
and they said that they were Irlandais. The
Bretons and Tuohy understood each other perfectly.
At FArcouest, where the " Vedette " crossed to,
was a hotel, and we used to have drinks, not with the
tourists, but in a little side bar where the sailors
went. The patron had a chien de chasse, a setter,
of which he was very proud. His wife had a short,
fat, white dog who wheezed. One day the patron
went off to faire la chasse, taking both the dogs
with him. To his horror his famous setter had no
scent at all and the short fat dog was the success of
the party. His wife laughed loudly when they came
home. One day Kinko was expecting some money
from her Father and, as Tuohy was working, we
went together to the Post Office, which was near
the square. She found it waiting for her and spoke
of three hundred francs. We went to the dull new
cafe and started to celebrate the event. We had also
promised to buy the lunch. We arrived home rather
later than we intended and, after eating, retired to
rest. During the afternoon Kinko said, " I have
mislaid my money, perhaps I have dropped it or
hidden it somewhere." We searched the house and
could not find it. We consoled ourselves by playing
Mah Jong. None of us really attained great pro
ficiency in this game but we liked handling the
pieces. The next morning I was in the kitchen.
The fire was not lit and it had not been cleared out
since the day before. It was an old-fashioned stone
stove, built into the room with a hole underneath
284
PARIS AND BRITTANY
with a grating for the ashes to drop through. I saw,
sticking out, a piece of a five-franc note. I put my
hand in and there was all the money including a
five-pound note and several hundred-franc notes,
some tens, and the five-franc one that had only had
its edge burnt. This find, of course, called for
another celebration. Hiding money reminded me of
the Modigliani hundred-franc note and that ce It's
an ill wind, etc.," but we were pleased that it was
us who found it rather than the rather bad-tempered
and incredibly inefficient charwoman.
I found an old friend of mine whom I had known
in London during the war; I had known him with
Constance Stuart Richardson and Mario Colonna.
He had been to Spain and had taken the most
beautiful photographs of Spanish architecture. He
already knew Tuohy and Kinko but they didn't
know that I had known him before. He knew
everyone as he came to the island every year. He
said that he would come and cook us a Hungarian
goulash one evening, and told us what we must buy
and that he would bring the other ingredients with
him. We spent the day getting food and drink in
and arranged the whole dinner with different kinds
of wine. The goulash took a long time to make and
the smell from the kitchen was terrific. Finally it
appeared and we all stuffed ourselves. During the
night we suffered from the effects of the Paprika and
in the morning felt very ill. It took us three days to
recover. It was, unfortunately, too hot and too rich
for us.
One day a most curious thing happened. We
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LAUGHING TORSO
were celebrating someone's birthday at Madame
Balet's and came home rather late. I carried the
lantern, with which we crossed the island at night,
because it was completely dark if there was no
moon and impossible to find the path. I carried a
ship's lantern; we used it as light in the sitting-room
as there was no gas or electric light. We crossed
the fields, and on the other side was a narrow path,
on one side was the hedge of a garden belonging
to a house. Suddenly, in the middle of the path,
we saw two creatures. They were about eight
inches long, like lizards, with high front legs like
chameleons. They had broad black-and-yellow
stripes all over them, long tails, huge eyes that
they rolled at us and long tongues which shot
in and out. This really was a startling spectacle
in the middle of the night, and we all turned rather
pale and walked on in silence. I went to the cafe
the next morning by myself, as I had to go to the
Post Office, and I asked Madame Balet what the
curious creatures were that we had seen the night
before. She said that they were Salamanders and
that it was very rare to see them as the Bretons
kill them. They are in the arms of Francis I, who
was the first king to put down the Bretons.
We bathed from the rocks in front of the house,
but we had to wait till the tide came up and it was
about twenty feet deep, so I could only cling on to a
rock as I could not swim. We bathed also from a
little beach at the back of the island. This had
sand and I could go in up to my neck. Tuohy swam
very well and would swim far away to a rock. One
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day he swam out of his bathing suit. Kinko and I
stood on the sea-shore and laughed at him as he
swam after it.
One morning we decided to do a tour of Brittany
in the motor. We started off early. We stayed
the first night at Morlaix, a town which I wanted
to see, as it was there that Tristan Corbiere lived,
and I knew his book of poetry, Les Amours Jaunes,
quite well. Sophia Brzeska read them all the time
to me when I was with her at Wooton-under-
Edge. It is rather a beautiful old town with some
very fine old carved houses. The hotel was very
expensive and filled with very dull French commer-
gants. We went to RoscofF, which has been com
pletely ruined by the English. After Roscoff we
motored through wild moors and hills. This land
scape might easily have been Ireland or Wales.
At Huelgoat is an extraordinary valley with huge
rocks. They said that they were of volcanic origin.
There is one particularly large stone which is called
cc Le Rocher tremblant" This, if pushed in the right
place, rocks to and fro. The guide could do it but
we could not. We saw many churches with painted
wooden sculptures and effigies of the Breton Saints.
We found a church at Pleyben.with a statue of
Saint Herbot. He is the patron of cows, and on a
stone table under his effigy were a collection of
cows' tails, offerings to him for his kindly services in
saving their lives from various diseases. Many of
these statues are of the fifteenth century. In the
Chapelle de Notre Dame du Huat are the statues of
six saints in painted wood. They stand in a row:
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Saint Lubin, who deals with every kind of affliction"
Saint Mamert, who takes upon himself all troubles
of the stomach, and is seen holding his entrails in
both hands; Saint Meen, who looks a little " gaga/ 3
and represents La Folie; Saint Hubert, who gives
his protection to those who are bitten by dogs;
Saint Livertin, for the maladies of the head, is re
presented holding his head with a pained expression
on his face; lastly. Saint Houarniaule, who pro
tects people suffering from fright. We visited
Douarnenez and I took Tuohy and Kinko to see the
old ladies in the cafe on the Quays. (I wished that
Frank had been with us.) They remembered us
both and were most pleased to see us. We went
to Pont Croix, where all the houses are white with
grey stones down each side. There is a marvellous
church porch here. We got to the Point de Raz,
which is the most western point of France. In
the distance is the island of Ouessant, in English,
Ushant. This gave me an unpleasant feeling as I
remembered the name in connection with history at
school. This island has two or three hundred in
habitants, who are very poor indeed, and, until two
hundred years ago, were pagans. The sea is so
rough between the island and the Point du Raz that,
sometimes, it is impossible for them to come ashore
for months. Even the men in the lighthouse quite
close to the Point are cut off for weeks at a time.
We had some wine at the hotel near by and then
became very courageous and said that we would
like to walk round the Point. One has to take a
guide. I was extremely surprised on returning to
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find myself alive. It Is a most terrifying experience.
We had to walk along a very narrow path. On
one side of the Point was a whirlpool which churned
and seethed and the water dashed nearly up to
our feet. The path was on the edge of a precipice
with no protection whatever. I ran along it
quickly, as I really felt as if my last minute had
come. We asked the guide if people ever fell over
or got giddy. He said that six had the previous
year and when once they went overboard they were
gone for ever, as they were dashed to pieces im
mediately on the rocks below. We were led on and
round the end of the Point; we had to cling on to
rocks and grass. This continued until we were
nearly completely round the Point. We immediately
returned to the hotel and had some more wine to
calm our shattered nerves.
We came to a strange place with savage dark
people and strange old ladies, wearing antique
costumes of, I should imagine, the eighteenth
century. With difficulty we found someone who
spoke French. The place was called Ploneour.
Outside the church was the funniest War Memorial
that I have ever seen. It must have been sculptured
by the local stone-cutter. It represented two soldiers
standing each side of a tablet, on which were
written a list of the names of the dead. The two
soldiers were identical and were exactly like the
wooden soldiers in the song. I wish I could have
taken a photograph of it or that I had had time to
do a drawing. We came to another strange place
called He Tudy. Here the origin of the people
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appears to be unknown. They are very dark and
unlike the Bretons. It becomes an Island at high
tide. We went to Benodet and had to cross a river.
To do this one had to take a large ferry boat. We
drove the car into it and as we were waiting for it to
start I did a drawing of the opposite bank, with
large trees, a white hotel, and a red gipsy caravan.
I painted it when we got home and was quite
pleased with it. We passed through La Foret,
which is a very pretty place with the slowest hotel
in the world. It is true that in France if you, do not
arrive between stated hours you have to go hungry.
We only asked for bread and cheese and cider and
we had to wait about an hour, which was very bad
indeed for our tempers. Our tempers were mar
vellous and even when we had punctures and break
downs and lost our way we never got cross with one
another.
We spent the night at Concarneau. The line of
old ladies and gentlemen were still there and gave
me the appearance of never having moved since the
last time I saw them. I noticed that their painting
had made no visible progress. I expect they are still
painting. We stayed the night in a hotel overlook
ing the fortress, which looked beautiful with the
grey reflections of its walls on the blue waters. We
had one look at Pont Aven and Kinko and Tuohy
thought that it was as dull as Frank and I had found
it. We found ourselves at Hennebont. It had a
fine fortress and was free from foreigners. We
visited a cafe and found there all the maids of
the opposite hotel. They seemed never to have seen
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PARIS AND BRITTANY
anything like us before or, in fact, to have encoun
tered any English. We entertained them and our
selves to Vermouth Cassis, which seemed to mount
to their heads with great rapidity. They got very
talkative and most confidential, and we became
rather nervous in case the angry patron, or worse
still, patronne, of the hotel came and objected to us
leading the staff astray. We rapidly entered our
motor and drove away before trouble took place.
We were punished for this disgraceful behaviour
and, on the road to Auray, had three punctures and
arrived all in the vilest of tempers. We found a
horrible hotel all got up in oak and plates on the
walls like something that is labelled in England,
" Ye olde," etc. With difficulty we got some food
and hurried rapidly away to Vannes where we
spent the night in a very good and inexpensive
hotel. We had been on the road four days and had
not lost much time, but the money was getting very
short and we had to hurry. We left early the next
morning and as we were nearing home we had a
puncture. There was enough money to pay a man
to mend it and we arrived home with exactly four
francs. I don't think the whole tour had cost more
than four hundred francs for the three of us. I had
done quite a lot of work, nothing very large or
important, but some drawings of sailors and some
very nice water-colours of the island. For about
thirty or forty years bad painters from all nations
had found the island a paradise of " pretty " sub
jects. I thought the subjects were pretty too, but
oddly enough, seemed to find different ones from
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LAUGHING TORSO
the old gentlemen and old ladies who, I expect,
would have been horrified. I had been on the island
for five weeks and had to return to Paris. Tuohy
and Kinko motored me to Vannes, where we spent
the night at the hotel and I took the train from there
to Paris. On my way to Paris I saw one of the most
beautiful sights that I have ever seen. As the train
approached Chartres there was a large plain, with
corn that was just ready for cutting. It was about
seven-thirty and a most perfect evening. The sun
had nearly set and all the corn was a bright golden
colour. The sky was purple and suddenly, on the
horizon, I saw, first one and then the other spire of
the cathedral of Chartres rising slowly out of the
field of yellow corn. The spires of Chartres are both
different and one is taller than the other.
I felt very bored with Paris. I met a very nice
man called Dreydell, he is now also dead, as so
many people in this book are. He bought some
drawings of mine and took me to the Boeuf and to
Montmartre. I saw the Dowager Lady Michelham
at the Boeuf. She was with Ethel Levy and she in
troduced me. I talked a great deal of rubbish but
they didn't seem to mind and gave me some cham
pagne. I met with Lady Michelham several very
nice Americans, including Jeff Crane and his
cousins, the Pattersons, who came from Dayton,
Ohio. He had a friend called Jeff Dodge, who had
a beautiful apartment in the Boulevard St. Ger
main. It had a garden, and instead of flowers in the
flower beds there was planted thick ivy. In the
middle was a fountain with a Cupid. We sat in the
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PARIS AND BRITTANY
garden when I visited him and drank cocktails.
He had the most beautiful furniture and pots filled
with flowers and leaves carved in Chinese jade,
some of which had come from temples in China.
These Americans were very kind to me and bought
drawings and Jeff Dodge asked me to paint his
portrait. I started it quite well but I forget why I
never finished it. Perhaps it will be like the portrait
of the Old Master who painted a gentleman when
young and then, thirty years later, added grey hair
and some wrinkles, and I will finish it when I am
sixty!
A grand birthday party was given in an Ameri
can's flat and I was asked for some unknown reason.
I arrived in my workman's trousers, dressed as an
apache. The butler looked rather alarmed, but the
guests liked it. I had three hundred francs in my
pocket. We had a magnificent dinner with cham
pagne and brandy and danced, and about two a.m.
I left. I went to a cochers 5 restaurant near the
Gare Montparnasse, which the inhabitants of the
Dome visited after two a.m., to eat soup a roignon.
I thought that I might find someone that I knew.
The patron knew me and the inhabitants were
delighted. The clientele: chauffeurs, workpeople,
apaches and the ladies from the neighbouring
houses. The ladies wore bedroom slippers, no hats,
and shawls. I sat down with them and drank white
wine and ate snails. By this time the wine had gone
to my head and, as two policemen had come in and
were drinking at the bar, the patron asked them if
they would be kind enough to see me home, as I only
LAUGHING TORSO
lived a few doors away. The policemen were much
amused and both offered me their arms. I gave them
a few francs and they left me at my hotel. If anyone
is behaving in an eccentric fashion and obviously
enjoying themselves, I have always found the
French willing to join in the fun. Of course, now
and then foreigners 5 perfectly innocent intentions
have been mistaken, and everyone has ended " au
violon"
Jeff and I used to go out for terrific evenings in
Montmartre. We would put on our best clothes
and dine at some grand place and then " do " the
mountain. One night, very late, almost five-thirty
in the morning, we went to a negro cabaret and
restaurant. It was kept by a very pale negress and
her husband, who was very black. We had some
champagne and Jeff said to Palmer, the husband,
" Well, Palmer, it's a curious thing, every day
Florence gets whiter and whiter and every day you
get blacker and blacker." And Palmer said respect
fully, " Yea, Mr. Crane."
I had met at Pascin's a little clown called " Char
ley," he was at the Cirque de Paris. He had a
partner and they were funny at times. I was dis
cussing him with Iris Tree one day and said, " It's
a curious thing that Charley has not made a greater
success." And Iris said that, " If you were going to
be a clown at all you had either to be very funny
and original indeed or not a clown at all." At any
rate he was a most amusing companion. He had
crossed America several times with circuses on the
road. He spoke five or six languages and, I believe,
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PARIS AND BRITTANY
was actually a Belgian Jew. He was often with
Pascin and his friends. He collected pictures, which
he succeeded in wangling out of painters. He has
one of mine which he acquired in a very artful
manner. I was with an American judge one evening
and we went to the circus. Charley was really funny
on that occasion and extremely vulgar. We went
round to his dressing-room, which was a wonderful
place. It had all his properties hanging upon the
wall. An enormous cardboard razor and a pair of
imitation breasts made of papier mache, which hung
up on a string and a miniature fire engine, a
miniature hearse, which was used for the funeral of
a flea (I forget how this tragedy took place), and an
imitation Turkish bath, in which a body was taken
out boiled to death. Sometimes, if Charley was in
a good temper, he would give one some relic with
which one could play awful jokes on one's friends.
We asked Charley to come to Montmartre with us
after the show. He came with us during the interval
in his costume to have a drink at the bar of the cir
cus. Descamps, Carpentier's trainer, was nearly
always there and all kinds of sporting people. We
sat up at the bar and bought Charley and the other
clowns drinks. I found the circus people most charm
ing and unpretentious. They are a most cosmopoli
tan race and they all speak so many languages that it
is difficult to know which race they belong to. After
the performance we collected Charley and took a
taxi to Montmartre. When we got into the taxi
Charley found on the floor a garment of some kind,
and when we passed a bright light, Charley held it
295
LAUGHING TORSO
up and we saw that it was a black female coat with a
cape attached, very fashionable at the moment.
Charley said, " You can have it if you give me a
picture in return/ 3 and I said, " All right! " I
rather regretted it afterwards, as Charley came to
my place and chose a very nice oil-painting. He
had paintings by half the well-known artists in Paris,
which he had wangled one way and another. There
was a story of a very famous painter who was a ter
rible drunkard. His pictures are now worth thousands
of francs. He will give them away if he is not
prevented from doing so. He lives in Montmartre
with his Mother and his stepfather. He is one of
those unfortunate people who, like my Australian
soldier, simply cannot drink a drop, without having
to continue. A friend of mine was at his house one
evening and Charley came in. She noticed that his
pockets rather bulged. He went out of the room
and then came back. Presently loud shrieks were
heard. These were from the unfortunate painter
who, although a man of nearly fifty, was being
unmercifully beaten by his stepfather for having
exchanged a picture for a bottle of drink. This
poor painter had a miserable life. One night he
was found by Rubezack, wandering in the Rue de
Vaugirard, in the pouring rain terribly drunk with
carpet slippers on and no hat or coat. Rubezack,
who was quite penniless, led him to the Rotonde in
the hopes that he would find a picture-dealer or
some kind person to pay the taxi to Montmartre.
Several dealers refused, although they had made
for times out of his pictures. Finally a collection was
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PARIS AND BRITTANY
made amongst the artists and Rubezack, my Pole,
and someone else took him back to his Mother's
house. His Mother was very grateful to them and
offered each of them one of his water-colours in
return for their kindness, but they said they were
old friends of his and refused to accept anything.
I am afraid that I should have taken one as they
are very beautiful and I have always wanted to buy
one.
Van Dongen I saw sometimes at the Countess A's.
He and his wife gave receptions every Monday even
ing. He had an enormous house and two studios.
He and his wife sent me a permanent invitation to
come every Monday. I was delighted as it gave me
the opportunity of showing off all my grand evening-
dresses. I had nine at this time. I knew that the
person whom Van Dongen must meet was Prudence
and that he would love to paint her. I went by
myself the first week and when I got there Van
Dongen said, " Look what I have got for your
benefit, " and I looked up to the gallery and there
were the musicians from a Bal Musette. One man
with an accordion with bells on his ankles and a man
with a violin. These bands are wonderful to dance
to as their sense of time is perfect, and the French
workpeople dance so well. At one time Ford hired
a Bal Musette once a week and invited his friends,
but it ended in a disturbance between the intellec
tuals who wanted to talk and the dancers who wanted
to dance and to drink. Van Dongen's parties were
the best that I have ever been to. There was plenty
of champagne, the only drink to have at a party.
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Unfortunately there are those that it makes ill, but
I think that they are in the minority. There were
the most beautiful and elegant collection of women
I have ever seen. One South American had a
Lanvin dress of white silk with an enormous white
bow, edged with black, that covered nearly the
whole of her skirt and looked like a huge butterfly.
Van Dongen introduced me to a few people, includ
ing a most charming Frenchman who wrote a great
deal about the discoveries of Glozel and the tremen
dous controversy there was about them. He sat
with me and pointed out all the celebrities and in
troduced me to anyone I wanted to meet. There
was an electric gramophone and a Breton singer, a
woman who sang Breton songs and was very cele
brated on the music halls. Andre Warnod was there
with his wife. I told Van Dongen about Prudence
and the monkeys and how beautiful she was, and he
asked me to bring her and ask her to dance. She
came with her dancing clothes and her accompanist.
Most of the audience sat on the floor. She was an
enormous success. If she had done nothing except
stand still and smile she would have brought any
house down. The women were most enthusiastic.
I have found that Frenchwomen suffer much less
from jealousy of other women than most other
races. If I happened to look rather better than
usual or had a dress that suited me they would
crowd round me and be so sweet and kind. I think
it is really because they are so sure of themselves and
the idea that they should have a rival in any shape
or form never enters their very elegant heads. Any-
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PARIS AND BRITTANY
way I have always been devoted to them and wish
there were more of them over here. One evening I
brought Peter Johnstone, who is now Lord Derwent,
with me. He had a most terrific success, especially
as he spoke such excellent French. I also brought
an American opera-singer who sang. I think in the
end, as so often happens,, Van Dongen's hospitality
was abused by " gate crashers/ 5 and the parties came
to an end. Madame Van Dongen is one of the most
charming and most elegant women I have ever met,
and I had the pleasure of seeing her quite often
when she was in London a few years ago and show
ing her a few of the sights. Van Dongen painted a
portrait of Prudence. It was an enormous canvas,
I should think over life-size, in a green satin dancing
dress and a green satin top-hat. I sat behind him
and drew his back. He looks very funny when he
paints. He wears a hat and a long black coat like
a house-painter. He begins a portrait by drawing it
in charcoal; in one hand he holds a large feather
duster with which, now and then, he dusts the
charcoal off and corrects the drawing. The extra
ordinary sureness with which he applied the colour
astounded me and I began to think that if I sat
behind him and watched long enough I should also
become a society portrait painter. The portrait was
exhibited at the Salon.
One day I went to F. and R/s flat and found
Radiguet, Yvonne George, Cocteau, Marie Beer-
bohm and several other people, and we had some
cocktails. I sat and talked to Radiguet. He
asked me when I was going to draw him. I had
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L AU GHING TORSO
arranged for him to sit some time before, but he had
not come. I said that I would some day soon. Ten
days afterwards I heard that he was dead. He had
been taken ill at Foyot's, where he had been staying;
a doctor had not been sent for until he had already
got pneumonia and a few days later he was taken
to a nursing-home. The following day his Father
had arrived and the door was opened by a hospital
nurse, who said, " Est-ce que vous voulez vow votre fils,
il est dans le mortuaire? " Radiguet was the eldest of
the children and adored by his Father and his
brothers and sisters, and it was a terrible shock.
Marie Beerbohm told me of his death and asked me
if I would go with her to his funeral. We did not
look forward to it as we knew that it would be a
very sad affair. This was in the month of Novem
ber, and one morning at nine I fetched Marie and
we went to the church, which was near the Etoile.
It was foggy and raining. The church was filled
with white flowers and near the altar was the raised
platform, waiting for the coffin. The church was
crowded with people. In the pew in front of us was
the negro band from the Boeuf sur le Toit. Picasso
was there, Brancusi, and so many celebrated people
that I cannot remember their names. Radiguet's
death was a terrible shock to everyone. " Coco "
Chanel, the celebrated dress-maker, arranged the
funeral. It was most wonder fully done. Cocteauwas
too ill to come. We waited some minutes for the
arrival of the body, in its white coffin, covered with
white flowers; it was carried up the aisle and placed
on the platform. After a short service we walked
300
PARIS AND BRITTANY
round the coffin and shook the Holy Water over the
coffin, the men walking one side and the women the
other. We could hardly see, as Marie and I and
everyone else's eyes in the church were filled with
tears. We had to walk round the church and shake
hands with the relatives. It was the most tragic
sight that I have ever seen. Radiguet's Father and
Mother were there, and then his four little brothers
and sisters, the youngest being about six, stood in a
row, their faces contorted with weeping. Marie and I
burst into tears and went out into the street to see
the procession start off. The hearse was covered in
white and was drawn by two large white horses,
like those in the war picture by Uccello in the
National Gallery. They stood patiently and waited.
The coffin was carried out with its white pall, and on
it was one bunch of red roses. Many wreaths were
carried out, and by the time the procession started
the white hearse and a carriage following were cov
ered with white flowers. We walked down the
boulevard, following the procession, and waited and
watched the hearse and the long train of mourners
disappear into the distance on their way to Pere
Lachaise. It was not yet ten o'clock and still pouring
with rain. Fortunately, in Paris, the cafes are open
all the time, so we went to the Cafe Francis, which is
near the theatre Champs Elysees, drank some
brandy, and sat silently gazing at the rain. Cocteau
was terribly upset and could not see anyone for
weeks afterwards. I wrote to him in February and
asked him if I could come and see him. He wrote
me a charming letter:
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LAUGHING TORSO
" z^fevrier 1924,
CHERE NINA,
Je suis toujours trh malade et sans courage.
Telephone^ un matin.
De c&ur,
JEAN COCTEAU."
I went to see him and he had grown thin and worn.
One day I received a cheque for a painting. It
was in American dollars and I asked Harold
Stearns where I could cash it. Harold said, " Gome
with me." We went to the other side of the river to
a bank and cashed it. I think it was for about eight
hundred francs. We visited the New York Bar and
Henri's Bar and drank champagne cocktails, which
certainly went to my head. Harold was not
affected, as he had one of those heads which are only
to be found attached to the bodies of Americans
whose families have been in America for not less
than two hundred and fifty years and want some
" hitting." We came back to the Dome in a taxi
and a friend of his met me inside and said, " I am
with Leonard Merrick and a friend of his, and
they have come to find you." I didn't know him
but, of course, had read his books. Apparently my
friend did not know him either and he had heard
that I was a desperate character and was to be
found at the Dome. I introduced myself and he
introduced me to his friend, who was Edith Evans,
who has since become a famous actress. I Said, " I
am awfully sorry but I am afraid that I have had
too many champagne cocktails and may fall asleep
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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 Zarate. 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
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LAUGHING TORSO
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
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LYTTON STRACHEY
Drawing in the possession, of Philip G&sse.
PARIS AND BRITTANY
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
305
LAUGHING TORSO
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.
306
SOUTH AGAIN
CHAPTER XVI SOUTH AGAIN
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/ 3 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
307
LAUGHING TORSO
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
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SOUTH AGAIN
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-
309
LAUGHING TORSO
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-
310
SOUTH AGAIN
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.
LAUGHING TORSO
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
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SOUTH AGAIN
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
LAUGHING TORSO
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. 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
3*4
SOUTH AGAIN
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
315
LAUGHING TORSO
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
316
SOUTH AGAIN
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
317
LAUGHING TORSO
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. He lived
at Montboron, which was near by. The restaurant
was called the Pavilion Henri IV. There was a tiny
bar and outside a small paved terrasse with a few-
tables. We could see the whole of the Cap Ferrat
from our table. Stravinsky arrived very flustered.
He told us his troubles, which were many and
varied. He had quarrelled with his cook, which he
did once or twice a day, as he was always late for
meals. His whole household worked all day. The
girls drew and embroidered their drawings. One
son painted and the other composed and his wife
dealt with the whole family. He was hiding from
Diaghilev. He had just returned to Nice and had
had an appointment to lunch with him at the
Reserve. We had nearly, at the last moment, de
cided to go to the Reserve, and we breathed a sigh
of relief, as Russians have a habit of getting very
excited indeed when awkward situations arise.
Stravinsky explained that if he met Diaghilev,
Diaghilev would disturb him and upset him doing
his packing. He said, " J* adore faire ma valise, c'est
la seule chose qui vraiment m? amuse" He told us that
he had invented a most beautiful suitcase, all the
fittings were made of silver and all the bottles and
little boxes inside were square. He said that it was
called Le modele Stravinsky and was sold by a firm
in the Champs Ely sees. He explained that he did
not possess one as the firm was so mean that they
SOUTH AGAIN
had expected him to buy one at some enormous
cost.
Gocteau came over from Monte Carlo and joined
us after lunch. I met a Frenchman I had known
slightly in Paris, who had a villa and one of the
most beautiful gardens in the South of France. He
lived on a hill above Cap Martin. He asked me to
lunch. I mentioned, at luncheon one day, the name
of the man, and a French woman present said,
" How odd! I and my husband are lunching with
him the same day; will you come along with us in
our motor? " We started the next day, and as we
were driving through Monte Carlo we saw Cocteau,
We waved to him and he came and spoke to us. As
he smiled we noticed that his gums were bright red.
As we drove on the Frenchwoman said, " Tiens! il
a ses gencives peintes" (his gums are painted). I
said, " I wonder what he has done to them? " Coc
teau was always finding new stunts and jokes to as
tound the bourgeois. He was going to lunch at a large
hotel and we wondered what the effect would be on
the guests. I told F., who was very interested, but
we did not mention it to anyone else, knowing that
repeating things leads to trouble of every kind.
Unfortunately, the Frenchwoman repeated this in
cident to Harry Melvill, who did not get on at all
well with Jean. They both liked talking all the time
and consequently it was very awkward when they
were both at a rather small party together. Harry
was delighted and told everyone. We went to
Villefranche one day to see Cocteau and Georges
Auric, who were staying there. There we found
3*9
LAUGHING TORSO
Harry at a corner table. Jean came and joined us
and, after lunch, he took me aside and said, " Gome
upstairs, I have something to show you." We went
upstairs and on the washstand were tubes and pots
of bright red paste. This was the secret of the
gencives peintes. He had found, at Nice, some tooth
paste which, if rubbed hard enough and long enough,
made the gums bright red. F. and I immediately
on our return journey stopped at Nice and bought
some. We went home and scrubbed and scrubbed.
The effect lasted about half an hour and as we did
not propose to spend the day cleaning our teeth we
abandoned it.
One morning I was standing in the middle of my
room with no clothes on, assuming a variety of poses
and looking at myself in two mirrors, so that I could
see the effect all round. The window was open and
suddenly the round red face of a workman appeared.
He had come up a ladder and was engaged in
painting the house. I stood still with shock, and so
did the astonished workman. I then walked up to
the windows and closed the shutters. I told F.
and Poulenc, who were delighted. I suppose the
workman told his mates who were working on the
estate, because, afterwards, they always laughed
when they saw me. I had a letter from the English
man who said that he had arranged for me to have
an exhibition at the Claridge Gallery in April. I
painted two pictures during my visit, as well as the
pear-tree. They were of the farm-houses with olive
trees and I sold them all in London.
I packed up my possessions and returned to Paris
320
PORTRAIT
3.21
LAUGHING TORSO
to collect my work for the exhibition. The Pole saw
me off at the Gare St. Lazare. I entered a third-
class carriage and in it I found a young man, Hans
Egli, whom I had known for some time and who had
married one of my friends. He was coming from
Switzerland with his youngest child, who was about
a year old. He had with him also one of my guitars.
I had some wine with me. Some other people
entered the carriage and I felt rather embarrassed
as I was sure that they thought I was the mother of
the infant. A business man with a grey moustache
was sitting beside me. My friend handed me the
baby, who roared. I wished I could have jumped
out of the window. The business man smiled and
I handed him the baby. Hans and I, much relieved,
took down the guitar, and I opened the wine. The
baby was entertained by the business man and we
drank wine and sang songs till we reached Dieppe.
We got to London at 7.30 a.m. It was cold and
dreary and raining slightly. I took a room in a
hotel and went directly to bed, wondering what my
exhibition and the future would bring forth.
