buyitflauntitthrowit

salento blog

2019-07-29T01:54:00.001-07:00

train times galatone gallipoli = https://www.fseonline.it/risultatiricerca.aspx?type=1

beach in gallipoli 10minute walk from gallipoli station

restaurants near bed and b

Qualo

23 recensioni

N. 7 di 25 Ristoranti a Galatone

€Italiana

Piazza San Demetrio, 10, 73044 Galatone, Italia

Trattoria da Santino

Questa è la vostra struttura?

45 recensioni

N. 8 di 25 Ristoranti a Galatone

€Italiana

Via Armando Diaz 34 | G, 73044 Galatone, Italia

+39 380 795 3637

Scialaba'

141 recensioni

N. 16 di 25 Ristoranti a Galatone

€Pizza, Pesce, Mediterranea

Piazza Umberto I, 8 | Nei Pressi di Via Regina Elena, 73044 Galatone, Italia

2019-07-29T01:53:00.002-07:00

london

2018-11-25T02:56:00.004-08:00

me

2018-11-24T14:32:00.002-08:00

2018-07-07T09:09:00.001-07:00

John Peters Ringo (May 3, 1850 – July 13, 1882)—known as Johnny Ringo—was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona Territory, United States. He took part in the Mason County War during which he committed his first murder.

He was arrested and charged with murder, but escaped from jail. He was affiliated with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and Frank Stilwell during 1881–1882.
He got into a confrontation in Tombstone with Doc Holliday and was suspected by Wyatt Earp of having taken part in the attempted murder of Virgil Earp and the ambush and death of Morgan Earp.

Ringo was found dead with a bullet wound to his temple. Modern writers have advanced various theories attributing his death to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Frank Leslie, and Michael O'Rourke

I wanted to punch a grown man in the face the other day.

2017-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

I wanted to punch a grown man in the face the other day.

He'd been in a shit job for years earning about 1,600 euros a month , and we decided to meet up for coffee at the suggestion of a mutual professional connection.

I spent 90 minutes pouring every ounce of passion I had into this guy , coming up with at least a dozen ways he could take his personal story and work history and create a new narrative both online and in person. I showed him how he could use tools like LinkedIn to circumvent the gatekeeper system and start connecting and engaging with the actual decision makers and hiring managers of the places he wanted to work at.

The Walking Dead

The guy just slouched lower in his seat, nodding meekly as I went all Sgt. Slaughter on him. It took everything I had not to jump up, shove the table between us aside, grab him by the collar and shout: "Hey! You want something? You have to go get it! You need to hustle! You need to show a pulse! You need to personalize your approach and show others how once they hire you, they'll realize they can't live without the value and benefit you bring their business!"

By the time we were finished, I was emotionally exhausted. I might as well have been trying to motivate a mannequin. As a test, I gave the guy my card and said, "Email me, and ask me to make the introductions to the people I told you about, or to give you more advice on the job search strategies I'm telling you about, and we can go from there."

The guy never emailed.

The Land of Plenty

What makes encounters like that one all the more maddening is that we're living in a time of almost limitless opportunity.

Think about it. We now carry a portable television studio (iPhone) in our pocket. We have the ability to broadcast our own television show to the entire world for free thanks to outlets like YouTube.

We have the ability to create our own personal printing press or online company thanks to blogs and websites. (Again, for free!)

We can write and publish books on the world's largest bookstore (Amazon.com) for free in a matter of minutes.

We can locate, engage and network with leaders and decision makers at every large and small business on the planet (again, at no cost) thanks to LinkedIn.

And your excuse for being out of work or staying stuck in a job you hate is what again?

Reality Bites

Here's the deal: You are going to die.

I don't say this to be morbid, but rather to remind us all that you only get one shot to really live.

I believe you were put on this planet for a reason, and that you have a unique value and benefit to share with the rest of us - in the business world and beyond.

So why are you wasting another 24 hours sitting on the sidelines of life?

Why aren't you chasing your dreams and doing what you love?

Passion. Purpose. Persistence.

Somebody turned me onto Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich a few months back.

I was intrigued because Hill kept saying there was one simple secret behind the most successful people on the planet - men like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and countless others.

What I discovered is that it really boils down to three things: Passion, Purpose and Persistence.

Passion is the activity we'd pay someone else to let us do, let alone doing it for a living and getting money for it.

Purpose is what we want out of life. And the more specific we can be about that, the better. Purpose also fuels Passion. As a mentor of mine likes to say, "You'll never make seven figures with six figure work habits."

Persistence is the most important of all. The life you want and the career you crave will not happen on its own.

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence," Calvin Coolidge said. "Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

Arguably the greatest - and most clutch - basketball player in NBA history is Michael Jordan, winner of six NBA titles and five league MVP awards.

Jordan got cut from his high school team as a sophomore. He missed more than 9,000 shots during his career. He lost more than 300 games.

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life," Jordan is quoted as saying. "And that is why I succeed."

Let's Make a Deal

The only thing holding you back from living the life you want and doing the work you love is you.

That's why I wanted to punch that guy in the face the other day.

Will you make me a promise? Will you share this with someone who needs a kick in the pants? (If that person is you, print this post out and keep it on your desk!)

Look, the last thing we need is one more professional working a job he or she isn't passionate about. It's bad for you, it's bad for your customers and its bad for your employer.

So get after it!

labtop

2017-09-27T11:21:00.001-07:00

Astudy just appeared in Education Next, under the title “Should Professors Ban Laptops?” The study worked like this:

Researchers went to West Point and tracked students in three sections of Principles of Economics. One section was technology-free—no laptops or tablets permitted in the classroom. A second section gave students the freedom to use laptops and tablets at their discretion, with no controls or requirements. A third section was “tablet only,” a method “designed to replicate the intended use of Internet-enabled technology as a non-distracting resource during class.” The aim of this section, and of such methods generally, was to implement technology in the classroom while preventing students from hijacking it for non-academic purposes.

The experiment was run with 50 classrooms and 726 students over two terms. Each instructor, too, taught at least one no-technology section and one of the other two sections. The decisive measure was performance by students on the final exam. The results were striking—and disappointing for people who believe that better classroom technology and implementation will produce higher student achievement.

Here is the finding for unrestricted technology use relative to no technology use: Exam scores dropped by 0.18 standard deviations.

And here is the finding for restricted technology use relative to no technology use: Exam scores dropped by only slightly less, 0.17 standard deviations.

The small difference suggests that attempts to streamline classroom technology to academic purposes alone are ineffectual or, when they are effectual, indicate that something inherent in the technology is part of the problem.

When we convert the numbers to GPA measures, the finding goes like this:

[A] student in a classroom that prohibits computers is on equal footing with a peer who is in a class that allows computers and whose GPA is one-third of a standard deviation higher—nearly the difference between a B+ and an A- average, for example.

There is more. When the researchers broke the sample up into subgroups by race, gender, college-entrance exam scores, and high school GPA, “in no group did students appear to significantly benefit from access to computers in the classroom.”

The findings support those of us who have banned technology from our classrooms for many years. We have been called “Luddites,” people captive to “moral panics,” and get-off-my-lawn curmudgeons. Just the other day, in a puerile defense of Twitter and texting as writing platforms in the Wall Street Journal, an English teacher referred to people who bemoan the writing that takes place on social media as “schoolmarms.” (The piece stands behind a paywall.)

But while the pro-technology innovators have typically cast traditionalists as hidebound and unempirical people caught up in myths and anxiety, the truth is the opposite. Technology enthusiasts are the real ideologues in this debate (and a lot of them make a whole lot of money on the wiring of schools). The empirical evidence against computers in the classroom is mounting (the Education Next article reviews several other studies).

At the very least, the jury is out on the value of computer-assisted instruction. Some day we may have evidence of genuine academic advancement arising from the outfitting of classrooms and students with the latest devices, which cost millions of dollars. Until then, teachers should draw back, return to pencil and paper and chalkboards, and determine for themselves whether the promises of digital instruction are just so much hot air.

look better

2017-09-27T05:06:00.001-07:00

get your face in shape

Forget Botox! 4 Ways for You to Look and Feel Young
It’s no secret that women and men alike are constantly searching for the “fountain of youth” with the latest beauty products and cosmetic treatments that are available. Naturally, everyone wants to look and feel young. Although an increasing number of people are relying on Botox to stay young, there are a number of other ways to reduce the effects of aging for more natural features. Here are 4 ways for you to look and feel young.
1. Use a Honey Masques
Honey is a natural product that works to reduce the size of pores and firm the skin, while also reducing the appearance of sunspots that may be visible. The honey also helps to remove infectious microbes that can lead to breakouts and wrinkles for an incredible way of reducing the signs of aging within minutes.
2. Apply a Night Cream
To enhance the elasticity of your skin and restore lost collagen, it’s important to use a night cream that can soak into the pores overnight. Use the Resurgence Night Regime for a hydrating product that allows skin to look younger and smoother by improving the firmness by 42 percent.
3. Use Supplements on the Skin
Instead of undergoing Botox, natural supplements can have the same effect on the skin by infusing the pores with vitamins. Apply retinol, madecassol, and vitamin C serum to stimulate collagen growth and plump the skin for a natural look that still allows your facial muscles to have mobility with your expressions. The natural supplements are healthy for the pores and will prevent infusing your skin with toxins that can be hazardous to your health and beauty.
4. Use Sunblock
One of the most effective ways to protect your skin from sun damage and prevent wrinkles is by applying sunblock each day, which you can make at home for a natural recipe. You can also use cosmetics that contain SPF to protect your natural glow from UVA or UVB rays and allow your skin to stay hydrated when spending time outdoors

Beta carotene is found in dark green and yellow-orange vegetables such as carrots and cantaloupe melon. It is one of a family of naturally occurring nutrients called carotenoids, 60 of which occur in food. Beta carotene is considered to be one of the most important carotenoids because it can be converted by the body into vitamin A as and when required.

Each Healthspan tablet contains 7mg of natural beta carotene, which is in line with the Department of Health’s maximum recommended intake for safe consumption.

Carotene originates from the Latin word for carrot and refers to organic compounds which give plants and vegetables their yellow/orange pigment. There are around 60 carotenes found in food.Beta carotene is considered most vital for health as it is a provitamin. This means the body can convert it into vitamin A, which is essential for many biological processes and could help strengthen the immune system. Sweet potatoes, carrots and spinach are rich sources of beta carotene.

What does it do?

Beta carotene produces the highest levels of vitamin A compared to all other forms of carotenes. The antioxidant properties of this vitamin help protect the body from damage caused by free radical molecules. A study on elderly patients published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition(i) revealed a regular intake of beta carotene supplements could stimulate immune response and help fight off infections.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Centre,(ii) an intake of 15mg of beta carotene could also support nerve cells in eyes and combat conditions such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and cataract. A study involving 976 participants(iii) revealed the antioxidant properties of beta carotene helped protect eye cells and could slow the progression of AMD.

Symptoms of cognitive decline, such as memory loss, mood swings and depression, could also be prevented by a regular dose of beta carotene. A study on 5,956 men over the age of 65 showed long-term beta carotene supplementation could reduce levels of oxidative stress associated with cognitive decline.

Like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mustard cress and many other ‘greens’, watercress belongs to the brassica family which provides a rich source of protective phytonutrients (plant chemical compounds) that scientists believe may help prevent and fight a wide range of cancers (i).

During both World Wars when we were reliant on local produce, watercress sandwiches were a national institution but sadly, as our diets became more varied and increased competition from more ‘exotic’ and sweeter leaves took centre stage, watercress gradually became relegated to a mere garnish left on the side of the plate.

However, watercress growers refused to be side-lined and slowly but surely research into this leafy wonder’s nutritional greatness has earned it an impressive array of ‘super’ stripes, making it a worthy player in the health defence game.

This vitamin and antioxidant-rich fruit can support the immune system and help with detoxification,” says Louisa. It can also provide the following health benefits:

Aids weight loss

Grapefruit is very low in calories, consisting of around 42kcal per 100g. Enjoying it as part of a balanced diet can be beneficial to weight loss.

In a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, 91 obese patients were given fresh, juiced or capsule forms of grapefruit alongside a placebo to discover the benefits on weight loss and insulin regulation. After 12 weeks, the fresh grapefruit group had lost 1.6 kg, the grapefruit juice group had lost 1.5 kg, the grapefruit capsule group had lost 1.1 kg, and the placebo group had lost 0.3 kg. Results also found that eating half a grapefruit before a meal significantly reduced weight gain. Insulin reduction was also improved (i).

Lowers cholesterol

“Grapefruit contains the soluble fibre pectin which can support healthy cholesterol levels,” says Louisa. Pectin could help lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides, a form of fat linked to heart disease. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found both white and red grapefruit decreased serum lipid levels in coronary atherosclerosis patients (ii).

Strengthens cells

“Grapefruit is an excellent source of vitamin C, with half a grapefruit giving you your daily requirement of 40mg,” explains Louisa. “It is also a good source of beta-carotene, which can be converted to vitamin A in the body, vitamin B5, and antioxidants. The pink and red varieties also contain lycopene.”

Lycopene is the substance which gives certain fruits and vegetables their red colour. It is packed with antioxidants that could help strengthen the thickness and fluidity of cell membranes, vital to protect the body from diseases such as macular degeneration, cataractsand heart disease

Sprezzatura

2017-09-27T04:23:00.002-07:00

Sprezzatura, an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castoiglione’s book, The Book of Courtier, states that sprezzatura alludes to a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.

It seems that with each hour the Englishman spends attending to the fine details of dressing, the Italian gentleman will spend an equal amount of time making it look as if he has not attended to the fine details of dressing. And, perhaps this is part of the reason that Neapolitan tailoring continues to endure, since it not only describes a specific style, but also an attitude towards putting others at ease, being naturally elegant, and a spirit of not-so-accidental nonchalance

new shirt measurements

2017-07-30T07:59:00.001-07:00

SHIRT MEASURE:
Size S:
Pit to pit : 52 cm / 20,5 inch
lenght of shirt: 71 cm / 28 inch
shoulders: 44 cm / 17,3 inch
Sleeves: 61 cm / 24 inch

Size M:
Pit to pit: 56 cm / 22 inch
lenght of shirt: 73 cm / 28,7 inch
shoulders: 46 cm / 18,1 inch
Sleeves: 63 cm / 24,8 inch

Size L:
Pit to Pit: 60 cm / 23,6 inch
lenght of shirt: 75 cm / 29,6 inch
shoulders: 48 cm / 18,9 inch
Sleeves: 65 cm / 25,6 inch

Size XL:
Pit to Pit: 64 cm / 25,2 inch
lenght of shirt: 77 cm / 30,3 inch
shoulders: 50 cm / 20,5 inch
Sleeves: 67 cm / 26,4 inch

2017-07-22T17:02:00.001-07:00


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 

79 



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 

80 



WAR 

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 

81 



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 



WAR 



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 

83 



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. 



WAR 

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 

85 



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," 

86 



WAR 

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 



WAR 

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 

89 



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 

90 



WAR 

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 

91 



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. 



WAR 

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. 

93 



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 

94 



WAR 

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 

95 



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 

96 



WAR 

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 

97 



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 

98 




W. H. DAVIES 



WAR 

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 

99 



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. 

100 



WAR 

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 

102 



WAR 

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 

104 




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. 

106 



WAR 

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 

114 



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, 

115 



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; 

116 



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 

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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. 



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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 

155 



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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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 

157 



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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 



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- 

161 



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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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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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 

182 




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 

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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 

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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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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, 

193 



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 

195 



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 

197 



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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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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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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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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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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LAUGHING TORSO 



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 



BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 



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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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 

223 



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 

227 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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 

229 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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 

231 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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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BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 

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 

233 



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. 

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o <? 

55 



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 

235 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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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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 

241 



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. 

243 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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 

244 



BACK TO PARIS AND CELEBRITIES 



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 

245 



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 

247 



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." 



249 



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 

250 



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 

251 



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 

252 



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 

253 



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 

254 



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 

256 



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 

259 



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 

260 



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, 



261 



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 

262 



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. 

263 



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 

264 



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 

265 



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 

269 



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 

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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 

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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. 

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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 

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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. 



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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 

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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 

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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 

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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 

285 



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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PARIS AND BRITTANY 

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: 

287 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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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LAUGHING TORSO 



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 

290 



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 

292 



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, 

294 



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 

296 



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. 

297 



LAUGHING TORSO 



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- 

298 



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 

299 



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: 

301 



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 

302 



PARIS AND BRITTANY 



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 

303 



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 

304 




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 

308 



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 

312 



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.

2017-07-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

PICTURES FROM ITALY

BY
CHARLES DICKENS

WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
MARCUS STONE, R.A.

LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.
1913

The Reader’s Passport	215
Going through France	218
Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon	225
Avignon to Genoa	233
Genoa and its Neighbourhood	238
To Parma, Modena, and Bologna	264
Through Bologna and Ferrara	272
An Italian Dream	277
By Verona, Mantua, and Milan, across the Pass of the Simplon into Switzerland	284
To Rome by Pisa and Siena	297
Rome	308
A Rapid Diorama	345

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Civil and Military	Marcus Stone, R.A.	218
Italian Peasants	,, ,, ,,	250
The Chiffonier	,, ,, ,,	294
In the Catacombs	,, ,, ,,	326

p. 215THE READER’S PASSPORT

If the readers of this volume will be so kind as to take their credentials for the different places which are the subject of its author’s reminiscences, from the Author himself, perhaps they may visit them, in fancy, the more agreeably, and with a better understanding of what they are to expect.

Many books have been written upon Italy, affording many means of studying the history of that interesting country, and the innumerable associations entwined about it. I make but little reference to that stock of information; not at all regarding it as a necessary consequence of my having had recourse to the storehouse for my own benefit, that I should reproduce its easily accessible contents before the eyes of my readers.

Neither will there be found, in these pages, any grave examination into the government or misgovernment of any portion of the country. No visitor of that beautiful land can fail to have a strong conviction on the subject; but as I chose when residing there, a Foreigner, to abstain from the discussion of any such questions with any order of Italians, so I would rather not enter on the inquiry now. During my twelve months’ occupation of a house at Genoa, I never found that authorities constitutionally jealous were distrustful of me; and I should be sorry to give them occasion to regret their free courtesy, either to myself or any of my countrymen.

There is, probably, not a famous Picture or Statue in all Italy, but could be easily buried under a mountain of printed paper devoted to dissertations on it. I do not, therefore, though an earnest admirer of Painting and Sculpture, expatiate at any length on famous Pictures and Statues.

This Book is a series of faint reflections—mere shadows in the water—of places to which the imaginations of most people are attracted in a greater or less degree, on which mine had dwelt for years, and which have some interest for all. The greater part of the descriptions were written on the spot, and sent home, from time to time, in private letters. I do not mention the circumstance as an excuse for any defects they may present, for it would be none; but as a guarantee to the Reader that they were at least penned in the fulness of the subject, and with the liveliest impressions of novelty and freshness.

If they have ever a fanciful and idle air, perhaps the reader will suppose them written in the shade of a Sunny Day, in the midst of the objects of which they treat, and will like them none the worse for having such influences of the country upon them.

I hope I am not likely to be misunderstood by Professors of the Roman Catholic faith, on account of anything contained in these pages. I have done my best, in one of my former productions, to do justice to them; and I trust, in this, they will do justice to me. When I mention any exhibition that impressed me as absurd or disagreeable, I do not seek to connect it, or recognise it as necessarily connected with, any essentials of their creed. When I treat of the ceremonies of the Holy Week, I merely treat of their effect, and do not challenge the good and learned Dr. Wiseman’s interpretation of their meaning. When I hint a dislike of nunneries for young girls who abjure the world before they have ever proved or known it; or doubt the ex officio sanctity of all Priests and Friars; I do no more than many conscientious Catholics both abroad and at home.

I have likened these Pictures to shadows in the water, and would fain hope that I have, nowhere, stirred the water so roughly, as to mar the shadows. I could never desire to be on better terms with all my friends than now, when distant mountains rise, once more, in my path. For I need not hesitate to avow, that, bent on correcting a brief mistake I made, not long ago, in disturbing the old relations between myself and my readers, and departing for a moment from my old pursuits, I am about to resume them, joyfully, in Switzerland; where during another year of absence, I can at once work out the themes I have now in my mind, without interruption: and while I keep my English audience within speaking distance, extend my knowledge of a noble country, inexpressibly attractive to me. [216]

This book is made as accessible as possible, because it would be a great pleasure to me if I could hope, through its means, to compare impressions with some among the multitudes who will hereafter visit the scenes described with interest and delight.

And I have only now, in passport wise, to sketch my reader’s portrait, which I hope may be thus supposititiously traced for either sex:

Complexion	Fair.
Eyes	Very cheerful.
Nose	Not supercilious.
Mouth	Smiling.
Visage	Beaming.
General Expression	Extremely agreeable.

p. 218GOING THROUGH FRANCE

On a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather of eighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good friend, when—don’t be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observed slowly making their way over that picturesque and broken ground by which the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained—but when an English travelling-carriage of considerable proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon near Belgrave Square, London, was observed (by a very small French soldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of the Hôtel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris.

I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling by this carriage, inside and out, should be starting for Italy on a Sunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign a reason for all the little men in France being soldiers, and all the big men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they had some sort of reason for what they did, I have no doubt; and their reason for being there at all, was, as you know, that they were going to live in fair Genoa for a year; and that the head of the family purposed, in that space of time, to stroll about, wherever his restless humour carried him.

And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to the population of Paris generally, that I was that Head and Chief; and not the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in the person of a French Courier—best of servants and most beaming of men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I, who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no account at all.

There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris—as we rattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont Neuf—to reproach us for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house) were driving a roaring trade; awnings were spreading, and chairs and tables arranging, outside the cafés, preparatory to the eating of ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoe-blacks were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets across the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd and bustle, parti-coloured nightcaps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large boots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at that hour denoted a day of rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a family pleasure-party, crammed into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of some contemplative holiday-maker in the freest and easiest dishabille, leaning out of a low garret window, watching the drying of his newly polished shoes on the little parapet outside (if a gentleman), or the airing of her stockings in the sun (if a lady), with calm anticipation.

Once clear of the never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven pavement which surrounds Paris, the first three days of travelling towards Marseilles are quiet and monotonous enough. To Sens. To Avallon. To Chalons. A sketch of one day’s proceedings is a sketch of all three; and here it is.

We have four horses, and one postilion, who has a very long whip, and drives his team, something like the Courier of Saint Petersburgh in the circle at Astley’s or Franconi’s: only he sits his own horse instead of standing on him. The immense jack-boots worn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; and are so ludicrously disproportionate to the wearer’s foot, that the spur, which is put where his own heel comes, is generally halfway up the leg of the boots. The man often comes out of the stable-yard, with his whip in his hand and his shoes on, and brings out, in both hands, one boot at a time, which he plants on the ground by the side of his horse, with great gravity, until everything is ready. When it is—and oh Heaven! the noise they make about it!—he gets into the boots, shoes and all, or is hoisted into them by a couple of friends; adjusts the rope harness, embossed by the labours of innumerable pigeons in the stables; makes all the horses kick and plunge; cracks his whip like a madman; shouts ‘En route—Hi!’ and away we go. He is sure to have a contest with his horse before we have gone very far; and then he calls him a Thief, and a Brigand, and a Pig, and what not; and beats him about the head as if he were made of wood.

There is little more than one variety in the appearance of the country, for the first two days. From a dreary plain, to an interminable avenue, and from an interminable avenue to a dreary plain again. Plenty of vines there are in the open fields, but of a short low kind, and not trained in festoons, but about straight sticks. Beggars innumerable there are, everywhere; but an extraordinarily scanty population, and fewer children than I ever encountered. I don’t believe we saw a hundred children between Paris and Chalons. Queer old towns, draw-bridged and walled: with odd little towers at the angles, like grotesque faces, as if the wall had put a mask on, and were staring down into the moat; other strange little towers, in gardens and fields, and down lanes, and in farm-yards: all alone, and always round, with a peaked roof, and never used for any purpose at all; ruinous buildings of all sorts; sometimes an hôtel de ville, sometimes a guard-house, sometimes a dwelling-house, sometimes a château with a rank garden, prolific in dandelion, and watched over by extinguisher-topped turrets, and blink-eyed little casements; are the standard objects, repeated over and over again. Sometimes we pass a village inn, with a crumbling wall belonging to it, and a perfect town of out-houses; and painted over the gateway, ‘Stabling for Sixty Horses;’ as indeed there might be stabling for sixty score, were there any horses to be stabled there, or anybody resting there, or anything stirring about the place but a dangling bush, indicative of the wine inside: which flutters idly in the wind, in lazy keeping with everything else, and certainly is never in a green old age, though always so old as to be dropping to pieces. And all day long, strange little narrow waggons, in strings of six or eight, bringing cheese from Switzerland, and frequently in charge, the whole line, of one man, or even boy—and he very often asleep in the foremost cart—come jingling past: the horses drowsily ringing the bells upon their harness, and looking as if they thought (no doubt they do) their great blue woolly furniture, of immense weight and thickness, with a pair of grotesque horns growing out of the collar, very much too warm for the Midsummer weather.

Then, there is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dusty outsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the insides in white nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking, like an idiot’s head; and its Young-France passengers staring out of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out of sight in no time. Steady old Curés come jolting past, now and then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no Englishman would believe in; and bony women dawdle about in solitary places, holding cows by ropes while they feed, or digging and hoeing or doing field-work of a more laborious kind, or representing real shepherdesses with their flocks—to obtain an adequate idea of which pursuit and its followers, in any country, it is only necessary to take any pastoral poem, or picture, and imagine to yourself whatever is most exquisitely and widely unlike the descriptions therein contained.

You have been travelling along, stupidly enough, as you generally do in the last stage of the day; and the ninety-six bells upon the horses—twenty-four apiece—have been ringing sleepily in your ears for half an hour or so; and it has become a very jog-trot, monotonous, tiresome sort of business; and you have been thinking deeply about the dinner you will have at the next stage; when, down at the end of the long avenue of trees through which you are travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack-crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charité pour l’amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick; bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner, up the narrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in the gutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick; crack, crack, crack; into the shop-windows on the left-hand side of the street, preliminary to a sweeping turn into the wooden archway on the right; rumble, rumble, rumble; clatter, clatter, clatter; crick, crick, crick; and here we are in the yard of the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or; used up, gone out, smoking, spent, exhausted; but sometimes making a false start unexpectedly, with nothing coming of it—like a firework to the last!

The landlady of the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and the landlord of the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and the femme de chambre of the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and a gentleman in a glazed cap, with a red beard like a bosom friend, who is staying at the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or, is here; and Monsieur le Curé is walking up and down in a corner of the yard by himself, with a shovel hat upon his head, and a black gown on his back, and a book in one hand, and an umbrella in the other; and everybody, except Monsieur le Curé, is open-mouthed and open-eyed, for the opening of the carriage-door. The landlord of the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or, dotes to that extent upon the Courier, that he can hardly wait for his coming down from the box, but embraces his very legs and boot-heels as he descends. ‘My Courier! My brave Courier! My friend! My brother!’ The landlady loves him, the femme de chambre blesses him, the garçon worships him. The Courier asks if his letter has been received? It has, it has. Are the rooms prepared? They are, they are. The best rooms for my noble Courier. The rooms of state for my gallant Courier; the whole house is at the service of my best of friends! He keeps his hand upon the carriage-door, and asks some other question to enhance the expectation. He carries a green leathern purse outside his coat, suspended by a belt. The idlers look at it; one touches it. It is full of five-franc pieces. Murmurs of admiration are heard among the boys. The landlord falls upon the Courier’s neck, and folds him to his breast. He is so much fatter than he was, he says! He looks so rosy and so well!

The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister of the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma’amselle is charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful little boy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchanting child! Second little girl gets out. The landlady, yielding to the finest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms! Second little boy gets out. Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tender little family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The baby has topped everything. All the rapture is expended on the baby! Then the two nurses tumble out; and the enthusiasm swelling into madness, the whole family are swept up-stairs as on a cloud; while the idlers press about the carriage, and look into it, and walk round it, and touch it. For it is something to touch a carriage that has held so many people. It is a legacy to leave one’s children.

The rooms are on the first floor, except the nursery for the night, which is a great rambling chamber, with four or five beds in it: through a dark passage, up two steps, down four, past a pump, across a balcony, and next door to the stable. The other sleeping apartments are large and lofty; each with two small bedsteads, tastefully hung, like the windows, with red and white drapery. The sitting-room is famous. Dinner is already laid in it for three; and the napkins are folded in cocked-hat fashion. The floors are of red tile. There are no carpets, and not much furniture to speak of; but there is abundance of looking-glass, and there are large vases under glass shades, filled with artificial flowers; and there are plenty of clocks. The whole party are in motion. The brave Courier, in particular, is everywhere: looking after the beds, having wine poured down his throat by his dear brother the landlord, and picking up green cucumbers—always cucumbers; Heaven knows where he gets them—with which he walks about, one in each hand, like truncheons.

Dinner is announced. There is very thin soup; there are very large loaves—one apiece; a fish; four dishes afterwards; some poultry afterwards; a dessert afterwards; and no lack of wine. There is not much in the dishes; but they are very good, and always ready instantly. When it is nearly dark, the brave Courier, having eaten the two cucumbers, sliced up in the contents of a pretty large decanter of oil, and another of vinegar, emerges from his retreat below, and proposes a visit to the Cathedral, whose massive tower frowns down upon the court-yard of the inn. Off we go; and very solemn and grand it is, in the dim light: so dim at last, that the polite, old, lanthorn-jawed Sacristan has a feeble little bit of candle in his hand, to grope among the tombs with—and looks among the grim columns, very like a lost ghost who is searching for his own.

Underneath the balcony, when we return, the inferior servants of the inn are supping in the open air, at a great table; the dish, a stew of meat and vegetables, smoking hot, and served in the iron cauldron it was boiled in. They have a pitcher of thin wine, and are very merry; merrier than the gentleman with the red beard, who is playing billiards in the light room on the left of the yard, where shadows, with cues in their hands, and cigars in their mouths, cross and recross the window, constantly. Still the thin Curé walks up and down alone, with his book and umbrella. And there he walks, and there the billiard-balls rattle, long after we are fast asleep.

We are astir at six next morning. It is a delightful day, shaming yesterday’s mud upon the carriage, if anything could shame a carriage, in a land where carriages are never cleaned. Everybody is brisk; and as we finish breakfast, the horses come jingling into the yard from the Post-house. Everything taken out of the carriage is put back again. The brave Courier announces that all is ready, after walking into every room, and looking all round it, to be certain that nothing is left behind. Everybody gets in. Everybody connected with the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or is again enchanted. The brave Courier runs into the house for a parcel containing cold fowl, sliced ham, bread, and biscuits, for lunch; hands it into the coach; and runs back again.

What has he got in his hand now? More cucumbers? No. A long strip of paper. It’s the bill.

The brave Courier has two belts on, this morning: one supporting the purse: another, a mighty good sort of leathern bottle, filled to the throat with the best light Bordeaux wine in the house. He never pays the bill till this bottle is full. Then he disputes it.

He disputes it now, violently. He is still the landlord’s brother, but by another father or mother. He is not so nearly related to him as he was last night. The landlord scratches his head. The brave Courier points to certain figures in the bill, and intimates that if they remain there, the Hôtel de l’Ecu d’Or is thenceforth and for ever an hôtel de l’Ecu de cuivre. The landlord goes into a little counting-house. The brave Courier follows, forces the bill and a pen into his hand, and talks more rapidly than ever. The landlord takes the pen. The Courier smiles. The landlord makes an alteration. The Courier cuts a joke. The landlord is affectionate, but not weakly so. He bears it like a man. He shakes hands with his brave brother, but he don’t hug him. Still, he loves his brother; for he knows that he will be returning that way, one of these fine days, with another family, and he foresees that his heart will yearn towards him again. The brave Courier traverses all round the carriage once, looks at the drag, inspects the wheels, jumps up, gives the word, and away we go!

It is market morning. The market is held in the little square outside in front of the cathedral. It is crowded with men and women, in blue, in red, in green, in white; with canvassed stalls; and fluttering merchandise. The country people are grouped about, with their clean baskets before them. Here, the lace-sellers; there, the butter and egg-sellers; there, the fruit-sellers; there, the shoe-makers. The whole place looks as if it were the stage of some great theatre, and the curtain had just run up, for a picturesque ballet. And there is the cathedral to boot: scene-like: all grim, and swarthy, and mouldering, and cold: just splashing the pavement in one place with faint purple drops, as the morning sun, entering by a little window on the eastern side, struggles through some stained glass panes, on the western.

In five minutes we have passed the iron cross, with a little ragged kneeling-place of turf before it, in the outskirts of the town; and are again upon the road.

p. 225LYONS, THE RHONE, AND THE GOBLIN OF AVIGNON

Chalons is a fair resting-place, in right of its good inn on the bank of the river, and the little steamboats, gay with green and red paint, that come and go upon it: which make up a pleasant and refreshing scene, after the dusty roads. But, unless you would like to dwell on an enormous plain, with jagged rows of irregular poplars on it, that look in the distance like so many combs with broken teeth: and unless you would like to pass your life without the possibility of going up-hill, or going up anything but stairs: you would hardly approve of Chalons as a place of residence.

You would probably like it better, however, than Lyons: which you may reach, if you will, in one of the before-mentioned steamboats, in eight hours.

What a city Lyons is! Talk about people feeling, at certain unlucky times, as if they had tumbled from the clouds! Here is a whole town that is tumbled, anyhow, out of the sky; having been first caught up, like other stones that tumble down from that region, out of fens and barren places, dismal to behold! The two great streets through which the two great rivers dash, and all the little streets whose name is Legion, were scorching, blistering, and sweltering. The houses, high and vast, dirty to excess, rotten as old cheeses, and as thickly peopled. All up the hills that hem the city in, these houses swarm; and the mites inside were lolling out of the windows, and drying their ragged clothes on poles, and crawling in and out at the doors, and coming out to pant and gasp upon the pavement, and creeping in and out among huge piles and bales of fusty, musty, stifling goods; and living, or rather not dying till their time should come, in an exhausted receiver. Every manufacturing town, melted into one, would hardly convey an impression of Lyons as it presented itself to me: for all the undrained, unscavengered qualities of a foreign town, seemed grafted, there, upon the native miseries of a manufacturing one; and it bears such fruit as I would go some miles out of my way to avoid encountering again.

In the cool of the evening: or rather in the faded heat of the day: we went to see the Cathedral, where divers old women, and a few dogs, were engaged in contemplation. There was no difference, in point of cleanliness, between its stone pavement and that of the streets; and there was a wax saint, in a little box like a berth aboard ship, with a glass front to it, whom Madame Tussaud would have nothing to say to, on any terms, and which even Westminster Abbey might be ashamed of. If you would know all about the architecture of this church, or any other, its dates, dimensions, endowments, and history, is it not written in Mr. Murray’s Guide-Book, and may you not read it there, with thanks to him, as I did!

For this reason, I should abstain from mentioning the curious clock in Lyons Cathedral, if it were not for a small mistake I made, in connection with that piece of mechanism. The keeper of the church was very anxious it should be shown; partly for the honour of the establishment and the town; and partly, perhaps, because of his deriving a percentage from the additional consideration. However that may be, it was set in motion, and thereupon a host of little doors flew open, and innumerable little figures staggered out of them, and jerked themselves back again, with that special unsteadiness of purpose, and hitching in the gait, which usually attaches to figures that are moved by clock-work. Meanwhile, the Sacristan stood explaining these wonders, and pointing them out, severally, with a wand. There was a centre puppet of the Virgin Mary; and close to her, a small pigeon-hole, out of which another and a very ill-looking puppet made one of the most sudden plunges I ever saw accomplished: instantly flopping back again at sight of her, and banging his little door violently after him. Taking this to be emblematic of the victory over Sin and Death, and not at all unwilling to show that I perfectly understood the subject, in anticipation of the showman, I rashly said, ‘Aha! The Evil Spirit. To be sure. He is very soon disposed of.’ ‘Pardon, Monsieur,’ said the Sacristan, with a polite motion of his hand towards the little door, as if introducing somebody—‘The Angel Gabriel!’

Soon after daybreak next morning, we were steaming down the Arrowy Rhone, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, in a very dirty vessel full of merchandise, and with only three or four other passengers for our companions: among whom, the most remarkable was a silly, old, meek-faced, garlic-eating, immeasurably polite Chevalier, with a dirty scrap of red ribbon hanging at his button-hole, as if he had tied it there to remind himself of something; as Tom Noddy, in the farce, ties knots in his pocket-handkerchief.

For the last two days, we had seen great sullen hills, the first indications of the Alps, lowering in the distance. Now, we were rushing on beside them: sometimes close beside them: sometimes with an intervening slope, covered with vineyards. Villages and small towns hanging in mid-air, with great woods of olives seen through the light open towers of their churches, and clouds moving slowly on, upon the steep acclivity behind them; ruined castles perched on every eminence; and scattered houses in the clefts and gullies of the hills; made it very beautiful. The great height of these, too, making the buildings look so tiny, that they had all the charm of elegant models; their excessive whiteness, as contrasted with the brown rocks, or the sombre, deep, dull, heavy green of the olive-tree; and the puny size, and little slow walk of the Lilliputian men and women on the bank; made a charming picture. There were ferries out of number, too; bridges; the famous Pont d’Esprit, with I don’t know how many arches; towns where memorable wines are made; Vallence, where Napoleon studied; and the noble river, bringing at every winding turn, new beauties into view.

There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge of Avignon, and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an under-done-pie-crust, battlemented wall, that never will be brown, though it bake for centuries.

The grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets, and the brilliant Oleander was in full bloom everywhere. The streets are old and very narrow, but tolerably clean, and shaded by awnings stretched from house to house. Bright stuffs and handkerchiefs, curiosities, ancient frames of carved wood, old chairs, ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very quaint and lively. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses one caught, through a rusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy court-yards, having stately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It was all very like one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The three one-eyed Calenders might have knocked at any one of those doors till the street rang again, and the porter who persisted in asking questions—the man who had the delicious purchases put into his basket in the morning—might have opened it quite naturally.

After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Such a delicious breeze was blowing in, from the north, as made the walk delightful: though the pavement-stones, and stones of the walls and houses, were far too hot to have a hand laid on them comfortably.

We went, first of all, up a rocky height, to the cathedral: where Mass was performing to an auditory very like that of Lyons, namely, several old women, a baby, and a very self-possessed dog, who had marked out for himself a little course or platform for exercise, beginning at the altar-rails and ending at the door, up and down which constitutional walk he trotted, during the service, as methodically and calmly, as any old gentleman out of doors.

It is a bare old church, and the paintings in the roof are sadly defaced by time and damp weather; but the sun was shining in, splendidly, through the red curtains of the windows, and glittering on the altar furniture; and it looked as bright and cheerful as need be.

Going apart, in this church, to see some painting which was being executed in fresco by a French artist and his pupil, I was led to observe more closely than I might otherwise have done, a great number of votive offerings with which the walls of the different chapels were profusely hung. I will not say decorated, for they were very roughly and comically got up; most likely by poor sign-painters, who eke out their living in that way. They were all little pictures: each representing some sickness or calamity from which the person placing it there, had escaped, through the interposition of his or her patron saint, or of the Madonna; and I may refer to them as good specimens of the class generally. They are abundant in Italy.

In a grotesque squareness of outline, and impossibility of perspective, they are not unlike the woodcuts in old books; but they were oil-paintings, and the artist, like the painter of the Primrose family, had not been sparing of his colours. In one, a lady was having a toe amputated—an operation which a saintly personage had sailed into the room, upon a couch, to superintend. In another, a lady was lying in bed, tucked up very tight and prim, and staring with much composure at a tripod, with a slop-basin on it; the usual form of washing-stand, and the only piece of furniture, besides the bedstead, in her chamber. One would never have supposed her to be labouring under any complaint, beyond the inconvenience of being miraculously wide awake, if the painter had not hit upon the idea of putting all her family on their knees in one corner, with their legs sticking out behind them on the floor, like boot-trees. Above whom, the Virgin, on a kind of blue divan, promised to restore the patient. In another case, a lady was in the very act of being run over, immediately outside the city walls, by a sort of piano-forte van. But the Madonna was there again. Whether the supernatural appearance had startled the horse (a bay griffin), or whether it was invisible to him, I don’t know; but he was galloping away, ding dong, without the smallest reverence or compunction. On every picture ‘Ex voto’ was painted in yellow capitals in the sky.

Though votive offerings were not unknown in Pagan Temples, and are evidently among the many compromises made between the false religion and the true, when the true was in its infancy, I could wish that all the other compromises were as harmless. Gratitude and Devotion are Christian qualities; and a grateful, humble, Christian spirit may dictate the observance.

Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack: while gloomy suites of state apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went there, to see state rooms, nor soldiers’ quarters, nor a common jail, though we dropped some money into a prisoners’ box outside, whilst the prisoners, themselves, looked through the iron bars, high up, and watched us eagerly. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in which the Inquisition used to sit.

A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes,—proof that the world hadn’t conjured down the devil within her, though it had had between sixty and seventy years to do it in,—came out of the Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in her hands, and marshalled us the way that we should go. How she told us, on the way, that she was a Government Officer (concierge du palais a apostolique), and had been, for I don’t know how many years; and how she had shown these dungeons to princes; and how she was the best of dungeon demonstrators; and how she had resided in the palace from an infant,—had been born there, if I recollect right,—I needn’t relate. But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic she-devil I never beheld. She was alight and flaming, all the time. Her action was violent in the extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for the purpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flung herself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were there still: now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had a mysterious, hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching the remains of some new horror—looking back and walking stealthily, and making horrible grimaces—that might alone have qualified her to walk up and down a sick man’s counterpane, to the exclusion of all other figures, through a whole fever.

Passing through the court-yard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and locked again behind us: and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the mouth of a ruined subterranean passage, that once communicated (or is said to have done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of the river. Close to this court-yard is a dungeon—we stood within it, in another minute—in the dismal tower des oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an iron chain to the very wall that stands there now, but shut out from the sky which now looks down into it. A few steps brought us to the Cachots, in which the prisoners of the Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively doored and fastened, as of old.

Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a vaulted chamber, now used as a store-room: once the chapel of the Holy Office. The place where the tribunal sat, was plain. The platform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition chambers! But it was, and may be traced there yet.

High up in the jealous wall, are niches where the faltering replies of the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully; along the same stone passage. We had trodden in their very footsteps.

I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining—a rugged room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day. I ask her what it is. She folds her arms, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little company are there; sits down upon a mound of stones; throws up her arms, and yells out, like a fiend, ‘La Salle de la Question!’

The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle the victim’s cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile, in silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame out again.

Minutes! Seconds are not marked upon the Palace clock, when, with her eyes flashing fire, Goblin is up, in the middle of the chamber, describing, with her sunburnt arms, a wheel of heavy blows. Thus it ran round! cries Goblin. Mash, mash, mash! An endless routine of heavy hammers. Mash, mash, mash! upon the sufferer’s limbs. See the stone trough! says Goblin. For the water torture! Gurgle, swill, bloat, burst, for the Redeemer’s honour! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into your unbelieving body, Heretic, at every breath you draw! And when the executioner plucks it out, reeking with the smaller mysteries of God’s own Image, know us for His chosen servants, true believers in the Sermon on the Mount, elect disciples of Him who never did a miracle but to heal: who never struck a man with palsy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, madness, any one affliction of mankind; and never stretched His blessed hand out, but to give relief and ease!

See! cries Goblin. There the furnace was. There they made the irons red-hot. Those holes supported the sharp stake, on which the tortured persons hung poised: dangling with their whole weight from the roof. ‘But;’ and Goblin whispers this; ‘Monsieur has heard of this tower? Yes? Let Monsieur look down, then!’

A cold air, laden with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of Monsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in the wall. Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the top, of a steep, dark, lofty tower: very dismal, very dark, very cold. The Executioner of the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging in her head to look down also, flung those who were past all further torturing, down here. ‘But look! does Monsieur see the black stains on the wall?’ A glance, over his shoulder, at Goblin’s keen eye, shows Monsieur—and would without the aid of the directing key—where they are. ‘What are they?’ ‘Blood!’

In October, 1791, when the Revolution was at its height here, sixty persons: men and women (‘and priests,’ says Goblin, ‘priests’): were murdered, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, where a quantity of quick-lime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone of the strong building in which the deed was done, remains upon another, there they will lie in the memories of men, as plain to see as the splashing of their blood upon the wall is now.

Was it a portion of the great scheme of Retribution, that the cruel deed should be committed in this place! That a part of the atrocities and monstrous institutions, which had been, for scores of years, at work, to change men’s nature, should in its last service, tempt them with the ready means of gratifying their furious and beastly rage! Should enable them to show themselves, in the height of their frenzy, no worse than a great, solemn, legal establishment, in the height of its power! No worse! Much better. They used the Tower of the Forgotten, in the name of Liberty—their liberty; an earth-born creature, nursed in the black mud of the Bastile moats and dungeons, and necessarily betraying many evidences of its unwholesome bringing-up—but the Inquisition used it in the name of Heaven.

Goblin’s finger is lifted; and she steals out again, into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave Courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in the floor, as round a grave.

‘Voilà!’ she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a crash, in her goblin energy, though it is no light weight. ‘Voilà les oubliettes! Voilà les oubliettes! Subterranean! Frightful! Black! Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes de l’Inquisition!’

My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside: of wives, friends, children, brothers: starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in, on all persecution in God’s name, but which is not yet at its noon! It cannot look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a traveller who sees it, calmly and majestically, treading down the darkness of that Infernal Well.

p. 233AVIGNON TO GENOA

Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup was struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously.

When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the outer gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building. Her cabaret, a dark, low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick wall—in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements and scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober-looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin,) knitting at the door—looked exactly like a picture by Ostade.

I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and yet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the light, down in the vaults, had given me the assurance. The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of its opposite old uses: an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition: at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting, religion, and blood: gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could think of little, however, then, or long afterwards, but the sun in the dungeons. The palace coming down to be the lounging-place of noisy soldiers, and being forced to echo their rough talk, and common oaths, and to have their garments fluttering from its dirty windows, was some reduction of its state, and something to rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of its chambers of cruelty—that was its desolation and defeat! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could waste it, like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber, and its prisons.

Before I quit this Palace of the Popes, let me translate from the little history I mentioned just now, a short anecdote, quite appropriate to itself, connected with its adventures.

‘An ancient tradition relates, that in 1441, a nephew of Pierre de Lude, the Pope’s legate, seriously insulted some distinguished ladies of Avignon, whose relations, in revenge, seized the young man, and horribly mutilated him. For several years the legate kept his revenge within his own breast, but he was not the less resolved upon its gratification at last. He even made, in the fulness of time, advances towards a complete reconciliation; and when their apparent sincerity had prevailed, he invited to a splendid banquet, in this palace, certain families, whole families, whom he sought to exterminate. The utmost gaiety animated the repast; but the measures of the legate were well taken. When the dessert was on the board, a Swiss presented himself, with the announcement that a strange ambassador solicited an extraordinary audience. The legate, excusing himself, for the moment, to his guests, retired, followed by his officers. Within a few minutes afterwards, five hundred persons were reduced to ashes: the whole of that wing of the building having been blown into the air with a terrible explosion!’

After seeing the churches (I will not trouble you with churches just now), we left Avignon that afternoon. The heat being very great, the roads outside the walls were strewn with people fast asleep in every little slip of shade, and with lazy groups, half asleep and half awake, who were waiting until the sun should be low enough to admit of their playing bowls among the burnt-up trees, and on the dusty road. The harvest here was already gathered in, and mules and horses were treading out the corn in the fields. We came, at dusk, upon a wild and hilly country, once famous for brigands; and travelled slowly up a steep ascent. So we went on, until eleven at night, when we halted at the town of Aix (within two stages of Marseilles) to sleep.

The hotel, with all the blinds and shutters closed to keep the light and heat out, was comfortable and airy next morning, and the town was very clean; but so hot, and so intensely light, that when I walked out at noon it was like coming suddenly from the darkened room into crisp blue fire. The air was so very clear, that distant hills and rocky points appeared within an hour’s walk; while the town immediately at hand—with a kind of blue wind between me and it—seemed to be white hot, and to be throwing off a fiery air from the surface.

We left this town towards evening, and took the road to Marseilles. A dusty road it was; the houses shut up close; and the vines powdered white. At nearly all the cottage doors, women were peeling and slicing onions into earthen bowls for supper. So they had been doing last night all the way from Avignon. We passed one or two shady dark châteaux, surrounded by trees, and embellished with cool basins of water: which were the more refreshing to behold, from the great scarcity of such residences on the road we had travelled. As we approached Marseilles, the road began to be covered with holiday people. Outside the public-houses were parties smoking, drinking, playing draughts and cards, and (once) dancing. But dust, dust, dust, everywhere. We went on, through a long, straggling, dirty suburb, thronged with people; having on our left a dreary slope of land, on which the country-houses of the Marseilles merchants, always staring white, are jumbled and heaped without the slightest order: backs, fronts, sides, and gables towards all points of the compass; until, at last, we entered the town.

I was there, twice or thrice afterwards, in fair weather and foul; and I am afraid there is no doubt that it is a dirty and disagreeable place. But the prospect, from the fortified heights, of the beautiful Mediterranean, with its lovely rocks and islands, is most delightful. These heights are a desirable retreat, for less picturesque reasons—as an escape from a compound of vile smells perpetually arising from a great harbour full of stagnant water, and befouled by the refuse of innumerable ships with all sorts of cargoes: which, in hot weather, is dreadful in the last degree.

There were foreign sailors, of all nations, in the streets; with red shirts, blue shirts, buff shirts, tawny shirts, and shirts of orange colour; with red caps, blue caps, green caps, great beards, and no beards; in Turkish turbans, glazed English hats, and Neapolitan head-dresses. There were the townspeople sitting in clusters on the pavement, or airing themselves on the tops of their houses, or walking up and down the closest and least airy of Boulevards; and there were crowds of fierce-looking people of the lower sort, blocking up the way, constantly. In the very heart of all this stir and uproar, was the common madhouse; a low, contracted, miserable building, looking straight upon the street, without the smallest screen or court-yard; where chattering mad-men and mad-women were peeping out, through rusty bars, at the staring faces below, while the sun, darting fiercely aslant into their little cells, seemed to dry up their brains, and worry them, as if they were baited by a pack of dogs.

We were pretty well accommodated at the Hôtel du Paradis, situated in a narrow street of very high houses, with a hairdresser’s shop opposite, exhibiting in one of its windows two full-length waxen ladies, twirling round and round: which so enchanted the hairdresser himself, that he and his family sat in arm-chairs, and in cool undresses, on the pavement outside, enjoying the gratification of the passers-by, with lazy dignity. The family had retired to rest when we went to bed, at midnight; but the hairdresser (a corpulent man, in drab slippers) was still sitting there, with his legs stretched out before him, and evidently couldn’t bear to have the shutters put up.

Next day we went down to the harbour, where the sailors of all nations were discharging and taking in cargoes of all kinds: fruits, wines, oils, silks, stuffs, velvets, and every manner of merchandise. Taking one of a great number of lively little boats with gay-striped awnings, we rowed away, under the sterns of great ships, under tow-ropes and cables, against and among other boats, and very much too near the sides of vessels that were faint with oranges, to the Marie Antoinette, a handsome steamer bound for Genoa, lying near the mouth of the harbour. By-and-by, the carriage, that unwieldy ‘trifle from the Pantechnicon,’ on a flat barge, bumping against everything, and giving occasion for a prodigious quantity of oaths and grimaces, came stupidly alongside; and by five o’clock we were steaming out in the open sea. The vessel was beautifully clean; the meals were served under an awning on deck; the night was calm and clear; the quiet beauty of the sea and sky unspeakable.

We were off Nice, early next morning, and coasted along, within a few miles of the Cornice road (of which more in its place) nearly all day. We could see Genoa before three; and watching it as it gradually developed its splendid amphitheatre, terrace rising above terrace, garden above garden, palace above palace, height upon height, was ample occupation for us, till we ran into the stately harbour. Having been duly astonished, here, by the sight of a few Cappucini monks, who were watching the fair-weighing of some wood upon the wharf, we drove off to Albaro, two miles distant, where we had engaged a house.

The way lay through the main streets, but not through the Strada Nuova, or the Strada Balbi, which are the famous streets of palaces. I never in my life was so dismayed! The wonderful novelty of everything, the unusual smells, the unaccountable filth (though it is reckoned the cleanest of Italian towns), the disorderly jumbling of dirty houses, one upon the roof of another; the passages more squalid and more close than any in St. Giles’s or old Paris; in and out of which, not vagabonds, but well-dressed women, with white veils and great fans, were passing and repassing; the perfect absence of resemblance in any dwelling-house, or shop, or wall, or post, or pillar, to anything one had ever seen before; and the disheartening dirt, discomfort, and decay; perfectly confounded me. I fell into a dismal reverie. I am conscious of a feverish and bewildered vision of saints and virgins’ shrines at the street corners—of great numbers of friars, monks, and soldiers—of vast red curtains, waving in the doorways of the churches—of always going up hill, and yet seeing every other street and passage going higher up—of fruit-stalls, with fresh lemons and oranges hanging in garlands made of vine-leaves—of a guard-house, and a drawbridge—and some gateways—and vendors of iced water, sitting with little trays upon the margin of the kennel—and this is all the consciousness I had, until I was set down in a rank, dull, weedy court-yard, attached to a kind of pink jail; and was told I lived there.

I little thought, that day, that I should ever come to have an attachment for the very stones in the streets of Genoa, and to look back upon the city with affection as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet! But these are my first impressions honestly set down; and how they changed, I will set down too. At present, let us breathe after this long-winded journey.

p. 238GENOA AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

The first impressions of such a place as Albaro, the suburb of Genoa, where I am now, as my American friends would say, ‘located,’ can hardly fail, I should imagine, to be mournful and disappointing. It requires a little time and use to overcome the feeling of depression consequent, at first, on so much ruin and neglect. Novelty, pleasant to most people, is particularly delightful, I think, to me. I am not easily dispirited when I have the means of pursuing my own fancies and occupations; and I believe I have some natural aptitude for accommodating myself to circumstances. But, as yet, I stroll about here, in all the holes and corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (it sounds romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by): have sufficient occupation in pondering over my new experiences, and comparing them, very much to my own amusement, with my expectations, until I wander out again.

The Villa Bagnerello: or the Pink Jail, a far more expressive name for the mansion: is in one of the most splendid situations imaginable. The noble bay of Genoa, with the deep blue Mediterranean, lies stretched out near at hand; monstrous old desolate houses and palaces are dotted all about; lofty hills, with their tops often hidden in the clouds, and with strong forts perched high up on their craggy sides, are close upon the left; and in front, stretching from the walls of the house, down to a ruined chapel which stands upon the bold and picturesque rocks on the sea-shore, are green vineyards, where you may wander all day long in partial shade, through interminable vistas of grapes, trained on a rough trellis-work across the narrow paths.

This sequestered spot is approached by lanes so very narrow, that when we arrived at the Custom-house, we found the people here had taken the measure of the narrowest among them, and were waiting to apply it to the carriage; which ceremony was gravely performed in the street, while we all stood by in breathless suspense. It was found to be a very tight fit, but just a possibility, and no more—as I am reminded every day, by the sight of various large holes which it punched in the walls on either side as it came along. We are more fortunate, I am told, than an old lady, who took a house in these parts not long ago, and who stuck fast in her carriage in a lane; and as it was impossible to open one of the doors, she was obliged to submit to the indignity of being hauled through one of the little front windows, like a harlequin.

When you have got through these narrow lanes, you come to an archway, imperfectly stopped up by a rusty old gate—my gate. The rusty old gate has a bell to correspond, which you ring as long as you like, and which nobody answers, as it has no connection whatever with the house. But there is a rusty old knocker, too—very loose, so that it slides round when you touch it—and if you learn the trick of it, and knock long enough, somebody comes. The brave Courier comes, and gives you admittance. You walk into a seedy little garden, all wild and weedy, from which the vineyard opens; cross it, enter a square hall like a cellar, walk up a cracked marble staircase, and pass into a most enormous room with a vaulted roof and whitewashed walls: not unlike a great Methodist chapel. This is the sala. It has five windows and five doors, and is decorated with pictures which would gladden the heart of one of those picture-cleaners in London who hang up, as a sign, a picture divided, like death and the lady, at the top of the old ballad: which always leaves you in a state of uncertainty whether the ingenious professor has cleaned one half, or dirtied the other. The furniture of this sala is a sort of red brocade. All the chairs are immovable, and the sofa weighs several tons.

On the same floor, and opening out of this same chamber, are dining-room, drawing-room, and divers bedrooms: each with a multiplicity of doors and windows. Up-stairs are divers other gaunt chambers, and a kitchen; and down-stairs is another kitchen, which, with all sorts of strange contrivances for burning charcoal, looks like an alchemical laboratory. There are also some half-dozen small sitting-rooms, where the servants in this hot July, may escape from the heat of the fire, and where the brave Courier plays all sorts of musical instruments of his own manufacture, all the evening long. A mighty old, wandering, ghostly, echoing, grim, bare house it is, as ever I beheld or thought of.

There is a little vine-covered terrace, opening from the drawing-room; and under this terrace, and forming one side of the little garden, is what used to be the stable. It is now a cow-house, and has three cows in it, so that we get new milk by the bucketful. There is no pasturage near, and they never go out, but are constantly lying down, and surfeiting themselves with vine-leaves—perfect Italian cows enjoying the dolce far’ niente all day long. They are presided over, and slept with, by an old man named Antonio, and his son; two burnt-sienna natives with naked legs and feet, who wear, each, a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a red sash, with a relic, or some sacred charm like the bonbon off a twelfth-cake, hanging round the neck. The old man is very anxious to convert me to the Catholic faith, and exhorts me frequently. We sit upon a stone by the door, sometimes in the evening, like Robinson Crusoe and Friday reversed; and he generally relates, towards my conversion, an abridgment of the History of Saint Peter—chiefly, I believe, from the unspeakable delight he has in his imitation of the cock.

The view, as I have said, is charming; but in the day you must keep the lattice-blinds close shut, or the sun would drive you mad; and when the sun goes down you must shut up all the windows, or the mosquitoes would tempt you to commit suicide. So at this time of the year, you don’t see much of the prospect within doors. As for the flies, you don’t mind them. Nor the fleas, whose size is prodigious, and whose name is Legion, and who populate the coach-house to that extent that I daily expect to see the carriage going off bodily, drawn by myriads of industrious fleas in harness. The rats are kept away, quite comfortably, by scores of lean cats, who roam about the garden for that purpose. The lizards, of course, nobody cares for; they play in the sun, and don’t bite. The little scorpions are merely curious. The beetles are rather late, and have not appeared yet. The frogs are company. There is a preserve of them in the grounds of the next villa; and after nightfall, one would think that scores upon scores of women in pattens were going up and down a wet stone pavement without a moment’s cessation. That is exactly the noise they make.

The ruined chapel, on the picturesque and beautiful sea-shore, was dedicated, once upon a time, to Saint John the Baptist. I believe there is a legend that Saint John’s bones were received there, with various solemnities, when they were first brought to Genoa; for Genoa possesses them to this day. When there is any uncommon tempest at sea, they are brought out and exhibited to the raging weather, which they never fail to calm. In consequence of this connection of Saint John with the city, great numbers of the common people are christened Giovanni Baptista, which latter name is pronounced in the Genoese patois ‘Batcheetcha,’ like a sneeze. To hear everybody calling everybody else Batcheetcha, on a Sunday, or festa-day, when there are crowds in the streets, is not a little singular and amusing to a stranger.

The narrow lanes have great villas opening into them, whose walls (outside walls, I mean) are profusely painted with all sorts of subjects, grim and holy. But time and the sea-air have nearly obliterated them; and they look like the entrance to Vauxhall Gardens on a sunny day. The court-yards of these houses are overgrown with grass and weeds; all sorts of hideous patches cover the bases of the statues, as if they were afflicted with a cutaneous disorder; the outer gates are rusty; and the iron bars outside the lower windows are all tumbling down. Firewood is kept in halls where costly treasures might be heaped up, mountains high; waterfalls are dry and choked; fountains, too dull to play, and too lazy to work, have just enough recollection of their identity, in their sleep, to make the neighbourhood damp; and the sirocco wind is often blowing over all these things for days together, like a gigantic oven out for a holiday.

Not long ago, there was a festa-day, in honour of the Virgin’s mother, when the young men of the neighbourhood, having worn green wreaths of the vine in some procession or other, bathed in them, by scores. It looked very odd and pretty. Though I am bound to confess (not knowing of the festa at that time), that I thought, and was quite satisfied, they wore them as horses do—to keep the flies off.

Soon afterwards, there was another festa-day, in honour of St. Nazaro. One of the Albaro young men brought two large bouquets soon after breakfast, and coming up-stairs into the great sala, presented them himself. This was a polite way of begging for a contribution towards the expenses of some music in the Saint’s honour, so we gave him whatever it may have been, and his messenger departed: well satisfied. At six o’clock in the evening we went to the church—close at hand—a very gaudy place, hung all over with festoons and bright draperies, and filled, from the altar to the main door, with women, all seated. They wear no bonnets here, simply a long white veil—the ‘mezzero;’ and it was the most gauzy, ethereal-looking audience I ever saw. The young women are not generally pretty, but they walk remarkably well, and in their personal carriage and the management of their veils, display much innate grace and elegance. There were some men present: not very many: and a few of these were kneeling about the aisles, while everybody else tumbled over them. Innumerable tapers were burning in the church; the bits of silver and tin about the saints (especially in the Virgin’s necklace) sparkled brilliantly; the priests were seated about the chief altar; the organ played away, lustily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in a little gallery opposite to the band, hammered away on the desk before him, with a scroll; and a tenor, without any voice, sang. The band played one way, the organ played another, the singer went a third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, and flourished his scroll on some principle of his own: apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. I never did hear such a discordant din. The heat was intense all the time.

The men, in red caps, and with loose coats hanging on their shoulders (they never put them on), were playing bowls, and buying sweetmeats, immediately outside the church. When half-a-dozen of them finished a game, they came into the aisle, crossed themselves with the holy water, knelt on one knee for an instant, and walked off again to play another game at bowls. They are remarkably expert at this diversion, and will play in the stony lanes and streets, and on the most uneven and disastrous ground for such a purpose, with as much nicety as on a billiard-table. But the most favourite game is the national one of Mora, which they pursue with surprising ardour, and at which they will stake everything they possess. It is a destructive kind of gambling, requiring no accessories but the ten fingers, which are always—I intend no pun—at hand. Two men play together. One calls a number—say the extreme one, ten. He marks what portion of it he pleases by throwing out three, or four, or five fingers; and his adversary has, in the same instant, at hazard, and without seeing his hand, to throw out as many fingers, as will make the exact balance. Their eyes and hands become so used to this, and act with such astonishing rapidity, that an uninitiated bystander would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to follow the progress of the game. The initiated, however, of whom there is always an eager group looking on, devour it with the most intense avidity; and as they are always ready to champion one side or the other in case of a dispute, and are frequently divided in their partisanship, it is often a very noisy proceeding. It is never the quietest game in the world; for the numbers are always called in a loud sharp voice, and follow as close upon each other as they can be counted. On a holiday evening, standing at a window, or walking in a garden, or passing through the streets, or sauntering in any quiet place about the town, you will hear this game in progress in a score of wine-shops at once; and looking over any vineyard walk, or turning almost any corner, will come upon a knot of players in full cry. It is observable that most men have a propensity to throw out some particular number oftener than another; and the vigilance with which two sharp-eyed players will mutually endeavour to detect this weakness, and adapt their game to it, is very curious and entertaining. The effect is greatly heightened by the universal suddenness and vehemence of gesture; two men playing for half a farthing with an intensity as all-absorbing as if the stake were life.

Hard by here is a large Palazzo, formerly belonging to some member of the Brignole family, but just now hired by a school of Jesuits for their summer quarters. I walked into its dismantled precincts the other evening about sunset, and couldn’t help pacing up and down for a little time, drowsily taking in the aspect of the place: which is repeated hereabouts in all directions.

I loitered to and fro, under a colonnade, forming two sides of a weedy, grass-grown court-yard, whereof the house formed a third side, and a low terrace-walk, overlooking the garden and the neighbouring hills, the fourth. I don’t believe there was an uncracked stone in the whole pavement. In the centre was a melancholy statue, so piebald in its decay, that it looked exactly as if it had been covered with sticking-plaster, and afterwards powdered. The stables, coach-houses, offices, were all empty, all ruinous, all utterly deserted.

Doors had lost their hinges, and were holding on by their latches; windows were broken, painted plaster had peeled off, and was lying about in clods; fowls and cats had so taken possession of the out-buildings, that I couldn’t help thinking of the fairy tales, and eyeing them with suspicion, as transformed retainers, waiting to be changed back again. One old Tom in particular: a scraggy brute, with a hungry green eye (a poor relation, in reality, I am inclined to think): came prowling round and round me, as if he half believed, for the moment, that I might be the hero come to marry the lady, and set all to-rights; but discovering his mistake, he suddenly gave a grim snarl, and walked away with such a tremendous tail, that he couldn’t get into the little hole where he lived, but was obliged to wait outside, until his indignation and his tail had gone down together.

In a sort of summer-house, or whatever it may be, in this colonnade, some Englishmen had been living, like grubs in a nut; but the Jesuits had given them notice to go, and they had gone, and that was shut up too. The house: a wandering, echoing, thundering barrack of a place, with the lower windows barred up, as usual, was wide open at the door: and I have no doubt I might have gone in, and gone to bed, and gone dead, and nobody a bit the wiser. Only one suite of rooms on an upper floor was tenanted; and from one of these, the voice of a young-lady vocalist, practising bravura lustily, came flaunting out upon the silent evening.

I went down into the garden, intended to be prim and quaint, with avenues, and terraces, and orange-trees, and statues, and water in stone basins; and everything was green, gaunt, weedy, straggling, under grown or over grown, mildewy, damp, redolent of all sorts of slabby, clammy, creeping, and uncomfortable life. There was nothing bright in the whole scene but a firefly—one solitary firefly—showing against the dark bushes like the last little speck of the departed Glory of the house; and even it went flitting up and down at sudden angles, and leaving a place with a jerk, and describing an irregular circle, and returning to the same place with a twitch that startled one: as if it were looking for the rest of the Glory, and wondering (Heaven knows it might!) what had become of it.

In the course of two months, the flitting shapes and shadows of my dismal entering reverie gradually resolved themselves into familiar forms and substances; and I already began to think that when the time should come, a year hence, for closing the long holiday and turning back to England, I might part from Genoa with anything but a glad heart.

It is a place that ‘grows upon you’ every day. There seems to be always something to find out in it. There are the most extraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can lose your way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle!) twenty times a day, if you like; and turn up again, under the most unexpected and surprising difficulties. It abounds in the strangest contrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn.

They who would know how beautiful the country immediately surrounding Genoa is, should climb (in clear weather) to the top of Monte Faccio, or, at least, ride round the city walls: a feat more easily performed. No prospect can be more diversified and lovely than the changing views of the harbour, and the valleys of the two rivers, the Polcevera and the Bizagno, from the heights along which the strongly fortified walls are carried, like the great wall of China in little. In not the least picturesque part of this ride, there is a fair specimen of a real Genoese tavern, where the visitor may derive good entertainment from real Genoese dishes, such as Tagliarini; Ravioli; German sausages, strong of garlic, sliced and eaten with fresh green figs; cocks’ combs and sheep-kidneys, chopped up with mutton chops and liver; small pieces of some unknown part of a calf, twisted into small shreds, fried, and served up in a great dish like white-bait; and other curiosities of that kind. They often get wine at these suburban Trattorie, from France and Spain and Portugal, which is brought over by small captains in little trading-vessels. They buy it at so much a bottle, without asking what it is, or caring to remember if anybody tells them, and usually divide it into two heaps; of which they label one Champagne, and the other Madeira. The various opposite flavours, qualities, countries, ages, and vintages that are comprised under these two general heads is quite extraordinary. The most limited range is probably from cool Gruel up to old Marsala, and down again to apple Tea.

The great majority of the streets are as narrow as any thoroughfare can well be, where people (even Italian people) are supposed to live and walk about; being mere lanes, with here and there a kind of well, or breathing-place. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts of colours, and are in every stage and state of damage, dirt, and lack of repair. They are commonly let off in floors, or flats, like the houses in the old town of Edinburgh, or many houses in Paris. There are few street doors; the entrance halls are, for the most part, looked upon as public property; and any moderately enterprising scavenger might make a fine fortune by now and then clearing them out. As it is impossible for coaches to penetrate into these streets, there are sedan chairs, gilded and otherwise, for hire in divers places. A great many private chairs are also kept among the nobility and gentry; and at night these are trotted to and fro in all directions, preceded by bearers of great lanthorns, made of linen stretched upon a frame. The sedans and lanthorns are the legitimate successors of the long strings of patient and much-abused mules, that go jingling their little bells through these confined streets all day long. They follow them, as regularly as the stars the sun.

When shall I forget the Streets of Palaces: the Strada Nuova and the Strada Balbi! or how the former looked one summer day, when I first saw it underneath the brightest and most intensely blue of summer skies: which its narrow perspective of immense mansions, reduced to a tapering and most precious strip of brightness, looking down upon the heavy shade below! A brightness not too common, even in July and August, to be well esteemed: for, if the Truth must out, there were not eight blue skies in as many midsummer weeks, saving, sometimes, early in the morning; when, looking out to sea, the water and the firmament were one world of deep and brilliant blue. At other times, there were clouds and haze enough to make an Englishman grumble in his own climate.

The endless details of these rich Palaces: the walls of some of them, within, alive with masterpieces by Vandyke! The great, heavy, stone balconies, one above another, and tier over tier: with here and there, one larger than the rest, towering high up—a huge marble platform; the doorless vestibules, massively barred lower windows, immense public staircases, thick marble pillars, strong dungeon-like arches, and dreary, dreaming, echoing vaulted chambers: among which the eye wanders again, and again, and again, as every palace is succeeded by another—the terrace gardens between house and house, with green arches of the vine, and groves of orange-trees, and blushing oleander in full bloom, twenty, thirty, forty feet above the street—the painted halls, mouldering, and blotting, and rotting in the damp corners, and still shining out in beautiful colours and voluptuous designs, where the walls are dry—the faded figures on the outsides of the houses, holding wreaths, and crowns, and flying upward, and downward, and standing in niches, and here and there looking fainter and more feeble than elsewhere, by contrast with some fresh little Cupids, who on a more recently decorated portion of the front, are stretching out what seems to be the semblance of a blanket, but is, indeed, a sun-dial—the steep, steep, up-hill streets of small palaces (but very large palaces for all that), with marble terraces looking down into close by-ways—the magnificent and innumerable Churches; and the rapid passage from a street of stately edifices, into a maze of the vilest squalor, steaming with unwholesome stenches, and swarming with half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people—make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder: so lively, and yet so dead: so noisy, and yet so quiet: so obtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering: so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep: that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all the inconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the pleasure of an extravagant reality!

The different uses to which some of these Palaces are applied, all at once, is characteristic. For instance, the English Banker (my excellent and hospitable friend) has his office in a good-sized Palazzo in the Strada Nuova. In the hall (every inch of which is elaborately painted, but which is as dirty as a police-station in London), a hook-nosed Saracen’s Head with an immense quantity of black hair (there is a man attached to it) sells walking-sticks. On the other side of the doorway, a lady with a showy handkerchief for head-dress (wife to the Saracen’s Head, I believe) sells articles of her own knitting; and sometimes flowers. A little further in, two or three blind men occasionally beg. Sometimes, they are visited by a man without legs, on a little go-cart, but who has such a fresh-coloured, lively face, and such a respectable, well-conditioned body, that he looks as if he had sunk into the ground up to his middle, or had come, but partially, up a flight of cellar-steps to speak to somebody. A little further in, a few men, perhaps, lie asleep in the middle of the day; or they may be chairmen waiting for their absent freight. If so, they have brought their chairs in with them, and there they stand also. On the left of the hall is a little room: a hatter’s shop. On the first floor, is the English bank. On the first floor also, is a whole house, and a good large residence too. Heaven knows what there may be above that; but when you are there, you have only just begun to go up-stairs. And yet, coming down-stairs again, thinking of this; and passing out at a great crazy door in the back of the hall, instead of turning the other way, to get into the street again; it bangs behind you, making the dismallest and most lonesome echoes, and you stand in a yard (the yard of the same house) which seems to have been unvisited by human foot, for a hundred years. Not a sound disturbs its repose. Not a head, thrust out of any of the grim, dark, jealous windows, within sight, makes the weeds in the cracked pavement faint of heart, by suggesting the possibility of there being hands to grub them up. Opposite to you, is a giant figure carved in stone, reclining, with an urn, upon a lofty piece of artificial rockwork; and out of the urn, dangles the fag end of a leaden pipe, which, once upon a time, poured a small torrent down the rocks. But the eye-sockets of the giant are not drier than this channel is now. He seems to have given his urn, which is nearly upside down, a final tilt; and after crying, like a sepulchral child, ‘All gone!’ to have lapsed into a stony silence.

In the streets of shops, the houses are much smaller, but of great size notwithstanding, and extremely high. They are very dirty: quite undrained, if my nose be at all reliable: and emit a peculiar fragrance, like the smell of very bad cheese, kept in very hot blankets. Notwithstanding the height of the houses, there would seem to have been a lack of room in the City, for new houses are thrust in everywhere. Wherever it has been possible to cram a tumble-down tenement into a crack or corner, in it has gone. If there be a nook or angle in the wall of a church, or a crevice in any other dead wall, of any sort, there you are sure to find some kind of habitation: looking as if it had grown there, like a fungus. Against the Government House, against the old Senate House, round about any large building, little shops stick so close, like parasite vermin to the great carcase. And for all this, look where you may: up steps, down steps, anywhere, everywhere: there are irregular houses, receding, starting forward, tumbling down, leaning against their neighbours, crippling themselves or their friends by some means or other, until one, more irregular than the rest, chokes up the way, and you can’t see any further.

One of the rottenest-looking parts of the town, I think, is down by the landing-wharf: though it may be, that its being associated with a great deal of rottenness on the evening of our arrival, has stamped it deeper in my mind. Here, again, the houses are very high, and are of an infinite variety of deformed shapes, and have (as most of the houses have) something hanging out of a great many windows, and wafting its frowsy fragrance on the breeze. Sometimes, it is a curtain; sometimes, it is a carpet; sometimes, it is a bed; sometimes, a whole line-full of clothes; but there is almost always something. Before the basement of these houses, is an arcade over the pavement: very massive, dark, and low, like an old crypt. The stone, or plaster, of which it is made, has turned quite black; and against every one of these black piles, all sorts of filth and garbage seem to accumulate spontaneously. Beneath some of the arches, the sellers of macaroni and polenta establish their stalls, which are by no means inviting. The offal of a fish-market, near at hand—that is to say, of a back lane, where people sit upon the ground and on various old bulk-heads and sheds, and sell fish when they have any to dispose of—and of a vegetable market, constructed on the same principle—are contributed to the decoration of this quarter; and as all the mercantile business is transacted here, and it is crowded all day, it has a very decided flavour about it. The Porto Franco, or Free Port (where goods brought in from foreign countries pay no duty until they are sold and taken out, as in a bonded warehouse in England), is down here also; and two portentous officials, in cocked hats, stand at the gate to search you if they choose, and to keep out Monks and Ladies. For, Sanctity as well as Beauty has been known to yield to the temptation of smuggling, and in the same way: that is to say, by concealing the smuggled property beneath the loose folds of its dress. So Sanctity and Beauty may, by no means, enter.

The streets of Genoa would be all the better for the importation of a few Priests of prepossessing appearance. Every fourth or fifth man in the streets is a Priest or a Monk; and there is pretty sure to be at least one itinerant ecclesiastic inside or outside every hackney carriage on the neighbouring roads. I have no knowledge, elsewhere, of more repulsive countenances than are to be found among these gentry. If Nature’s handwriting be at all legible, greater varieties of sloth, deceit, and intellectual torpor, could hardly be observed among any class of men in the world.

Mr. Pepys once heard a clergyman assert in his sermon, in illustration of his respect for the Priestly office, that if he could meet a Priest and angel together, he would salute the Priest first. I am rather of the opinion of Petrarch, who, when his pupil Boccaccio wrote to him in great tribulation, that he had been visited and admonished for his writings by a Carthusian Friar who claimed to be a messenger immediately commissioned by Heaven for that purpose, replied, that for his own part, he would take the liberty of testing the reality of the commission by personal observation of the Messenger’s face, eyes, forehead, behaviour, and discourse. I cannot but believe myself, from similar observation, that many unaccredited celestial messengers may be seen skulking through the streets of Genoa, or droning away their lives in other Italian towns.

Perhaps the Cappuccíni, though not a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may be seen, in their coarse dress, in all parts of the town at all times, and begging in the markets early in the morning. The Jesuits too, muster strong in the streets, and go slinking noiselessly about, in pairs, like black cats.

In some of the narrow passages, distinct trades congregate. There is a street of jewellers, and there is a row of booksellers; but even down in places where nobody ever can, or ever could, penetrate in a carriage, there are mighty old palaces shut in among the gloomiest and closest walls, and almost shut out from the sun. Very few of the tradesmen have any idea of setting forth their goods, or disposing them for show. If you, a stranger, want to buy anything, you usually look round the shop till you see it; then clutch it, if it be within reach, and inquire how much. Everything is sold at the most unlikely place. If you want coffee, you go to a sweetmeat shop; and if you want meat, you will probably find it behind an old checked curtain, down half-a-dozen steps, in some sequestered nook as hard to find as if the commodity were poison, and Genoa’s law were death to any that uttered it.

Most of the apothecaries’ shops are great lounging-places. Here, grave men with sticks, sit down in the shade for hours together, passing a meagre Genoa paper from hand to hand, and talking, drowsily and sparingly, about the News. Two or three of these are poor physicians, ready to proclaim themselves on an emergency, and tear off with any messenger who may arrive. You may know them by the way in which they stretch their necks to listen, when you enter; and by the sigh with which they fall back again into their dull corners, on finding that you only want medicine. Few people lounge in the barbers’ shops; though they are very numerous, as hardly any man shaves himself. But the apothecary’s has its group of loungers, who sit back among the bottles, with their hands folded over the tops of their sticks. So still and quiet, that either you don’t see them in the darkened shop, or mistake them—as I did one ghostly man in bottle-green, one day, with a hat like a stopper—for Horse Medicine.

On a summer evening the Genoese are as fond of putting themselves, as their ancestors were of putting houses, in every available inch of space in and about the town. In all the lanes and alleys, and up every little ascent, and on every dwarf wall, and on every flight of steps, they cluster like bees. Meanwhile (and especially on festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not in peals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular, jerking, dingle, dingle, dingle: with a sudden stop at every fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance is usually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of the clapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dingle louder than every other boy similarly employed. The noise is supposed to be particularly obnoxious to Evil Spirits; but looking up into the steeples, and seeing (and hearing) these young Christians thus engaged, one might very naturally mistake them for the Enemy.

Festa-days, early in the autumn, are very numerous. All the shops were shut up, twice within a week, for these holidays; and one night, all the houses in the neighbourhood of a particular church were illuminated, while the church itself was lighted, outside, p. 250with torches; and a grove of blazing links was erected, in an open space outside one of the city gates. This part of the ceremony is prettier and more singular a little way in the country, where you can trace the illuminated cottages all the way up a steep hill-side; and where you pass festoons of tapers, wasting away in the starlight night, before some lonely little house upon the road.

On these days, they always dress the church of the saint in whose honour the festa is holden, very gaily. Gold-embroidered festoons of different colours, hang from the arches; the altar furniture is set forth; and sometimes, even the lofty pillars are swathed from top to bottom in tight-fitting draperies. The cathedral is dedicated to St. Lorenzo. On St. Lorenzo’s day, we went into it, just as the sun was setting. Although these decorations are usually in very indifferent taste, the effect, just then, was very superb indeed. For the whole building was dressed in red; and the sinking sun, streaming in, through a great red curtain in the chief doorway, made all the gorgeousness its own. When the sun went down, and it gradually grew quite dark inside, except for a few twinkling tapers on the principal altar, and some small dangling silver lamps, it was very mysterious and effective. But, sitting in any of the churches towards evening, is like a mild dose of opium.

With the money collected at a festa, they usually pay for the dressing of the church, and for the hiring of the band, and for the tapers. If there be any left (which seldom happens, I believe), the souls in Purgatory get the benefit of it. They are also supposed to have the benefit of the exertions of certain small boys, who shake money-boxes before some mysterious little buildings like rural turnpikes, which (usually shut up close) fly open on Red-letter days, and disclose an image and some flowers inside.

Just without the city gate, on the Albara road, is a small house, with an altar in it, and a stationary money-box: also for the benefit of the souls in Purgatory. Still further to stimulate the charitable, there is a monstrous painting on the plaster, on either side of the grated door, representing a select party of souls, frying. One of them has a grey moustache, and an elaborate head of grey hair: as if he had been taken out of a hairdresser’s window and cast into the furnace. There he is: a most grotesque and hideously comic old soul: for ever blistering in the real sun, and melting in the mimic fire, for the gratification and improvement (and the contributions) of the poor Genoese.

They are not a very joyous people, and are seldom seen to dance on their holidays: the staple places of entertainment among the women, being the churches and the public walks. They are very good-tempered, obliging, and industrious. Industry has not made them clean, for their habitations are extremely filthy, and their usual occupation on a fine Sunday morning, is to sit at their doors, hunting in each other’s heads. But their dwellings are so close and confined that if those parts of the city had been beaten down by Massena in the time of the terrible Blockade, it would have at least occasioned one public benefit among many misfortunes.

The Peasant Women, with naked feet and legs, are so constantly washing clothes, in the public tanks, and in every stream and ditch, that one cannot help wondering, in the midst of all this dirt, who wears them when they are clean. The custom is to lay the wet linen which is being operated upon, on a smooth stone, and hammer away at it, with a flat wooden mallet. This they do, as furiously as if they were revenging themselves on dress in general for being connected with the Fall of Mankind.

It is not unusual to see, lying on the edge of the tank at these times, or on another flat stone, an unfortunate baby, tightly swathed up, arms and legs and all, in an enormous quantity of wrapper, so that it is unable to move a toe or finger. This custom (which we often see represented in old pictures) is universal among the common people. A child is left anywhere without the possibility of crawling away, or is accidentally knocked off a shelf, or tumbled out of bed, or is hung up to a hook now and then, and left dangling like a doll at an English rag-shop, without the least inconvenience to anybody.

I was sitting, one Sunday, soon after my arrival, in the little country church of San Martino, a couple of miles from the city, while a baptism took place. I saw the priest, and an attendant with a large taper, and a man, and a woman, and some others; but I had no more idea, until the ceremony was all over, that it was a baptism, or that the curious little stiff instrument, that was passed from one to another, in the course of the ceremony, by the handle—like a short poker—was a child, than I had that it was my own christening. I borrowed the child afterwards, for a minute or two (it was lying across the font then), and found it very red in the face but perfectly quiet, and not to be bent on any terms. The number of cripples in the streets, soon ceased to surprise me.

There are plenty of Saints’ and Virgin’s Shrines, of course; generally at the corners of streets. The favourite memento to the Faithful, about Genoa, is a painting, representing a peasant on his knees, with a spade and some other agricultural implements beside him; and the Madonna, with the Infant Saviour in her arms, appearing to him in a cloud. This is the legend of the Madonna della Guardia: a chapel on a mountain within a few miles, which is in high repute. It seems that this peasant lived all alone by himself, tilling some land atop of the mountain, where, being a devout man, he daily said his prayers to the Virgin in the open air; for his hut was a very poor one. Upon a certain day, the Virgin appeared to him, as in the picture, and said, ‘Why do you pray in the open air, and without a priest?’ The peasant explained because there was neither priest nor church at hand—a very uncommon complaint indeed in Italy. ‘I should wish, then,’ said the Celestial Visitor, ‘to have a chapel built here, in which the prayers of the Faithful may be offered up.’ ‘But, Santissima Madonna,’ said the peasant, ‘I am a poor man; and chapels cannot be built without money. They must be supported, too, Santissima; for to have a chapel and not support it liberally, is a wickedness—a deadly sin.’ This sentiment gave great satisfaction to the visitor. ‘Go!’ said she. ‘There is such a village in the valley on the left, and such another village in the valley on the right, and such another village elsewhere, that will gladly contribute to the building of a chapel. Go to them! Relate what you have seen; and do not doubt that sufficient money will be forthcoming to erect my chapel, or that it will, afterwards, be handsomely maintained.’ All of which (miraculously) turned out to be quite true. And in proof of this prediction and revelation, there is the chapel of the Madonna della Guardia, rich and flourishing at this day.

The splendour and variety of the Genoese churches, can hardly be exaggerated. The church of the Annunciata especially: built, like many of the others, at the cost of one noble family, and now in slow progress of repair: from the outer door to the utmost height of the high cupola, is so elaborately painted and set in gold, that it looks (as Simond describes it, in his charming book on Italy) like a great enamelled snuff-box. Most of the richer churches contain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of great price, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawling effigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel ever seen.

It may be a consequence of the frequent direction of the popular mind, and pocket, to the souls in Purgatory, but there is very little tenderness for the bodies of the dead here. For the very poor, there are, immediately outside one angle of the walls, and behind a jutting point of the fortification, near the sea, certain common pits—one for every day in the year—which all remain closed up, until the turn of each comes for its daily reception of dead bodies. Among the troops in the town, there are usually some Swiss: more or less. When any of these die, they are buried out of a fund maintained by such of their countrymen as are resident in Genoa. Their providing coffins for these men is matter of great astonishment to the authorities.

Certainly, the effect of this promiscuous and indecent splashing down of dead people in so many wells, is bad. It surrounds Death with revolting associations, that insensibly become connected with those whom Death is approaching. Indifference and avoidance are the natural result; and all the softening influences of the great sorrow are harshly disturbed.

There is a ceremony when an old Cavaliére or the like, expires, of erecting a pile of benches in the cathedral, to represent his bier; covering them over with a pall of black velvet; putting his hat and sword on the top; making a little square of seats about the whole; and sending out formal invitations to his friends and acquaintances to come and sit there, and hear Mass: which is performed at the principal Altar, decorated with an infinity of candles for that purpose.

When the better kind of people die, or are at the point of death, their nearest relations generally walk off: retiring into the country for a little change, and leaving the body to be disposed of, without any superintendence from them. The procession is usually formed, and the coffin borne, and the funeral conducted, by a body of persons called a Confratérnita, who, as a kind of voluntary penance, undertake to perform these offices, in regular rotation, for the dead; but who, mingling something of pride with their humility, are dressed in a loose garment covering their whole person, and wear a hood concealing the face; with breathing-holes and apertures for the eyes. The effect of this costume is very ghastly: especially in the case of a certain Blue Confratérnita belonging to Genoa, who, to say the least of them, are very ugly customers, and who look—suddenly encountered in their pious ministration in the streets—as if they were Ghoules or Demons, bearing off the body for themselves.

Although such a custom may be liable to the abuse attendant on many Italian customs, of being recognised as a means of establishing a current account with Heaven, on which to draw, too easily, for future bad actions, or as an expiation for past misdeeds, it must be admitted to be a good one, and a practical one, and one involving unquestionably good works. A voluntary service like this, is surely better than the imposed penance (not at all an infrequent one) of giving so many licks to such and such a stone in the pavement of the cathedral; or than a vow to the Madonna to wear nothing but blue for a year or two. This is supposed to give great delight above; blue being (as is well known) the Madonna’s favourite colour. Women who have devoted themselves to this act of Faith, are very commonly seen walking in the streets.

There are three theatres in the city, besides an old one now rarely opened. The most important—the Carlo Felice: the opera-house of Genoa—is a very splendid, commodious, and beautiful theatre. A company of comedians were acting there, when we arrived: and soon after their departure, a second-rate opera company came. The great season is not until the carnival time—in the spring. Nothing impressed me, so much, in my visits here (which were pretty numerous) as the uncommonly hard and cruel character of the audience, who resent the slightest defect, take nothing good-humouredly, seem to be always lying in wait for an opportunity to hiss, and spare the actresses as little as the actors.

But, as there is nothing else of a public nature at which they are allowed to express the least disapprobation, perhaps they are resolved to make the most of this opportunity.

There are a great number of Piedmontese officers too, who are allowed the privilege of kicking their heels in the pit, for next to nothing: gratuitous, or cheap accommodation for these gentlemen being insisted on, by the Governor, in all public or semi-public entertainments. They are lofty critics in consequence, and infinitely more exacting than if they made the unhappy manager’s fortune.

The Teatro Diurno, or Day Theatre, is a covered stage in the open air, where the performances take place by daylight, in the cool of the afternoon; commencing at four or five o’clock, and lasting, some three hours. It is curious, sitting among the audience, to have a fine view of the neighbouring hills and houses, and to see the neighbours at their windows looking on, and to hear the bells of the churches and convents ringing at most complete cross-purposes with the scene. Beyond this, and the novelty of seeing a play in the fresh pleasant air, with the darkening evening closing in, there is nothing very exciting or characteristic in the performances. The actors are indifferent; and though they sometimes represent one of Goldoni’s comedies, the staple of the Drama is French. Anything like nationality is dangerous to despotic governments, and Jesuit-beleaguered kings.

The Theatre of Puppets, or Marionetti—a famous company from Milan—is, without any exception, the drollest exhibition I ever beheld in my life. I never saw anything so exquisitely ridiculous. They look between four and five feet high, but are really much smaller; for when a musician in the orchestra happens to put his hat on the stage, it becomes alarmingly gigantic, and almost blots out an actor. They usually play a comedy, and a ballet. The comic man in the comedy I saw one summer night, is a waiter in an hotel. There never was such a locomotive actor, since the world began. Great pains are taken with him. He has extra joints in his legs: and a practical eye, with which he winks at the pit, in a manner that is absolutely insupportable to a stranger, but which the initiated audience, mainly composed of the common people, receive (so they do everything else) quite as a matter of course, and as if he were a man. His spirits are prodigious. He continually shakes his legs, and winks his eye. And there is a heavy father with grey hair, who sits down on the regular conventional stage-bank, and blesses his daughter in the regular conventional way, who is tremendous. No one would suppose it possible that anything short of a real man could be so tedious. It is the triumph of art.

In the ballet, an Enchanter runs away with the Bride, in the very hour of her nuptials, He brings her to his cave, and tries to soothe her. They sit down on a sofa (the regular sofa! in the regular place, O. P. Second Entrance!) and a procession of musicians enters; one creature playing a drum, and knocking himself off his legs at every blow. These failing to delight her, dancers appear. Four first; then two; the two; the flesh-coloured two. The way in which they dance; the height to which they spring; the impossible and inhuman extent to which they pirouette; the revelation of their preposterous legs; the coming down with a pause, on the very tips of their toes, when the music requires it; the gentleman’s retiring up, when it is the lady’s turn; and the lady’s retiring up, when it is the gentleman’s turn; the final passion of a pas-de-deux; and the going off with a bound!—I shall never see a real ballet, with a composed countenance again.

I went, another night, to see these Puppets act a play called ‘St. Helena, or the Death of Napoleon.’ It began by the disclosure of Napoleon, with an immense head, seated on a sofa in his chamber at St. Helena; to whom his valet entered with this obscure announcement:

‘Sir Yew ud se on Low?’ (the ow, as in cow).

Sir Hudson (that you could have seen his regimentals!) was a perfect mammoth of a man, to Napoleon; hideously ugly, with a monstrously disproportionate face, and a great clump for the lower-jaw, to express his tyrannical and obdurate nature. He began his system of persecution, by calling his prisoner ‘General Buonaparte;’ to which the latter replied, with the deepest tragedy, ‘Sir Yew ud se on Low, call me not thus. Repeat that phrase and leave me! I am Napoleon, Emperor of France!’ Sir Yew ud se on, nothing daunted, proceeded to entertain him with an ordinance of the British Government, regulating the state he should preserve, and the furniture of his rooms: and limiting his attendants to four or five persons. ‘Four or five for me!’ said Napoleon. ‘Me! One hundred thousand men were lately at my sole command; and this English officer talks of four or five for me!’ Throughout the piece, Napoleon (who talked very like the real Napoleon, and was, for ever, having small soliloquies by himself) was very bitter on ‘these English officers,’ and ‘these English soldiers;’ to the great satisfaction of the audience, who were perfectly delighted to have Low bullied; and who, whenever Low said ‘General Buonaparte’ (which he always did: always receiving the same correction), quite execrated him. It would be hard to say why; for Italians have little cause to sympathise with Napoleon, Heaven knows.

There was no plot at all, except that a French officer, disguised as an Englishman, came to propound a plan of escape; and being discovered, but not before Napoleon had magnanimously refused to steal his freedom, was immediately ordered off by Low to be hanged. In two very long speeches, which Low made memorable, by winding up with ‘Yas!’—to show that he was English—which brought down thunders of applause. Napoleon was so affected by this catastrophe, that he fainted away on the spot, and was carried out by two other puppets. Judging from what followed, it would appear that he never recovered the shock; for the next act showed him, in a clean shirt, in his bed (curtains crimson and white), where a lady, prematurely dressed in mourning, brought two little children, who kneeled down by the bedside, while he made a decent end; the last word on his lips being ‘Vatterlo.’

It was unspeakably ludicrous. Buonaparte’s boots were so wonderfully beyond control, and did such marvellous things of their own accord: doubling themselves up, and getting under tables, and dangling in the air, and sometimes skating away with him, out of all human knowledge, when he was in full speech—mischances which were not rendered the less absurd, by a settled melancholy depicted in his face. To put an end to one conference with Low, he had to go to a table, and read a book: when it was the finest spectacle I ever beheld, to see his body bending over the volume, like a boot-jack, and his sentimental eyes glaring obstinately into the pit. He was prodigiously good, in bed, with an immense collar to his shirt, and his little hands outside the coverlet. So was Dr. Antommarchi, represented by a puppet with long lank hair, like Mawworm’s, who, in consequence of some derangement of his wires, hovered about the couch like a vulture, and gave medical opinions in the air. He was almost as good as Low, though the latter was great at all times—a decided brute and villain, beyond all possibility of mistake. Low was especially fine at the last, when, hearing the doctor and the valet say, ‘The Emperor is dead!’ he pulled out his watch, and wound up the piece (not the watch) by exclaiming, with characteristic brutality, ‘Ha! ha! Eleven minutes to six! The General dead! and the spy hanged!’ This brought the curtain down, triumphantly.

There is not in Italy, they say (and I believe them), a lovelier residence than the Palazzo Peschiere, or Palace of the Fishponds, whither we removed as soon as our three months’ tenancy of the Pink Jail at Albaro had ceased and determined.

It stands on a height within the walls of Genoa, but aloof from the town: surrounded by beautiful gardens of its own, adorned with statues, vases, fountains, marble basins, terraces, walks of orange-trees and lemon-trees, groves of roses and camellias. All its apartments are beautiful in their proportions and decorations; but the great hall, some fifty feet in height, with three large windows at the end, overlooking the whole town of Genoa, the harbour, and the neighbouring sea, affords one of the most fascinating and delightful prospects in the world. Any house more cheerful and habitable than the great rooms are, within, it would be difficult to conceive; and certainly nothing more delicious than the scene without, in sunshine or in moonlight, could be imagined. It is more like an enchanted place in an Eastern story than a grave and sober lodging.

How you may wander on, from room to room, and never tire of the wild fancies on the walls and ceilings, as bright in their fresh colouring as if they had been painted yesterday; or how one floor, or even the great hall which opens on eight other rooms, is a spacious promenade; or how there are corridors and bed-chambers above, which we never use and rarely visit, and scarcely know the way through; or how there is a view of a perfectly different character on each of the four sides of the building; matters little. But that prospect from the hall is like a vision to me. I go back to it, in fancy, as I have done in calm reality a hundred times a day; and stand there, looking out, with the sweet scents from the garden rising up about me, in a perfect dream of happiness.

There lies all Genoa, in beautiful confusion, with its many churches, monasteries, and convents, pointing up into the sunny sky; and down below me, just where the roofs begin, a solitary convent parapet, fashioned like a gallery, with an iron across at the end, where sometimes early in the morning, I have seen a little group of dark-veiled nuns gliding sorrowfully to and fro, and stopping now and then to peep down upon the waking world in which they have no part. Old Monte Faccio, brightest of hills in good weather, but sulkiest when storms are coming on, is here, upon the left. The Fort within the walls (the good King built it to command the town, and beat the houses of the Genoese about their ears, in case they should be discontented) commands that height upon the right. The broad sea lies beyond, in front there; and that line of coast, beginning by the light-house, and tapering away, a mere speck in the rosy distance, is the beautiful coast road that leads to Nice. The garden near at hand, among the roofs and houses: all red with roses and fresh with little fountains: is the Acqua Sola—a public promenade, where the military band plays gaily, and the white veils cluster thick, and the Genoese nobility ride round, and round, and round, in state-clothes and coaches at least, if not in absolute wisdom. Within a stone’s-throw, as it seems, the audience of the Day Theatre sit: their faces turned this way. But as the stage is hidden, it is very odd, without a knowledge of the cause, to see their faces changed so suddenly from earnestness to laughter; and odder still, to hear the rounds upon rounds of applause, rattling in the evening air, to which the curtain falls. But, being Sunday night, they act their best and most attractive play. And now, the sun is going down, in such magnificent array of red, and green, and golden light, as neither pen nor pencil could depict; and to the ringing of the vesper bells, darkness sets in at once, without a twilight. Then, lights begin to shine in Genoa, and on the country road; and the revolving lanthorn out at sea there, flashing, for an instant, on this palace front and portico, illuminates it as if there were a bright moon bursting from behind a cloud; then, merges it in deep obscurity. And this, so far as I know, is the only reason why the Genoese avoid it after dark, and think it haunted.

My memory will haunt it, many nights, in time to come; but nothing worse, I will engage. The same Ghost will occasionally sail away, as I did one pleasant autumn evening, into the bright prospect, and sniff the morning air at Marseilles.

The corpulent hairdresser was still sitting in his slippers outside his shop-door there, but the twirling ladies in the window, with the natural inconstancy of their sex, had ceased to twirl, and were languishing, stock still, with their beautiful faces addressed to blind corners of the establishment, where it was impossible for admirers to penetrate.

The steamer had come from Genoa in a delicious run of eighteen hours, and we were going to run back again by the Cornice road from Nice: not being satisfied to have seen only the outsides of the beautiful towns that rise in picturesque white clusters from among the olive woods, and rocks, and hills, upon the margin of the Sea.

The Boat which started for Nice that night, at eight o’clock, was very small, and so crowded with goods that there was scarcely room to move; neither was there anything to cat on board, except bread; nor to drink, except coffee. But being due at Nice at about eight or so in the morning, this was of no consequence; so when we began to wink at the bright stars, in involuntary acknowledgment of their winking at us, we turned into our berths, in a crowded, but cool little cabin, and slept soundly till morning.

The Boat, being as dull and dogged a little boat as ever was built, it was within an hour of noon when we turned into Nice Harbour, where we very little expected anything but breakfast. But we were laden with wool. Wool must not remain in the Custom-house at Marseilles more than twelve months at a stretch, without paying duty. It is the custom to make fictitious removals of unsold wool to evade this law; to take it somewhere when the twelve months are nearly out; bring it straight back again; and warehouse it, as a new cargo, for nearly twelve months longer. This wool of ours, had come originally from some place in the East. It was recognised as Eastern produce, the moment we entered the harbour. Accordingly, the gay little Sunday boats, full of holiday people, which had come off to greet us, were warned away by the authorities; we were declared in quarantine; and a great flag was solemnly run up to the mast-head on the wharf, to make it known to all the town.

It was a very hot day indeed. We were unshaved, unwashed, undressed, unfed, and could hardly enjoy the absurdity of lying blistering in a lazy harbour, with the town looking on from a respectful distance, all manner of whiskered men in cocked hats discussing our fate at a remote guard-house, with gestures (we looked very hard at them through telescopes) expressive of a week’s detention at least: and nothing whatever the matter all the time. But even in this crisis the brave Courier achieved a triumph. He telegraphed somebody (I saw nobody) either naturally connected with the hotel, or put en rapport with the establishment for that occasion only. The telegraph was answered, and in half an hour or less, there came a loud shout from the guard-house. The captain was wanted. Everybody helped the captain into his boat. Everybody got his luggage, and said we were going. The captain rowed away, and disappeared behind a little jutting corner of the Galley-slaves’ Prison: and presently came back with something, very sulkily. The brave Courier met him at the side, and received the something as its rightful owner. It was a wicker basket, folded in a linen cloth; and in it were two great bottles of wine, a roast fowl, some salt fish chopped with garlic, a great loaf of bread, a dozen or so of peaches, and a few other trifles. When we had selected our own breakfast, the brave Courier invited a chosen party to partake of these refreshments, and assured them that they need not be deterred by motives of delicacy, as he would order a second basket to be furnished at their expense. Which he did—no one knew how—and by-and-by, the captain being again summoned, again sulkily returned with another something; over which my popular attendant presided as before: carving with a clasp-knife, his own personal property, something smaller than a Roman sword.

The whole party on board were made merry by these unexpected supplies; but none more so than a loquacious little Frenchman, who got drunk in five minutes, and a sturdy Cappuccíno Friar, who had taken everybody’s fancy mightily, and was one of the best friars in the world, I verily believe.

He had a free, open countenance; and a rich brown, flowing beard; and was a remarkably handsome man, of about fifty. He had come up to us, early in the morning, and inquired whether we were sure to be at Nice by eleven; saying that he particularly wanted to know, because if we reached it by that time he would have to perform Mass, and must deal with the consecrated wafer, fasting; whereas, if there were no chance of his being in time, he would immediately breakfast. He made this communication, under the idea that the brave Courier was the captain; and indeed he looked much more like it than anybody else on board. Being assured that we should arrive in good time, he fasted, and talked, fasting, to everybody, with the most charming good humour; answering jokes at the expense of friars, with other jokes at the expense of laymen, and saying that, friar as he was, he would engage to take up the two strongest men on board, one after the other, with his teeth, and carry them along the deck. Nobody gave him the opportunity, but I dare say he could have done it; for he was a gallant, noble figure of a man, even in the Cappuccíno dress, which is the ugliest and most ungainly that can well be.

All this had given great delight to the loquacious Frenchman, who gradually patronised the Friar very much, and seemed to commiserate him as one who might have been born a Frenchman himself, but for an unfortunate destiny. Although his patronage was such as a mouse might bestow upon a lion, he had a vast opinion of its condescension; and in the warmth of that sentiment, occasionally rose on tiptoe, to slap the Friar on the back.

When the baskets arrived: it being then too late for Mass: the Friar went to work bravely: eating prodigiously of the cold meat and bread, drinking deep draughts of the wine, smoking cigars, taking snuff, sustaining an uninterrupted conversation with all hands, and occasionally running to the boat’s side and hailing somebody on shore with the intelligence that we must be got out of this quarantine somehow or other, as he had to take part in a great religious procession in the afternoon. After this, he would come back, laughing lustily from pure good humour: while the Frenchman wrinkled his small face into ten thousand creases, and said how droll it was, and what a brave boy was that Friar! At length the heat of the sun without, and the wine within, made the Frenchman sleepy. So, in the noontide of his patronage of his gigantic protégé, he lay down among the wool, and began to snore.

It was four o’clock before we were released; and the Frenchman, dirty and woolly, and snuffy, was still sleeping when the Friar went ashore. As soon as we were free, we all hurried away, to wash and dress, that we might make a decent appearance at the procession; and I saw no more of the Frenchman until we took up our station in the main street to see it pass, when he squeezed himself into a front place, elaborately renovated; threw back his little coat, to show a broad-barred velvet waistcoat, sprinkled all over with stars; then adjusted himself and his cane so as utterly to bewilder and transfix the Friar, when he should appear.

The procession was a very long one, and included an immense number of people divided into small parties; each party chanting nasally, on its own account, without reference to any other, and producing a most dismal result. There were angels, crosses, Virgins carried on flat boards surrounded by Cupids, crowns, saints, missals, infantry, tapers, monks, nuns, relics, dignitaries of the church in green hats, walking under crimson parasols: and, here and there, a species of sacred street-lamp hoisted on a pole. We looked out anxiously for the Cappuccíni, and presently their brown robes and corded girdles were seen coming on, in a body.

I observed the little Frenchman chuckle over the idea that when the Friar saw him in the broad-barred waistcoat, he would mentally exclaim, ‘Is that my Patron! Thatdistinguished man!’ and would be covered with confusion. Ah! never was the Frenchman so deceived. As our friend the Cappuccíno advanced, with folded arms, he looked straight into the visage of the little Frenchman, with a bland, serene, composed abstraction, not to be described. There was not the faintest trace of recognition or amusement on his features; not the smallest consciousness of bread and meat, wine, snuff, or cigars. ‘C’est lui-même,’ I heard the little Frenchman say, in some doubt. Oh yes, it was himself. It was not his brother or his nephew, very like him. It was he. He walked in great state: being one of the Superiors of the Order: and looked his part to admiration. There never was anything so perfect of its kind as the contemplative way in which he allowed his placid gaze to rest on us, his late companions, as if he had never seen us in his life and didn’t see us then. The Frenchman, quite humbled, took off his hat at last, but the Friar still passed on, with the same imperturbable serenity; and the broad-barred waistcoat, fading into the crowd, was seen no more.

The procession wound up with a discharge of musketry that shook all the windows in the town. Next afternoon we started for Genoa, by the famed Cornice road.

The half-French, half-Italian Vetturíno, who undertook, with his little rattling carriage and pair, to convey us thither in three days, was a careless, good-looking fellow, whose light-heartedness and singing propensities knew no bounds as long as we went on smoothly. So long, he had a word and a smile, and a flick of his whip, for all the peasant girls, and odds and ends of the Sonnambula for all the echoes. So long, he went jingling through every little village, with bells on his horses and rings in his ears: a very meteor of gallantry and cheerfulness. But, it was highly characteristic to see him under a slight reverse of circumstances, when, in one part of the journey, we came to a narrow place where a waggon had broken down and stopped up the road. His hands were twined in his hair immediately, as if a combination of all the direst accidents in life had suddenly fallen on his devoted head. He swore in French, prayed in Italian, and went up and down, beating his feet on the ground in a very ecstasy of despair. There were various carters and mule-drivers assembled round the broken waggon, and at last some man of an original turn of mind, proposed that a general and joint effort should be made to get things to-rights again, and clear the way—an idea which I verily believe would never have presented itself to our friend, though we had remained there until now. It was done at no great cost of labour; but at every pause in the doing, his hands were wound in his hair again, as if there were no ray of hope to lighten his misery. The moment he was on his box once more, and clattering briskly down hill, he returned to the Sonnambula and the peasant girls, as if it were not in the power of misfortune to depress him.

Much of the romance of the beautiful towns and villages on this beautiful road, disappears when they are entered, for many of them are very miserable. The streets are narrow, dark, and dirty; the inhabitants lean and squalid; and the withered old women, with their wiry grey hair twisted up into a knot on the top of the head, like a pad to carry loads on, are so intensely ugly, both along the Riviera, and in Genoa, too, that, seen straggling about in dim doorways with their spindles, or crooning together in by-corners, they are like a population of Witches—except that they certainly are not to be suspected of brooms or any other instrument of cleanliness. Neither are the pig-skins, in common use to hold wine, and hung out in the sun in all directions, by any means ornamental, as they always preserve the form of very bloated pigs, with their heads and legs cut off, dangling upside-down by their own tails.

These towns, as they are seen in the approach, however: nestling, with their clustering roofs and towers, among trees on steep hill-sides, or built upon the brink of noble bays: are charming. The vegetation is, everywhere, luxuriant and beautiful, and the Palm-tree makes a novel feature in the novel scenery. In one town, San Remo—a most extraordinary place, built on gloomy open arches, so that one might ramble underneath the whole town—there are pretty terrace gardens; in other towns, there is the clang of shipwrights’ hammers, and the building of small vessels on the beach. In some of the broad bays, the fleets of Europe might ride at anchor. In every case, each little group of houses presents, in the distance, some enchanting confusion of picturesque and fanciful shapes.

The road itself—now high above the glittering sea, which breaks against the foot of the precipice: now turning inland to sweep the shore of a bay: now crossing the stony bed of a mountain stream: now low down on the beach: now winding among riven rocks of many forms and colours: now chequered by a solitary ruined tower, one of a chain of towers built, in old time, to protect the coast from the invasions of the Barbary Corsairs—presents new beauties every moment. When its own striking scenery is passed, and it trails on through a long line of suburb, lying on the flat sea-shore, to Genoa, then, the changing glimpses of that noble city and its harbour, awaken a new source of interest; freshened by every huge, unwieldy, half-inhabited old house in its outskirts: and coming to its climax when the city gate is reached, and all Genoa with its beautiful harbour, and neighbouring hills, bursts proudly on the view.

p. 264TO PARMA, MODENA, AND BOLOGNA

I strolled away from Genoa on the 6th of November, bound for a good many places (England among them), but first for Piacenza; for which town I started in thecoupé of a machine something like a travelling caravan, in company with the brave Courier, and a lady with a large dog, who howled dolefully, at intervals, all night. It was very wet, and very cold; very dark, and very dismal; we travelled at the rate of barely four miles an hour, and stopped nowhere for refreshment. At ten o’clock next morning, we changed coaches at Alessandria, where we were packed up in another coach (the body whereof would have been small for a fly), in company with a very old priest; a young Jesuit, his companion—who carried their breviaries and other books, and who, in the exertion of getting into the coach, had made a gash of pink leg between his black stocking and his black knee-shorts, that reminded one of Hamlet in Ophelia’s closet, only it was visible on both legs—a provincial Avvocáto; and a gentleman with a red nose that had an uncommon and singular sheen upon it, which I never observed in the human subject before. In this way we travelled on, until four o’clock in the afternoon; the roads being still very heavy, and the coach very slow. To mend the matter, the old priest was troubled with cramps in his legs, so that he had to give a terrible yell every ten minutes or so, and be hoisted out by the united efforts of the company; the coach always stopping for him, with great gravity. This disorder, and the roads, formed the main subject of conversation. Finding, in the afternoon, that the coupé had discharged two people, and had only one passenger inside—a monstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which no man could see the ends when he had his hat on—I took advantage of its better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (who was very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, until nearly eleven o’clock at night, when the driver reported that he couldn’t think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a halt at a place called Stradella.

The inn was a series of strange galleries surrounding a yard where our coach, and a waggon or two, and a lot of fowls, and firewood, were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn’t know, and couldn’t have taken your oath, which was a fowl and which was a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into a great, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, on what looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; another deal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor; four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and I walked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at the Tuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocáto (Red-Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon their beds, and stared at me in return.

The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, is interrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking) that supper is ready; and to the priest’s chamber (the next room and the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is a cabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full of water, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are so cold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some little bits of pork, fried with pigs’ kidneys. The third, two red fowls. The fourth, two little red turkeys. The fifth, a huge stew of garlic and truffles, and I don’t know what else; and this concludes the entertainment.

Before I can sit down in my own chamber, and think it of the dampest, the door opens, and the Brave comes moving in, in the middle of such a quantity of fuel that he looks like Birnam Wood taking a winter walk. He kindles this heap in a twinkling, and produces a jorum of hot brandy and water; for that bottle of his keeps company with the seasons, and now holds nothing but the purest eau de vie. When he has accomplished this feat, he retires for the night; and I hear him, for an hour afterwards, and indeed until I fall asleep, making jokes in some outhouse (apparently under the pillow), where he is smoking cigars with a party of confidential friends. He never was in the house in his life before; but he knows everybody everywhere, before he has been anywhere five minutes; and is certain to have attracted to himself, in the meantime, the enthusiastic devotion of the whole establishment.

This is at twelve o’clock at night. At four o’clock next morning, he is up again, fresher than a full-blown rose; making blazing fires without the least authority from the landlord; producing mugs of scalding coffee when nobody else can get anything but cold water; and going out into the dark streets, and roaring for fresh milk, on the chance of somebody with a cow getting up to supply it. While the horses are ‘coming,’ I stumble out into the town too. It seems to be all one little Piazza, with a cold damp wind blowing in and out of the arches, alternately, in a sort of pattern. But it is profoundly dark, and raining heavily; and I shouldn’t know it to-morrow, if I were taken there to try. Which Heaven forbid.

The horses arrive in about an hour. In the interval, the driver swears; sometimes Christian oaths, sometimes Pagan oaths. Sometimes, when it is a long, compound oath, he begins with Christianity and merges into Paganism. Various messengers are despatched; not so much after the horses, as after each other; for the first messenger never comes back, and all the rest imitate him. At length the horses appear, surrounded by all the messengers; some kicking them, and some dragging them, and all shouting abuse to them. Then, the old priest, the young priest, the Avvocáto, the Tuscan, and all of us, take our places; and sleepy voices proceeding from the doors of extraordinary hutches in divers parts of the yard, cry out ‘Addio corrière mio! Buon’ viággio, corrière!’ Salutations which the courier, with his face one monstrous grin, returns in like manner as we go jolting and wallowing away, through the mud.

At Piacenza, which was four or five hours’ journey from the inn at Stradella, we broke up our little company before the hotel door, with divers manifestations of friendly feeling on all sides. The old priest was taken with the cramp again, before he had got half-way down the street; and the young priest laid the bundle of books on a door-step, while he dutifully rubbed the old gentleman’s legs. The client of the Avvocáto was waiting for him at the yard-gate, and kissed him on each cheek, with such a resounding smack, that I am afraid he had either a very bad case, or a scantily-furnished purse. The Tuscan, with a cigar in his mouth, went loitering off, carrying his hat in his hand that he might the better trail up the ends of his dishevelled moustache. And the brave Courier, as he and I strolled away to look about us, began immediately to entertain me with the private histories and family affairs of the whole party.

A brown, decayed, old town, Piacenza is. A deserted, solitary, grass-grown place, with ruined ramparts; half filled-up trenches, which afford a frowsy pasturage to the lean kine that wander about them; and streets of stern houses, moodily frowning at the other houses over the way. The sleepiest and shabbiest of soldiery go wandering about, with the double curse of laziness and poverty, uncouthly wrinkling their misfitting regimentals; the dirtiest of children play with their impromptu toys (pigs and mud) in the feeblest of gutters; and the gauntest of dogs trot in and out of the dullest of archways, in perpetual search of something to eat, which they never seem to find. A mysterious and solemn Palace, guarded by two colossal statues, twin Genii of the place, stands gravely in the midst of the idle town; and the king with the marble legs, who flourished in the time of the thousand and one Nights, might live contentedly inside of it, and never have the energy, in his upper half of flesh and blood, to want to come out.

What a strange, half-sorrowful and half-delicious doze it is, to ramble through these places gone to sleep and basking in the sun! Each, in its turn, appears to be, of all the mouldy, dreary, God-forgotten towns in the wide world, the chief. Sitting on this hillock where a bastion used to be, and where a noisy fortress was, in the time of the old Roman station here, I became aware that I have never known till now, what it is to be lazy. A dormouse must surely be in very much the same condition before he retires under the wool in his cage; or a tortoise before he buries himself.

I feel that I am getting rusty. That any attempt to think, would be accompanied with a creaking noise. That there is nothing, anywhere, to be done, or needing to be done. That there is no more human progress, motion, effort, or advancement, of any kind beyond this. That the whole scheme stopped here centuries ago, and laid down to rest until the Day of Judgment.

Never while the brave Courier lives! Behold him jingling out of Piacenza, and staggering this way, in the tallest posting-chaise ever seen, so that he looks out of the front window as if he were peeping over a garden wall; while the postilion, concentrated essence of all the shabbiness of Italy, pauses for a moment in his animated conversation, to touch his hat to a blunt-nosed little Virgin, hardly less shabby than himself, enshrined in a plaster Punch’s show outside the town.

In Genoa, and thereabouts, they train the vines on trellis-work, supported on square clumsy pillars, which, in themselves, are anything but picturesque. But, here, they twine them around trees, and let them trail among the hedges; and the vineyards are full of trees, regularly planted for this purpose, each with its own vine twining and clustering about it. Their leaves are now of the brightest gold and deepest red; and never was anything so enchantingly graceful and full of beauty. Through miles of these delightful forms and colours, the road winds its way. The wild festoons, the elegant wreaths, and crowns, and garlands of all shapes; the fairy nets flung over great trees, and making them prisoners in sport; the tumbled heaps and mounds of exquisite shapes upon the ground; how rich and beautiful they are! And every now and then, a long, long line of trees, will be all bound and garlanded together: as if they had taken hold of one another, and were coming dancing down the field!

Parma has cheerful, stirring streets, for an Italian town; and consequently is not so characteristic as many places of less note. Always excepting the retired Piazza, where the Cathedral, Baptistery, and Campanile—ancient buildings, of a sombre brown, embellished with innumerable grotesque monsters and dreamy-looking creatures carved in marble and red stone—are clustered in a noble and magnificent repose. Their silent presence was only invaded, when I saw them, by the twittering of the many birds that were flying in and out of the crevices in the stones and little nooks in the architecture, where they had made their nests. They were busy, rising from the cold shade of Temples made with hands, into the sunny air of Heaven. Not so the worshippers within, who were listening to the same drowsy chaunt, or kneeling before the same kinds of images and tapers, or whispering, with their heads bowed down, in the selfsame dark confessionals, as I had left in Genoa and everywhere else.

The decayed and mutilated paintings with which this church is covered, have, to my thinking, a remarkably mournful and depressing influence. It is miserable to see great works of art—something of the Souls of Painters—perishing and fading away, like human forms. This cathedral is odorous with the rotting of Correggio’s frescoes in the Cupola. Heaven knows how beautiful they may have been at one time. Connoisseurs fall into raptures with them now; but such a labyrinth of arms and legs: such heaps of foreshortened limbs, entangled and involved and jumbled together: no operative surgeon, gone mad, could imagine in his wildest delirium.

There is a very interesting subterranean church here: the roof supported by marble pillars, behind each of which there seemed to be at least one beggar in ambush: to say nothing of the tombs and secluded altars. From every one of these lurking-places, such crowds of phantom-looking men and women, leading other men and women with twisted limbs, or chattering jaws, or paralytic gestures, or idiotic heads, or some other sad infirmity, came hobbling out to beg, that if the ruined frescoes in the cathedral above, had been suddenly animated, and had retired to this lower church, they could hardly have made a greater confusion, or exhibited a more confounding display of arms and legs.

There is Petrarch’s Monument, too; and there is the Baptistery, with its beautiful arches and immense font; and there is a gallery containing some very remarkable pictures, whereof a few were being copied by hairy-faced artists, with little velvet caps more off their heads than on. There is the Farnese Palace, too; and in it one of the dreariest spectacles of decay that ever was seen—a grand, old, gloomy theatre, mouldering away.

It is a large wooden structure, of the horse-shoe shape; the lower seats arranged upon the Roman plan, but above them, great heavy chambers; rather than boxes, where the Nobles sat, remote in their proud state. Such desolation as has fallen on this theatre, enhanced in the spectator’s fancy by its gay intention and design, none but worms can be familiar with. A hundred and ten years have passed, since any play was acted here. The sky shines in through the gashes in the roof; the boxes are dropping down, wasting away, and only tenanted by rats; damp and mildew smear the faded colours, and make spectral maps upon the panels; lean rags are dangling down where there were gay festoons on the Proscenium; the stage has rotted so, that a narrow wooden gallery is thrown across it, or it would sink beneath the tread, and bury the visitor in the gloomy depth beneath. The desolation and decay impress themselves on all the senses. The air has a mouldering smell, and an earthy taste; any stray outer sounds that straggle in with some lost sunbeam, are muffled and heavy; and the worm, the maggot, and the rot have changed the surface of the wood beneath the touch, as time will seam and roughen a smooth hand. If ever Ghosts act plays, they act them on this ghostly stage.

It was most delicious weather, when we came into Modena, where the darkness of the sombre colonnades over the footways skirting the main street on either side, was made refreshing and agreeable by the bright sky, so wonderfully blue. I passed from all the glory of the day, into a dim cathedral, where High Mass was performing, feeble tapers were burning, people were kneeling in all directions before all manner of shrines, and officiating priests were crooning the usual chant, in the usual, low, dull, drawling, melancholy tone.

Thinking how strange it was, to find, in every stagnant town, this same Heart beating with the same monotonous pulsation, the centre of the same torpid, listless system, I came out by another door, and was suddenly scared to death by a blast from the shrillest trumpet that ever was blown. Immediately, came tearing round the corner, an equestrian company from Paris: marshalling themselves under the walls of the church, and flouting, with their horses’ heels, the griffins, lions, tigers, and other monsters in stone and marble, decorating its exterior. First, there came a stately nobleman with a great deal of hair, and no hat, bearing an enormous banner, on which was inscribed, Mazeppa! to-night! Then, a Mexican chief, with a great pear-shaped club on his shoulder, like Hercules. Then, six or eight Roman chariots: each with a beautiful lady in extremely short petticoats, and unnaturally pink tights, erect within: shedding beaming looks upon the crowd, in which there was a latent expression of discomposure and anxiety, for which I couldn’t account, until, as the open back of each chariot presented itself, I saw the immense difficulty with which the pink legs maintained their perpendicular, over the uneven pavement of the town: which gave me quite a new idea of the ancient Romans and Britons. The procession was brought to a close, by some dozen indomitable warriors of different nations, riding two and two, and haughtily surveying the tame population of Modena: among whom, however, they occasionally condescended to scatter largesse in the form of a few handbills. After caracolling among the lions and tigers, and proclaiming that evening’s entertainments with blast of trumpet, it then filed off, by the other end of the square, and left a new and greatly increased dulness behind.

When the procession had so entirely passed away, that the shrill trumpet was mild in the distance, and the tail of the last horse was hopelessly round the corner, the people who had come out of the church to stare at it, went back again. But one old lady, kneeling on the pavement within, near the door, had seen it all, and had been immensely interested, without getting up; and this old lady’s eye, at that juncture, I happened to catch: to our mutual confusion. She cut our embarrassment very short, however, by crossing herself devoutly, and going down, at full length, on her face, before a figure in a fancy petticoat and a gilt crown; which was so like one of the procession-figures, that perhaps at this hour she may think the whole appearance a celestial vision. Anyhow, I must certainly have forgiven her her interest in the Circus, though I had been her Father Confessor.

There was a little fiery-eyed old man with a crooked shoulder, in the cathedral, who took it very ill that I made no effort to see the bucket (kept in an old tower) which the people of Modena took away from the people of Bologna in the fourteenth century, and about which there was war made and a mock-heroic poem by Tassone, too. Being quite content, however, to look at the outside of the tower, and feast, in imagination, on the bucket within; and preferring to loiter in the shade of the tall Campanile, and about the cathedral; I have no personal knowledge of this bucket, even at the present time.

Indeed, we were at Bologna, before the little old man (or the Guide-Book) would have considered that we had half done justice to the wonders of Modena. But it is such a delight to me to leave new scenes behind, and still go on, encountering newer scenes—and, moreover, I have such a perverse disposition in respect of sights that are cut, and dried, and dictated—that I fear I sin against similar authorities in every place I visit.

Be this as it may, in the pleasant Cemetery at Bologna, I found myself walking next Sunday morning, among the stately marble tombs and colonnades, in company with a crowd of Peasants, and escorted by a little Cicerone of that town, who was excessively anxious for the honour of the place, and most solicitous to divert my attention from the bad monuments: whereas he was never tired of extolling the good ones. Seeing this little man (a good-humoured little man he was, who seemed to have nothing in his face but shining teeth and eyes) looking wistfully at a certain plot of grass, I asked him who was buried there. ‘The poor people, Signore,’ he said, with a shrug and a smile, and stopping to look back at me—for he always went on a little before, and took off his hat to introduce every new monument. ‘Only the poor, Signore! It’s very cheerful. It’s very lively. How green it is, how cool! It’s like a meadow! There are five,’—holding up all the fingers of his right hand to express the number, which an Italian peasant will always do, if it be within the compass of his ten fingers,—‘there are five of my little children buried there, Signore; just there; a little to the right. Well! Thanks to God! It’s very cheerful. How green it is, how cool it is! It’s quite a meadow!’

He looked me very hard in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him, took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made a little bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such a subject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favourite saint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow, as ever man made. Immediately afterwards, he took his hat off altogether, and begged to introduce me to the next monument; and his eyes and his teeth shone brighter than before.

p. 272THROUGH BOLOGNA AND FERRARA

There was such a very smart official in attendance at the Cemetery where the little Cicerone had buried his children, that when the little Cicerone suggested to me, in a whisper, that there would be no offence in presenting this officer, in return for some slight extra service, with a couple of pauls (about tenpence, English money), I looked incredulously at his cocked hat, wash-leather gloves, well-made uniform, and dazzling buttons, and rebuked the little Cicerone with a grave shake of the head. For, in splendour of appearance, he was at least equal to the Deputy Usher of the Black Rod; and the idea of his carrying, as Jeremy Diddler would say, ‘such a thing as tenpence’ away with him, seemed monstrous. He took it in excellent part, however, when I made bold to give it him, and pulled off his cocked hat with a flourish that would have been a bargain at double the money.

It seemed to be his duty to describe the monuments to the people—at all events he was doing so; and when I compared him, like Gulliver in Brobdingnag, ‘with the Institutions of my own beloved country, I could not refrain from tears of pride and exultation.’ He had no pace at all; no more than a tortoise. He loitered as the people loitered, that they might gratify their curiosity; and positively allowed them, now and then, to read the inscriptions on the tombs. He was neither shabby, nor insolent, nor churlish, nor ignorant. He spoke his own language with perfect propriety, and seemed to consider himself, in his way, a kind of teacher of the people, and to entertain a just respect both for himself and them. They would no more have such a man for a Verger in Westminster Abbey, than they would let the people in (as they do at Bologna) to see the monuments for nothing. [272]

Again, an ancient sombre town, under the brilliant sky; with heavy arcades over the footways of the older streets, and lighter and more cheerful archways in the newer portions of the town. Again, brown piles of sacred buildings, with more birds flying in and out of chinks in the stones; and more snarling monsters for the bases of the pillars. Again, rich churches, drowsy Masses, curling incense, tinkling bells, priests in bright vestments: pictures, tapers, laced altar cloths, crosses, images, and artificial flowers.

There is a grave and learned air about the city, and a pleasant gloom upon it, that would leave it, a distinct and separate impression in the mind, among a crowd of cities, though it were not still further marked in the traveller’s remembrance by the two brick leaning towers (sufficiently unsightly in themselves, it must be acknowledged), inclining cross-wise as if they were bowing stiffly to each other—a most extraordinary termination to the perspective of some of the narrow streets. The colleges, and churches too, and palaces: and above all the academy of Fine Arts, where there are a host of interesting pictures, especially by Guido, Domenichino, and Ludovico Caracci: give it a place of its own in the memory. Even though these were not, and there were nothing else to remember it by, the great Meridian on the pavement of the church of San Petronio, where the sunbeams mark the time among the kneeling people, would give it a fanciful and pleasant interest.

Bologna being very full of tourists, detained there by an inundation which rendered the road to Florence impassable, I was quartered up at the top of an hotel, in an out-of-the-way room which I never could find: containing a bed, big enough for a boarding-school, which I couldn’t fall asleep in. The chief among the waiters who visited this lonely retreat, where there was no other company but the swallows in the broad eaves over the window, was a man of one idea in connection with the English; and the subject of this harmless monomania, was Lord Byron. I made the discovery by accidentally remarking to him, at breakfast, that the matting with which the floor was covered, was very comfortable at that season, when he immediately replied that Milor Beeron had been much attached to that kind of matting. Observing, at the same moment, that I took no milk, he exclaimed with enthusiasm, that Milor Beeron had never touched it. At first, I took it for granted, in my innocence, that he had been one of the Beeron servants; but no, he said, no, he was in the habit of speaking about my Lord, to English gentlemen; that was all. He knew all about him, he said. In proof of it, he connected him with every possible topic, from the Monte Pulciano wine at dinner (which was grown on an estate he had owned), to the big bed itself, which was the very model of his. When I left the inn, he coupled with his final bow in the yard, a parting assurance that the road by which I was going, had been Milor Beeron’s favourite ride; and before the horse’s feet had well begun to clatter on the pavement, he ran briskly up-stairs again, I dare say to tell some other Englishman in some other solitary room that the guest who had just departed was Lord Beeron’s living image.

I had entered Bologna by night—almost midnight—and all along the road thither, after our entrance into the Papal territory: which is not, in any part, supremely well governed, Saint Peter’s keys being rather rusty now; the driver had so worried about the danger of robbers in travelling after dark, and had so infected the brave Courier, and the two had been so constantly stopping and getting up and down to look after a portmanteau which was tied on behind, that I should have felt almost obliged to any one who would have had the goodness to take it away. Hence it was stipulated, that, whenever we left Bologna, we should start so as not to arrive at Ferrara later than eight at night; and a delightful afternoon and evening journey it was, albeit through a flat district which gradually became more marshy from the overflow of brooks and rivers in the recent heavy rains.

At sunset, when I was walking on alone, while the horses rested, I arrived upon a little scene, which, by one of those singular mental operations of which we are all conscious, seemed perfectly familiar to me, and which I see distinctly now. There was not much in it. In the blood red light, there was a mournful sheet of water, just stirred by the evening wind; upon its margin a few trees. In the foreground was a group of silent peasant girls leaning over the parapet of a little bridge, and looking, now up at the sky, now down into the water; in the distance, a deep bell; the shade of approaching night on everything. If I had been murdered there, in some former life, I could not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or with a more emphatic chilling of the blood; and the mere remembrance of it acquired in that minute, is so strengthened by the imaginary recollection, that I hardly think I could forget it.

More solitary, more depopulated, more deserted, old Ferrara, than any city of the solemn brotherhood! The grass so grows up in the silent streets, that any one might make hay there, literally, while the sun shines. But the sun shines with diminished cheerfulness in grim Ferrara; and the people are so few who pass and re-pass through the places, that the flesh of its inhabitants might be grass indeed, and growing in the squares.

I wonder why the head coppersmith in an Italian town, always lives next door to the Hotel, or opposite: making the visitor feel as if the beating hammers were his own heart, palpitating with a deadly energy! I wonder why jealous corridors surround the bedroom on all sides, and fill it with unnecessary doors that can’t be shut, and will not open, and abut on pitchy darkness! I wonder why it is not enough that these distrustful genii stand agape at one’s dreams all night, but there must also be round open portholes, high in the wall, suggestive, when a mouse or rat is heard behind the wainscot, of a somebody scraping the wall with his toes, in his endeavours to reach one of these portholes and look in! I wonder why the faggots are so constructed, as to know of no effect but an agony of heat when they are lighted and replenished, and an agony of cold and suffocation at all other times! I wonder, above all, why it is the great feature of domestic architecture in Italian inns, that all the fire goes up the chimney, except the smoke!

The answer matters little. Coppersmiths, doors, portholes, smoke, and faggots, are welcome to me. Give me the smiling face of the attendant, man or woman; the courteous manner; the amiable desire to please and to be pleased; the light-hearted, pleasant, simple air—so many jewels set in dirt—and I am theirs again to-morrow!

Ariosto’s house, Tasso’s prison, a rare old Gothic cathedral, and more churches of course, are the sights of Ferrara. But the long silent streets, and the dismantled palaces, where ivy waves in lieu of banners, and where rank weeds are slowly creeping up the long-untrodden stairs, are the best sights of all.

The aspect of this dreary town, half an hour before sunrise one fine morning, when I left it, was as picturesque as it seemed unreal and spectral. It was no matter that the people were not yet out of bed; for if they had all been up and busy, they would have made but little difference in that desert of a place. It was best to see it, without a single figure in the picture; a city of the dead, without one solitary survivor. Pestilence might have ravaged streets, squares, and market-places; and sack and siege have ruined the old houses, battered down their doors and windows, and made breaches in their roofs. In one part, a great tower rose into the air; the only landmark in the melancholy view. In another, a prodigious castle, with a moat about it, stood aloof: a sullen city in itself. In the black dungeons of this castle, Parisina and her lover were beheaded in the dead of night. The red light, beginning to shine when I looked back upon it, stained its walls without, as they have, many a time, been stained within, in old days; but for any sign of life they gave, the castle and the city might have been avoided by all human creatures, from the moment when the axe went down upon the last of the two lovers: and might have never vibrated to another sound

Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock.

Coming to the Po, which was greatly swollen, and running fiercely, we crossed it by a floating bridge of boats, and so came into the Austrian territory, and resumed our journey: through a country of which, for some miles, a great part was under water. The brave Courier and the soldiery had first quarrelled, for half an hour or more, over our eternal passport. But this was a daily relaxation with the Brave, who was always stricken deaf when shabby functionaries in uniform came, as they constantly did come, plunging out of wooden boxes to look at it—or in other words to beg—and who, stone deaf to my entreaties that the man might have a trifle given him, and we resume our journey in peace, was wont to sit reviling the functionary in broken English: while the unfortunate man’s face was a portrait of mental agony framed in the coach window, from his perfect ignorance of what was being said to his disparagement.

There was a postilion, in the course of this day’s journey, as wild and savagely good-looking a vagabond as you would desire to see. He was a tall, stout-made, dark-complexioned fellow, with a profusion of shaggy black hair hanging all over his face, and great black whiskers stretching down his throat. His dress was a torn suit of rifle green, garnished here and there with red; a steeple-crowned hat, innocent of nap, with a broken and bedraggled feather stuck in the band; and a flaming red neckerchief hanging on his shoulders. He was not in the saddle, but reposed, quite at his ease, on a sort of low foot-board in front of the postchaise, down amongst the horses’ tails—convenient for having his brains kicked out, at any moment. To this Brigand, the brave Courier, when we were at a reasonable trot, happened to suggest the practicability of going faster. He received the proposal with a perfect yell of derision; brandished his whip about his head (such a whip! it was more like a home-made bow); flung up his heels, much higher than the horses; and disappeared, in a paroxysm, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the axle-tree. I fully expected to see him lying in the road, a hundred yards behind, but up came the steeple-crowned hat again, next minute, and he was seen reposing, as on a sofa, entertaining himself with the idea, and crying, ‘Ha, ha! what next! Oh the devil! Faster too! Shoo—hoo—o—o!’ (This last ejaculation, an inexpressibly defiant hoot.) Being anxious to reach our immediate destination that night, I ventured, by-and-by, to repeat the experiment on my own account. It produced exactly the same effect. Round flew the whip with the same scornful flourish, up came the heels, down went the steeple-crowned hat, and presently he reappeared, reposing as before and saying to himself, ‘Ha ha! what next! Faster too! Oh the devil! Shoo—hoo—o—o!’

p. 277AN ITALIAN DREAM

I had been travelling, for some days; resting very little in the night, and never in the day. The rapid and unbroken succession of novelties that had passed before me, came back like half-formed dreams; and a crowd of objects wandered in the greatest confusion through my mind, as I travelled on, by a solitary road. At intervals, some one among them would stop, as it were, in its restless flitting to and fro, and enable me to look at it, quite steadily, and behold it in full distinctness. After a few moments, it would dissolve, like a view in a magic-lantern; and while I saw some part of it quite plainly, and some faintly, and some not at all, would show me another of the many places I had lately seen, lingering behind it, and coming through it. This was no sooner visible than, in its turn, it melted into something else.

At one moment, I was standing again, before the brown old rugged churches of Modena. As I recognised the curious pillars with grim monsters for their bases, I seemed to see them, standing by themselves in the quiet square at Padua, where there were the staid old University, and the figures, demurely gowned, grouped here and there in the open space about it. Then, I was strolling in the outskirts of that pleasant city, admiring the unusual neatness of the dwelling-houses, gardens, and orchards, as I had seen them a few hours before. In their stead arose, immediately, the two towers of Bologna; and the most obstinate of all these objects, failed to hold its ground, a minute, before the monstrous moated castle of Ferrara, which, like an illustration to a wild romance, came back again in the red sunrise, lording it over the solitary, grass-grown, withered town. In short, I had that incoherent but delightful jumble in my brain, which travellers are apt to have, and are indolently willing to encourage. Every shake of the coach in which I sat, half dozing in the dark, appeared to jerk some new recollection out of its place, and to jerk some other new recollection into it; and in this state I fell asleep.

I was awakened after some time (as I thought) by the stopping of the coach. It was now quite night, and we were at the waterside. There lay here, a black boat, with a little house or cabin in it of the same mournful colour. When I had taken my seat in this, the boat was paddled, by two men, towards a great light, lying in the distance on the sea.

Ever and again, there was a dismal sigh of wind. It ruffled the water, and rocked the boat, and sent the dark clouds flying before the stars. I could not but think how strange it was, to be floating away at that hour: leaving the land behind, and going on, towards this light upon the sea. It soon began to burn brighter; and from being one light became a cluster of tapers, twinkling and shining out of the water, as the boat approached towards them by a dreamy kind of track, marked out upon the sea by posts and piles.

We had floated on, five miles or so, over the dark water, when I heard it rippling in my dream, against some obstruction near at hand. Looking out attentively, I saw, through the gloom, a something black and massive—like a shore, but lying close and flat upon the water, like a raft—which we were gliding past. The chief of the two rowers said it was a burial-place.

Full of the interest and wonder which a cemetery lying out there, in the lonely sea, inspired, I turned to gaze upon it as it should recede in our path, when it was quickly shut out from my view. Before I knew by what, or how, I found that we were gliding up a street—a phantom street; the houses rising on both sides, from the water, and the black boat gliding on beneath their windows. Lights were shining from some of these casements, plumbing the depth of the black stream with their reflected rays, but all was profoundly silent.

So we advanced into this ghostly city, continuing to hold our course through narrow streets and lanes, all filled and flowing with water. Some of the corners where our way branched off, were so acute and narrow, that it seemed impossible for the long slender boat to turn them; but the rowers, with a low melodious cry of warning, sent it skimming on without a pause. Sometimes, the rowers of another black boat like our own, echoed the cry, and slackening their speed (as I thought we did ours) would come flitting past us like a dark shadow. Other boats, of the same sombre hue, were lying moored, I thought, to painted pillars, near to dark mysterious doors that opened straight upon the water. Some of these were empty; in some, the rowers lay asleep; towards one, I saw some figures coming down a gloomy archway from the interior of a palace: gaily dressed, and attended by torch-bearers. It was but a glimpse I had of them; for a bridge, so low and close upon the boat that it seemed ready to fall down and crush us: one of the many bridges that perplexed the Dream: blotted them out, instantly. On we went, floating towards the heart of this strange place—with water all about us where never water was elsewhere—clusters of houses, churches, heaps of stately buildings growing out of it—and, everywhere, the same extraordinary silence. Presently, we shot across a broad and open stream; and passing, as I thought, before a spacious paved quay, where the bright lamps with which it was illuminated showed long rows of arches and pillars, of ponderous construction and great strength, but as light to the eye as garlands of hoarfrost or gossamer—and where, for the first time, I saw people walking—arrived at a flight of steps leading from the water to a large mansion, where, having passed through corridors and galleries innumerable, I lay down to rest; listening to the black boats stealing up and down below the window on the rippling water, till I fell asleep.

The glory of the day that broke upon me in this Dream; its freshness, motion, buoyancy; its sparkles of the sun in water; its clear blue sky and rustling air; no waking words can tell. But, from my window, I looked down on boats and barks; on masts, sails, cordage, flags; on groups of busy sailors, working at the cargoes of these vessels; on wide quays, strewn with bales, casks, merchandise of many kinds; on great ships, lying near at hand in stately indolence; on islands, crowned with gorgeous domes and turrets: and where golden crosses glittered in the light, atop of wondrous churches, springing from the sea! Going down upon the margin of the green sea, rolling on before the door, and filling all the streets, I came upon a place of such surpassing beauty, and such grandeur, that all the rest was poor and faded, in comparison with its absorbing loveliness.

It was a great Piazza, as I thought; anchored, like all the rest, in the deep ocean. On its broad bosom, was a Palace, more majestic and magnificent in its old age, than all the buildings of the earth, in the high prime and fulness of their youth. Cloisters and galleries: so light, they might have been the work of fairy hands: so strong that centuries had battered them in vain: wound round and round this palace, and enfolded it with a Cathedral, gorgeous in the wild luxuriant fancies of the East. At no great distance from its porch, a lofty tower, standing by itself, and rearing its proud head, alone, into the sky, looked out upon the Adriatic Sea. Near to the margin of the stream, were two ill-omened pillars of red granite; one having on its top, a figure with a sword and shield; the other, a winged lion. Not far from these again, a second tower: richest of the rich in all its decorations: even here, where all was rich: sustained aloft, a great orb, gleaming with gold and deepest blue: the Twelve Signs painted on it, and a mimic sun revolving in its course around them: while above, two bronze giants hammered out the hours upon a sounding bell. An oblong square of lofty houses of the whitest stone, surrounded by a light and beautiful arcade, formed part of this enchanted scene; and, here and there, gay masts for flags rose, tapering, from the pavement of the unsubstantial ground.

I thought I entered the Cathedral, and went in and out among its many arches: traversing its whole extent. A grand and dreamy structure, of immense proportions; golden with old mosaics; redolent of perfumes; dim with the smoke of incense; costly in treasure of precious stones and metals, glittering through iron bars; holy with the bodies of deceased saints; rainbow-hued with windows of stained glass; dark with carved woods and coloured marbles; obscure in its vast heights, and lengthened distances; shining with silver lamps and winking lights; unreal, fantastic, solemn, inconceivable throughout. I thought I entered the old palace; pacing silent galleries and council-chambers, where the old rulers of this mistress of the waters looked sternly out, in pictures, from the walls, and where her high-prowed galleys, still victorious on canvas, fought and conquered as of old. I thought I wandered through its halls of state and triumph—bare and empty now!—and musing on its pride and might, extinct: for that was past; all past: heard a voice say, ‘Some tokens of its ancient rule and some consoling reasons for its downfall, may be traced here, yet!’

I dreamed that I was led on, then, into some jealous rooms, communicating with a prison near the palace; separated from it by a lofty bridge crossing a narrow street; and called, I dreamed, The Bridge of Sighs.

But first I passed two jagged slits in a stone wall; the lions’ mouths—now toothless—where, in the distempered horror of my sleep, I thought denunciations of innocent men to the old wicked Council, had been dropped through, many a time, when the night was dark. So, when I saw the council-room to which such prisoners were taken for examination, and the door by which they passed out, when they were condemned—a door that never closed upon a man with life and hope before him—my heart appeared to die within me.

It was smitten harder though, when, torch in hand, I descended from the cheerful day into two ranges, one below another, of dismal, awful, horrible stone cells. They were quite dark. Each had a loop-hole in its massive wall, where, in the old time, every day, a torch was placed—I dreamed—to light the prisoner within, for half an hour. The captives, by the glimmering of these brief rays, had scratched and cut inscriptions in the blackened vaults. I saw them. For their labour with a rusty nail’s point, had outlived their agony and them, through many generations.

One cell, I saw, in which no man remained for more than four-and-twenty hours; being marked for dead before he entered it. Hard by, another, and a dismal one, whereto, at midnight, the confessor came—a monk brown-robed, and hooded—ghastly in the day, and free bright air, but in the midnight of that murky prison, Hope’s extinguisher, and Murder’s herald. I had my foot upon the spot, where, at the same dread hour, the shriven prisoner was strangled; and struck my hand upon the guilty door—low-browed and stealthy—through which the lumpish sack was carried out into a boat, and rowed away, and drowned where it was death to cast a net.

Around this dungeon stronghold, and above some part of it: licking the rough walls without, and smearing them with damp and slime within: stuffing dank weeds and refuse into chinks and crevices, as if the very stones and bars had mouths to stop: furnishing a smooth road for the removal of the bodies of the secret victims of the State—a road so ready that it went along with them, and ran before them, like a cruel officer—flowed the same water that filled this Dream of mine, and made it seem one, even at the time.

Descending from the palace by a staircase, called, I thought, the Giant’s—I had some imaginary recollection of an old man abdicating, coming, more slowly and more feebly, down it, when he heard the bell, proclaiming his successor—I glided off, in one of the dark boats, until we came to an old arsenal guarded by four marble lions. To make my Dream more monstrous and unlikely, one of these had words and sentences upon its body, inscribed there, at an unknown time, and in an unknown language; so that their purport was a mystery to all men.

There was little sound of hammers in this place for building ships, and little work in progress; for the greatness of the city was no more, as I have said. Indeed, it seemed a very wreck found drifting on the sea; a strange flag hoisted in its honourable stations, and strangers standing at its helm. A splendid barge in which its ancient chief had gone forth, pompously, at certain periods, to wed the ocean, lay here, I thought, no more; but, in its place, there was a tiny model, made from recollection like the city’s greatness; and it told of what had been (so are the strong and weak confounded in the dust) almost as eloquently as the massive pillars, arches, roofs, reared to overshadow stately ships that had no other shadow now, upon the water or the earth.

An armoury was there yet. Plundered and despoiled; but an armoury. With a fierce standard taken from the Turks, drooping in the dull air of its cage. Rich suits of mail worn by great warriors were hoarded there; crossbows and bolts; quivers full of arrows; spears; swords, daggers, maces, shields, and heavy-headed axes. Plates of wrought steel and iron, to make the gallant horse a monster cased in metal scales; and one spring-weapon (easy to be carried in the breast) designed to do its office noiselessly, and made for shooting men with poisoned darts.

One press or case I saw, full of accursed instruments of torture horribly contrived to cramp, and pinch, and grind and crush men’s bones, and tear and twist them with the torment of a thousand deaths. Before it, were two iron helmets, with breast-pieces: made to close up tight and smooth upon the heads of living sufferers; and fastened on to each, was a small knob or anvil, where the directing devil could repose his elbow at his ease, and listen, near the walled-up ear, to the lamentations and confessions of the wretch within. There was that grim resemblance in them to the human shape—they were such moulds of sweating faces, pained and cramped—that it was difficult to think them empty; and terrible distortions lingering within them, seemed to follow me, when, taking to my boat again, I rowed off to a kind of garden or public walk in the sea, where there were grass and trees. But I forgot them when I stood upon its farthest brink—I stood there, in my dream—and looked, along the ripple, to the setting sun; before me, in the sky and on the deep, a crimson flush; and behind me the whole city resolving into streaks of red and purple, on the water.

In the luxurious wonder of so rare a dream, I took but little heed of time, and had but little understanding of its flight. But there were days and nights in it; and when the sun was high, and when the rays of lamps were crooked in the running water, I was still afloat, I thought: plashing the slippery walls and houses with the cleavings of the tide, as my black boat, borne upon it, skimmed along the streets.

Sometimes, alighting at the doors of churches and vast palaces, I wandered on, from room to room, from aisle to aisle, through labyrinths of rich altars, ancient monuments; decayed apartments where the furniture, half awful, half grotesque, was mouldering away. Pictures were there, replete with such enduring beauty and expression: with such passion, truth and power: that they seemed so many young and fresh realities among a host of spectres. I thought these, often intermingled with the old days of the city: with its beauties, tyrants, captains, patriots, merchants, counters, priests: nay, with its very stones, and bricks, and public places; all of which lived again, about me, on the walls. Then, coming down some marble staircase where the water lapped and oozed against the lower steps, I passed into my boat again, and went on in my dream.

Floating down narrow lanes, where carpenters, at work with plane and chisel in their shops, tossed the light shaving straight upon the water, where it lay like weed, or ebbed away before me in a tangled heap. Past open doors, decayed and rotten from long steeping in the wet, through which some scanty patch of vine shone green and bright, making unusual shadows on the pavement with its trembling leaves. Past quays and terraces, where women, gracefully veiled, were passing and repassing, and where idlers were reclining in the sunshine, on flag-stones and on flights of steps. Past bridges, where there were idlers too; loitering and looking over. Below stone balconies, erected at a giddy height, before the loftiest windows of the loftiest houses. Past plots of garden, theatres, shrines, prodigious piles of architecture—Gothic—Saracenic—fanciful with all the fancies of all times and countries. Past buildings that were high, and low, and black, and white, and straight, and crooked; mean and grand, crazy and strong. Twining among a tangled lot of boats and barges, and shooting out at last into a Grand Canal! There, in the errant fancy of my dream, I saw old Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, all built upon with shops and humming with the tongues of men; a form I seemed to know for Desdemona’s, leaned down through a latticed blind to pluck a flower. And, in the dream, I thought that Shakespeare’s spirit was abroad upon the water somewhere: stealing through the city.

At night, when two votive lamps burnt before an image of the Virgin, in a gallery outside the great cathedral, near the roof, I fancied that the great piazza of the Winged Lion was a blaze of cheerful light, and that its whole arcade was thronged with people; while crowds were diverting themselves in splendid coffee-houses opening from it—which were never shut, I thought, but open all night long. When the bronze giants struck the hour of midnight on the bell, I thought the life and animation of the city were all centred here; and as I rowed away, abreast the silent quays, I only saw them dotted, here and there, with sleeping boatmen wrapped up in their cloaks, and lying at full length upon the stones.

But close about the quays and churches, palaces and prisons sucking at their walls, and welling up into the secret places of the town: crept the water always. Noiseless and watchful: coiled round and round it, in its many folds, like an old serpent: waiting for the time, I thought, when people should look down into its depths for any stone of the old city that had claimed to be its mistress.

Thus it floated me away, until I awoke in the old market-place at Verona. I have, many and many a time, thought since, of this strange Dream upon the water: half-wondering if it lie there yet, and if its name be Venice.

p. 284BY VERONA, MANTUA, AND MILAN, ACROSS THE PASS OF THE SIMPLON INTO SWITZERLAND

I had been half afraid to go to Verona, lest it should at all put me out of conceit with Romeo and Juliet. But, I was no sooner come into the old market-place, than the misgiving vanished. It is so fanciful, quaint, and picturesque a place, formed by such an extraordinary and rich variety of fantastic buildings, that there could be nothing better at the core of even this romantic town: scene of one of the most romantic and beautiful of stories.

It was natural enough, to go straight from the Market-place, to the House of the Capulets, now degenerated into a most miserable little inn. Noisy vetturíni and muddy market-carts were disputing possession of the yard, which was ankle-deep in dirt, with a brood of splashed and bespattered geese; and there was a grim-visaged dog, viciously panting in a doorway, who would certainly have had Romeo by the leg, the moment he put it over the wall, if he had existed and been at large in those times. The orchard fell into other hands, and was parted off many years ago; but there used to be one attached to the house—or at all events there may have, been,—and the hat (Cappêllo) the ancient cognizance of the family, may still be seen, carved in stone, over the gateway of the yard. The geese, the market-carts, their drivers, and the dog, were somewhat in the way of the story, it must be confessed; and it would have been pleasanter to have found the house empty, and to have been able to walk through the disused rooms. But the hat was unspeakably comfortable; and the place where the garden used to be, hardly less so. Besides, the house is a distrustful, jealous-looking house as one would desire to see, though of a very moderate size. So I was quite satisfied with it, as the veritable mansion of old Capulet, and was correspondingly grateful in my acknowledgments to an extremely unsentimental middle-aged lady, the Padrona of the Hotel, who was lounging on the threshold looking at the geese; and who at least resembled the Capulets in the one particular of being very great indeed in the ‘Family’ way.

From Juliet’s home, to Juliet’s tomb, is a transition as natural to the visitor, as to fair Juliet herself, or to the proudest Juliet that ever has taught the torches to burn bright in any time. So, I went off, with a guide, to an old, old garden, once belonging to an old, old convent, I suppose; and being admitted, at a shattered gate, by a bright-eyed woman who was washing clothes, went down some walks where fresh plants and young flowers were prettily growing among fragments of old wall, and ivy-coloured mounds; and was shown a little tank, or water-trough, which the bright-eyed woman—drying her arms upon her ‘kerchief, called ‘La tomba di Giulietta la sfortunáta.’ With the best disposition in the world to believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyed woman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customary fee in ready money. It was a pleasure, rather than a disappointment, that Juliet’s resting-place was forgotten. However consolatory it may have been to Yorick’s Ghost, to hear the feet upon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetition of his name, it is better for Juliet to lie out of the track of tourists, and to have no visitors but such as come to graves in spring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine.

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of fifteen hundred years ago. With its marble-fitted churches, lofty towers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues and Capulets once resounded,

And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave, beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partizans.

With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle, waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful! Pleasant Verona!

In the midst of it, in the Piazza di Brá—a spirit of old time among the familiar realities of the passing hour—is the great Roman Amphitheatre. So well preserved, and carefully maintained, that every row of seats is there, unbroken. Over certain of the arches, the old Roman numerals may yet be seen; and there are corridors, and staircases, and subterranean passages for beasts, and winding ways, above ground and below, as when the fierce thousands hurried in and out, intent upon the bloody shows of the arena. Nestling in some of the shadows and hollow places of the walls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few small dealers of one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, and grass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed.

When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and had gone up to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely panorama closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the building, it seemed to lie before me like the inside of a prodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim and a shallow crown; the plaits being represented by the four-and-forty rows of seats. The comparison is a homely and fantastic one, in sober remembrance and on paper, but it was irresistibly suggested at the moment, nevertheless.

An equestrian troop had been there, a short time before—the same troop, I dare say, that appeared to the old lady in the church at Modena—and had scooped out a little ring at one end of the area; where their performances had taken place, and where the marks of their horses’ feet were still fresh. I could not but picture to myself, a handful of spectators gathered together on one or two of the old stone seats, and a spangled Cavalier being gallant, or a Policinello funny, with the grim walls looking on. Above all, I thought how strangely those Roman mutes would gaze upon the favourite comic scene of the travelling English, where a British nobleman (Lord John), with a very loose stomach: dressed in a blue-tailed coat down to his heels, bright yellow breeches, and a white hat: comes abroad, riding double on a rearing horse, with an English lady (Lady Betsy) in a straw bonnet and green veil, and a red spencer; and who always carries a gigantic reticule, and a put-up parasol.

I walked through and through the town all the rest of the day, and could have walked there until now, I think. In one place, there was a very pretty modern theatre, where they had just performed the opera (always popular in Verona) of Romeo and Juliet. In another there was a collection, under a colonnade, of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan remains, presided over by an ancient man who might have been an Etruscan relic himself; for he was not strong enough to open the iron gate, when he had unlocked it, and had neither voice enough to be audible when he described the curiosities, nor sight enough to see them: he was so very old. In another place, there was a gallery of pictures: so abominably bad, that it was quite delightful to see them mouldering away. But anywhere: in the churches, among the palaces, in the streets, on the bridge, or down beside the river: it was always pleasant Verona, and in my remembrance always will be.

I read Romeo and Juliet in my own room at the inn that night—of course, no Englishman had ever read it there, before—and set out for Mantua next day at sunrise, repeating to myself (in the coupé of an omnibus, and next to the conductor, who was reading the Mysteries of Paris),

There is no world without Verona’s walls
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banished from the world,
And world’s exile is death—

which reminded me that Romeo was only banished five-and-twenty miles after all, and rather disturbed my confidence in his energy and boldness.

Was the way to Mantua as beautiful, in his time, I wonder! Did it wind through pasture land as green, bright with the same glancing streams, and dotted with fresh clumps of graceful trees! Those purple mountains lay on the horizon, then, for certain; and the dresses of these peasant girls, who wear a great, knobbed, silver pin like an English ‘life-preserver’ through their hair behind, can hardly be much changed. The hopeful feeling of so bright a morning, and so exquisite a sunrise, can have been no stranger, even to an exiled lover’s breast; and Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a commonplace and matrimonial omnibus. He made the same sharp twists and turns, perhaps, over two rumbling drawbridges; passed through the like long, covered, wooden bridge; and leaving the marshy water behind, approached the rusty gate of stagnant Mantua.

If ever a man were suited to his place of residence, and his place of residence to him, the lean Apothecary and Mantua came together in a perfect fitness of things. It may have been more stirring then, perhaps. If so, the Apothecary was a man in advance of his time, and knew what Mantua would be, in eighteen hundred and forty-four. He fasted much, and that assisted him in his foreknowledge.

I put up at the Hotel of the Golden Lion, and was in my own room arranging plans with the brave Courier, when there came a modest little tap at the door, which opened on an outer gallery surrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man looked in, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show the town. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-opened doorway, and there was so much poverty expressed in his faded suit and little pinched hat, and in the thread-bare worsted glove with which he held it—not expressed the less, because these were evidently his genteel clothes, hastily slipped on—that I would as soon have trodden on him as dismissed him. I engaged him on the instant, and he stepped in directly.

While I finished the discussion in which I was engaged, he stood, beaming by himself in a corner, making a feint of brushing my hat with his arm. If his fee had been as many napoleons as it was francs, there could not have shot over the twilight of his shabbiness such a gleam of sun, as lighted up the whole man, now that he was hired.

‘Well!’ said I, when I was ready, ‘shall we go out now?’

‘If the gentleman pleases. It is a beautiful day. A little fresh, but charming; altogether charming. The gentleman will allow me to open the door. This is the Inn Yard. The court-yard of the Golden Lion! The gentleman will please to mind his footing on the stairs.’

We were now in the street.

‘This is the street of the Golden Lion. This, the outside of the Golden Lion. The interesting window up there, on the first Piano, where the pane of glass is broken, is the window of the gentleman’s chamber!’

Having viewed all these remarkable objects, I inquired if there were much to see in Mantua.

‘Well! Truly, no. Not much! So, so,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders apologetically.

‘Many churches?’

‘No. Nearly all suppressed by the French.’

‘Monasteries or convents?’

‘No. The French again! Nearly all suppressed by Napoleon.’

‘Much business?’

‘Very little business.’

‘Many strangers?’

‘Ah Heaven!’

I thought he would have fainted.

‘Then, when we have seen the two large churches yonder, what shall we do next?’ said I.

He looked up the street, and down the street, and rubbed his chin timidly; and then said, glancing in my face as if a light had broken on his mind, yet with a humble appeal to my forbearance that was perfectly irresistible:

‘We can take a little turn about the town, Signore!’ (Si può far ’un píccolo gíro della citta).

It was impossible to be anything but delighted with the proposal, so we set off together in great good-humour. In the relief of his mind, he opened his heart, and gave up as much of Mantua as a Cicerone could.

‘One must eat,’ he said; ‘but, bah! it was a dull place, without doubt!’

He made as much as possible of the Basilica of Santa Andrea—a noble church—and of an inclosed portion of the pavement, about which tapers were burning, and a few people kneeling, and under which is said to be preserved the Sangreal of the old Romances. This church disposed of, and another after it (the cathedral of San Pietro), we went to the Museum, which was shut up. ‘It was all the same,’ he said. ‘Bah! There was not much inside!’ Then, we went to see the Piazza del Diavolo, built by the Devil (for no particular purpose) in a single night; then, the Piazza Virgiliana; then, the statue of Virgil—our Poet, my little friend said, plucking up a spirit, for the moment, and putting his hat a little on one side. Then, we went to a dismal sort of farm-yard, by which a picture-gallery was approached. The moment the gate of this retreat was opened, some five hundred geese came waddling round us, stretching out their necks, and clamouring in the most hideous manner, as if they were ejaculating, ‘Oh! here’s somebody come to see the Pictures! Don’t go up! Don’t go up!’ While we went up, they waited very quietly about the door in a crowd, cackling to one another occasionally, in a subdued tone; but the instant we appeared again, their necks came out like telescopes, and setting up a great noise, which meant, I have no doubt, ‘What, you would go, would you! What do you think of it! How do you like it!’ they attended us to the outer gate, and cast us forth, derisively, into Mantua.

The geese who saved the Capitol, were, as compared to these, Pork to the learned Pig. What a gallery it was! I would take their opinion on a question of art, in preference to the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Now that we were standing in the street, after being thus ignominiouly escorted thither, my little friend was plainly reduced to the ‘píccolo gíro,’ or little circuit of the town, he had formerly proposed. But my suggestion that we should visit the Palazzo Tè (of which I had heard a great deal, as a strange wild place) imparted new life to him, and away we went.

The secret of the length of Midas’s ears, would have been more extensively known, if that servant of his, who whispered it to the reeds, had lived in Mantua, where there are reeds and rushes enough to have published it to all the world. The Palazzo Tè stands in a swamp, among this sort of vegetation; and is, indeed, as singular a place as I ever saw.

Not for its dreariness, though it is very dreary. Not for its dampness, though it is very damp. Nor for its desolate condition, though it is as desolate and neglected as house can be. But chiefly for the unaccountable nightmares with which its interior has been decorated (among other subjects of more delicate execution), by Giulio Romano. There is a leering Giant over a certain chimney-piece, and there are dozens of Giants (Titans warring with Jove) on the walls of another room, so inconceivably ugly and grotesque, that it is marvellous how any man can have imagined such creatures. In the chamber in which they abound, these monsters, with swollen faces and cracked cheeks, and every kind of distortion of look and limb, are depicted as staggering under the weight of falling buildings, and being overwhelmed in the ruins; upheaving masses of rock, and burying themselves beneath; vainly striving to sustain the pillars of heavy roofs that topple down upon their heads; and, in a word, undergoing and doing every kind of mad and demoniacal destruction. The figures are immensely large, and exaggerated to the utmost pitch of uncouthness; the colouring is harsh and disagreeable; and the whole effect more like (I should imagine) a violent rush of blood to the head of the spectator, than any real picture set before him by the hand of an artist. This apoplectic performance was shown by a sickly-looking woman, whose appearance was referable, I dare say, to the bad air of the marshes; but it was difficult to help feeling as if she were too much haunted by the Giants, and they were frightening her to death, all alone in that exhausted cistern of a Palace, among the reeds and rushes, with the mists hovering about outside, and stalking round and round it continually.

Our walk through Mantua showed us, in almost every street, some suppressed church: now used for a warehouse, now for nothing at all: all as crazy and dismantled as they could be, short of tumbling down bodily. The marshy town was so intensely dull and flat, that the dirt upon it seemed not to have come there in the ordinary course, but to have settled and mantled on its surface as on standing water. And yet there were some business-dealings going on, and some profits realising; for there were arcades full of Jews, where those extraordinary people were sitting outside their shops, contemplating their stores of stuffs, and woollens, and bright handkerchiefs, and trinkets: and looking, in all respects, as wary and business-like, as their brethren in Houndsditch, London.

Having selected a Vetturíno from among the neighbouring Christians, who agreed to carry us to Milan in two days and a half, and to start, next morning, as soon as the gates were opened, I returned to the Golden Lion, and dined luxuriously in my own room, in a narrow passage between two bedsteads: confronted by a smoky fire, and backed up by a chest of drawers. At six o’clock next morning, we were jingling in the dark through the wet cold mist that enshrouded the town; and, before noon, the driver (a native of Mantua, and sixty years of age or thereabouts) began to ask the way to Milan.

It lay through Bozzolo; formerly a little republic, and now one of the most deserted and poverty-stricken of towns: where the landlord of the miserable inn (God bless him! it was his weekly custom) was distributing infinitesimal coins among a clamorous herd of women and children, whose rags were fluttering in the wind and rain outside his door, where they were gathered to receive his charity. It lay through mist, and mud, and rain, and vines trained low upon the ground, all that day and the next; the first sleeping-place being Cremona, memorable for its dark brick churches, and immensely high tower, the Torrazzo—to say nothing of its violins, of which it certainly produces none in these degenerate days; and the second, Lodi. Then we went on, through more mud, mist, and rain, and marshy ground: and through such a fog, as Englishmen, strong in the faith of their own grievances, are apt to believe is nowhere to be found but in their own country, until we entered the paved streets of Milan.

The fog was so dense here, that the spire of the far-famed Cathedral might as well have been at Bombay, for anything that could be seen of it at that time. But as we halted to refresh, for a few days then, and returned to Milan again next summer, I had ample opportunities of seeing the glorious structure in all its majesty and beauty.

All Christian homage to the saint who lies within it! There are many good and true saints in the calendar, but San Carlo Borromeo has—if I may quote Mrs. Primrose on such a subject—‘my warm heart.’ A charitable doctor to the sick, a munificent friend to the poor, and this, not in any spirit of blind bigotry, but as the bold opponent of enormous abuses in the Romish church, I honour his memory. I honour it none the less, because he was nearly slain by a priest, suborned, by priests, to murder him at the altar: in acknowledgment of his endeavours to reform a false and hypocritical brotherhood of monks. Heaven shield all imitators of San Carlo Borromeo as it shielded him! A reforming Pope would need a little shielding, even now.

The subterranean chapel in which the body of San Carlo Borromeo is preserved, presents as striking and as ghastly a contrast, perhaps, as any place can show. The tapers which are lighted down there, flash and gleam on alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicately wrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events in the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the pontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant with diamonds, emeralds, rubies: every costly and magnificent gem. The shrunken heap of poor earth in the midst of this great glitter, is more pitiful than if it lay upon a dung-hill. There is not a ray of imprisoned light in all the flash and fire of jewels, but seems to mock the dusty holes where eyes were, once. Every thread of silk in the rich vestments seems only a provision from the worms that spin, for the behoof of worms that propagate in sepulchres.

In the old refectory of the dilapidated Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, is the work of art, perhaps, better known than any other in the world: the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci—with a door cut through it by the intelligent Dominican friars, to facilitate their operations at dinner-time.

I am not mechanically acquainted with the art of painting, and have no other means of judging of a picture than as I see it resembling and refining upon nature, and presenting graceful combinations of forms and colours. I am, therefore, no authority whatever, in reference to the ‘touch’ of this or that master; though I know very well (as anybody may, who chooses to think about the matter) that few very great masters can possibly have painted, in the compass of their lives, one-half of the pictures that bear their names, and that are recognised by many aspirants to a reputation for taste, as undoubted originals. But this, by the way. Of the Last Supper, I would simply observe, that in its beautiful composition and arrangement, there it is, at Milan, a wonderful picture; and that, in its original colouring, or in its original expression of any single face or feature, there it is not. Apart from the damage it has sustained from damp, decay, or neglect, it has been (as Barry shows) so retouched upon, and repainted, and that so clumsily, that many of the heads are, now, positive deformities, with patches of paint and plaster sticking upon them like wens, and utterly distorting the expression. Where the original artist set that impress of his genius on a face, which, almost in a line or touch, separated him from meaner painters and made him what he was, succeeding bunglers, filling up, or painting across seams and cracks, have been quite unable to imitate his hand; and putting in some scowls, or frowns, or wrinkles, of their own, have blotched and spoiled the work. This is so well established as an historical fact, that I should not repeat it, at the risk of being tedious, but for having observed an English gentleman before the picture, who was at great pains to fall into what I may describe as mild convulsions, at certain minute details of expression which are not left in it. Whereas, it would be comfortable and rational for travellers and critics to arrive at a general understanding that it cannot fail to have been a work of extraordinary merit, once: when, with so few of its original beauties remaining, the grandeur of the general design is yet sufficient to sustain it, as a piece replete with interest and dignity.

We achieved the other sights of Milan, in due course, and a fine city it is, though not so unmistakably Italian as to possess the characteristic qualities of many towns far less important in themselves. The Corso, where the Milanese gentry ride up and down in carriages, and rather than not do which, they would half starve themselves at home, is a most noble public promenade, shaded by long avenues of trees. In the splendid theatre of La Scala, there was a ballet of action performed after the opera, under the title of Prometheus: in the beginning of which, some hundred or two of men and women represented our mortal race before the refinements of the arts and sciences, and loves and graces, came on earth to soften them. I never saw anything more effective. Generally speaking, the pantomimic action of the Italians is more remarkable for its sudden and impetuous character than for its delicate expression, but, in this case, the drooping monotony: the weary, miserable, listless, moping life: the sordid passions and desires of human creatures, destitute of those elevating influences to which we owe so much, and to whose promoters we render so little: were expressed in a manner really powerful and affecting. I should have thought it almost impossible to present such an idea so strongly on the stage, without the aid of speech.

Milan soon lay behind us, at five o’clock in the morning; and before the golden statue on the summit of the cathedral spire was lost in the blue sky, the Alps, stupendously confused in lofty peaks and ridges, clouds and snow, were towering in our path.

Still, we continued to advance toward them until nightfall; and, all day long, the mountain tops presented strangely shifting shapes, as the road displayed them in different points of view. The beautiful day was just declining, when we came upon the Lago Maggiore, with its lovely islands. For however fanciful and fantastic the Isola Bella may be, and is, it still is beautiful. Anything springing out of that blue water, with that scenery around it, must be.

It was ten o’clock at night when we got to Domo d’Ossola, at the foot of the Pass of the Simplon. But as the moon was shining brightly, and there was not a cloud in the starlit sky, it was no time for going to bed, or going anywhere but on. So, we got a little carriage, after some delay, and began the ascent.

It was late in November; and the snow lying four or five feet thick in the beaten road on the summit (in other parts the new drift was already deep), the air was piercing cold. But, the serenity of the night, and the grandeur of the road, with its impenetrable shadows, and deep glooms, and its sudden turns into the shining of the moon and its incessant roar of falling water, rendered the journey more and more sublime at every step.

Soon leaving the calm Italian villages below us, sleeping in the moonlight, the road began to wind among dark trees, and after a time emerged upon a barer region, very steep and toilsome, where the moon shone bright and high. By degrees, the roar of water grew louder; and the stupendous track, after crossing the torrent by a bridge, struck in between two massive perpendicular walls of rock that quite shut out the moonlight, and only left a few stars shining in the narrow strip of sky above. Then, even this was lost, in the thick darkness of a cavern in the rock, through which the way was pierced; the terrible cataract thundering and roaring close below it, and its foam and spray hanging, in a mist, about the entrance. Emerging from this cave, and coming again into the moonlight, and across a dizzy bridge, it crept and twisted upward, through the Gorge of Gondo, savage and grand beyond description, p. 294with smooth-fronted precipices, rising up on either hand, and almost meeting overhead. Thus we went, climbing on our rugged way, higher and higher all night, without a moment’s weariness: lost in the contemplation of the black rocks, the tremendous heights and depths, the fields of smooth snow lying, in the clefts and hollows, and the fierce torrents thundering headlong down the deep abyss.

Towards daybreak, we came among the snow, where a keen wind was blowing fiercely. Having, with some trouble, awakened the inmates of a wooden house in this solitude: round which the wind was howling dismally, catching up the snow in wreaths and hurling it away: we got some breakfast in a room built of rough timbers, but well warmed by a stove, and well contrived (as it had need to be) for keeping out the bitter storms. A sledge being then made ready, and four horses harnessed to it, we went, ploughing, through the snow. Still upward, but now in the cold light of morning, and with the great white desert on which we travelled, plain and clear.

We were well upon the summit of the mountain: and had before us the rude cross of wood, denoting its greatest altitude above the sea: when the light of the rising sun, struck, all at once, upon the waste of snow, and turned it a deep red. The lonely grandeur of the scene was then at its height.

As we went sledging on, there came out of the Hospice founded by Napoleon, a group of Peasant travellers, with staves and knapsacks, who had rested there last night: attended by a Monk or two, their hospitable entertainers, trudging slowly forward with them, for company’s sake. It was pleasant to give them good morning, and pretty, looking back a long way after them, to see them looking back at us, and hesitating presently, when one of our horses stumbled and fell, whether or no they should return and help us. But he was soon up again, with the assistance of a rough waggoner whose team had stuck fast there too; and when we had helped him out of his difficulty, in return, we left him slowly ploughing towards them, and went slowly and swiftly forward, on the brink of a steep precipice, among the mountain pines.

Taking to our wheels again, soon afterwards, we began rapidly to descend; passing under everlasting glaciers, by means of arched galleries, hung with clusters of dripping icicles; under and over foaming waterfalls; near places of refuge, and galleries of shelter against sudden danger; through caverns over whose arched roofs the avalanches slide, in spring, and bury themselves in the unknown gulf beneath. Down, over lofty bridges, and through horrible ravines: a little shifting speck in the vast desolation of ice and snow, and monstrous granite rocks; down through the deep Gorge of the Saltine, and deafened by the torrent plunging madly down, among the riven blocks of rock, into the level country, far below. Gradually down, by zig-zag roads, lying between an upward and a downward precipice, into warmer weather, calmer air, and softer scenery, until there lay before us, glittering like gold or silver in the thaw and sunshine, the metal-covered, red, green, yellow, domes and church-spires of a Swiss town.

The business of these recollections being with Italy, and my business, consequently, being to scamper back thither as fast as possible, I will not recall (though I am sorely tempted) how the Swiss villages, clustered at the feet of Giant mountains, looked like playthings; or how confusedly the houses were heaped and piled together; or how there were very narrow streets to shut the howling winds out in the winter-time; and broken bridges, which the impetuous torrents, suddenly released in spring, had swept away. Or how there were peasant women here, with great round fur caps: looking, when they peeped out of casements and only their heads were seen, like a population of Sword-bearers to the Lord Mayor of London; or how the town of Vevey, lying on the smooth lake of Geneva, was beautiful to see; or how the statue of Saint Peter in the street at Fribourg, grasps the largest key that ever was beheld; or how Fribourg is illustrious for its two suspension bridges, and its grand cathedral organ.

Or how, between that town and Bâle, the road meandered among thriving villages of wooden cottages, with overhanging thatched roofs, and low protruding windows, glazed with small round panes of glass like crown-pieces; or how, in every little Swiss homestead, with its cart or waggon carefully stowed away beside the house, its little garden, stock of poultry, and groups of red-cheeked children, there was an air of comfort, very new and very pleasant after Italy; or how the dresses of the women changed again, and there were no more sword-bearers to be seen; and fair white stomachers, and great black, fan-shaped, gauzy-looking caps, prevailed instead.

Or how the country by the Jura mountains, sprinkled with snow, and lighted by the moon, and musical with falling water, was delightful; or how, below the windows of the great hotel of the Three Kings at Bâle, the swollen Rhine ran fast and green; or how, at Strasbourg, it was quite as fast but not as green: and was said to be foggy lower down: and, at that late time of the year, was a far less certain means of progress, than the highway road to Paris.

Or how Strasbourg itself, in its magnificent old Gothic Cathedral, and its ancient houses with their peaked roofs and gables, made a little gallery of quaint and interesting views; or how a crowd was gathered inside the cathedral at noon, to see the famous mechanical clock in motion, striking twelve. How, when it struck twelve, a whole army of puppets went through many ingenious evolutions; and, among them, a huge puppet-cock, perched on the top, crowed twelve times, loud and clear. Or how it was wonderful to see this cock at great pains to clap its wings, and strain its throat; but obviously having no connection whatever with its own voice; which was deep within the clock, a long way down.

Or how the road to Paris, was one sea of mud, and thence to the coast, a little better for a hard frost. Or how the cliffs of Dover were a pleasant sight, and England was so wonderfully neat—though dark, and lacking colour on a winter’s day, it must be conceded.

Or how, a few days afterwards, it was cool, re-crossing the channel, with ice upon the decks, and snow lying pretty deep in France. Or how the Malle Poste scrambled through the snow, headlong, drawn in the hilly parts by any number of stout horses at a canter; or how there were, outside the Post-office Yard in Paris, before daybreak, extraordinary adventurers in heaps of rags, groping in the snowy streets with little rakes, in search of odds and ends.

Or how, between Paris and Marseilles, the snow being then exceeding deep, a thaw came on, and the mail waded rather than rolled for the next three hundred miles or so; breaking springs on Sunday nights, and putting out its two passengers to warm and refresh themselves pending the repairs, in miserable billiard-rooms, where hairy company, collected about stoves, were playing cards; the cards being very like themselves—extremely limp and dirty.

Or how there was detention at Marseilles from stress of weather; and steamers were advertised to go, which did not go; or how the good Steam-packet Charlemagne at length put out, and met such weather that now she threatened to run into Toulon, and now into Nice, but, the wind moderating, did neither, but ran on into Genoa harbour instead, where the familiar Bells rang sweetly in my ear. Or how there was a travelling party on board, of whom one member was very ill in the cabin next to mine, and being ill was cross, and therefore declined to give up the Dictionary, which he kept under his pillow; thereby obliging his companions to come down to him, constantly, to ask what was the Italian for a lump of sugar—a glass of brandy and water—what’s o’clock? and so forth: which he always insisted on looking out, with his own sea-sick eyes, declining to entrust the book to any man alive.

Like Grumio, I might have told you, in detail, all this and something more—but to as little purpose—were I not deterred by the remembrance that my business is with Italy. Therefore, like Grumio’s story, ‘it shall die in oblivion.’

p. 297TO ROME BY PISA AND SIENA

There is nothing in Italy, more beautiful to me, than the coast-road between Genoa and Spezzia. On one side: sometimes far below, sometimes nearly on a level with the road, and often skirted by broken rocks of many shapes: there is the free blue sea, with here and there a picturesque felucca gliding slowly on; on the other side are lofty hills, ravines besprinkled with white cottages, patches of dark olive woods, country churches with their light open towers, and country houses gaily painted. On every bank and knoll by the wayside, the wild cactus and aloe flourish in exuberant profusion; and the gardens of the bright villages along the road, are seen, all blushing in the summer-time with clusters of the Belladonna, and are fragrant in the autumn and winter with golden oranges and lemons.

Some of the villages are inhabited, almost exclusively, by fishermen; and it is pleasant to see their great boats hauled up on the beach, making little patches of shade, where they lie asleep, or where the women and children sit romping and looking out to sea, while they mend their nets upon the shore. There is one town, Camoglia, with its little harbour on the sea, hundreds of feet below the road; where families of mariners live, who, time out of mind, have owned coasting-vessels in that place, and have traded to Spain and elsewhere. Seen from the road above, it is like a tiny model on the margin of the dimpled water, shining in the sun. Descended into, by the winding mule-tracks, it is a perfect miniature of a primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest, most piratical little place that ever was seen. Great rusty iron rings and mooring-chains, capstans, and fragments of old masts and spars, choke up the way; hardy rough-weather boats, and seamen’s clothing, flutter in the little harbour or are drawn out on the sunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude pier, a few amphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs dangling over the wall, as though earth or water were all one to them, and if they slipped in, they would float away, dozing comfortably among the fishes; the church is bright with trophies of the sea, and votive offerings, in commemoration of escape from storm and shipwreck. The dwellings not immediately abutting on the harbour are approached by blind low archways, and by crooked steps, as if in darkness and in difficulty of access they should be like holds of ships, or inconvenient cabins under water; and everywhere, there is a smell of fish, and sea-weed, and old rope.

The coast-road whence Camoglia is descried so far below, is famous, in the warm season, especially in some parts near Genoa, for fire-flies. Walking there on a dark night, I have seen it made one sparkling firmament by these beautiful insects: so that the distant stars were pale against the flash and glitter that spangled every olive wood and hill-side, and pervaded the whole air.

It was not in such a season, however, that we traversed this road on our way to Rome. The middle of January was only just past, and it was very gloomy and dark weather; very wet besides. In crossing the fine pass of Bracco, we encountered such a storm of mist and rain, that we travelled in a cloud the whole way. There might have been no Mediterranean in the world, for anything that we saw of it there, except when a sudden gust of wind, clearing the mist before it, for a moment, showed the agitated sea at a great depth below, lashing the distant rocks, and spouting up its foam furiously. The rain was incessant; every brook and torrent was greatly swollen; and such a deafening leaping, and roaring, and thundering of water, I never heard the like of in my life.

Hence, when we came to Spezzia, we found that the Magra, an unbridged river on the high-road to Pisa, was too high to be safely crossed in the Ferry Boat, and were fain to wait until the afternoon of next day, when it had, in some degree, subsided. Spezzia, however, is a good place to tarry at; by reason, firstly, of its beautiful bay; secondly, of its ghostly Inn; thirdly, of the head-dress of the women, who wear, on one side of their head, a small doll’s straw hat, stuck on to the hair; which is certainly the oddest and most roguish head-gear that ever was invented.

The Magra safely crossed in the Ferry Boat—the passage is not by any means agreeable, when the current is swollen and strong—we arrived at Carrara, within a few hours. In good time next morning, we got some ponies, and went out to see the marble quarries.

They are four or five great glens, running up into a range of lofty hills, until they can run no longer, and are stopped by being abruptly strangled by Nature. The quarries, ‘or caves,’ as they call them there, are so many openings, high up in the hills, on either side of these passes, where they blast and excavate for marble: which may turn out good or bad: may make a man’s fortune very quickly, or ruin him by the great expense of working what is worth nothing. Some of these caves were opened by the ancient Romans, and remain as they left them to this hour. Many others are being worked at this moment; others are to be begun to-morrow, next week, next month; others are unbought, unthought of; and marble enough for more ages than have passed since the place was resorted to, lies hidden everywhere: patiently awaiting its time of discovery.

As you toil and clamber up one of these steep gorges (having left your pony soddening his girths in water, a mile or two lower down) you hear, every now and then, echoing among the hills, in a low tone, more silent than the previous silence, a melancholy warning bugle,—a signal to the miners to withdraw. Then, there is a thundering, and echoing from hill to hill, and perhaps a splashing up of great fragments of rock into the air; and on you toil again until some other bugle sounds, in a new direction, and you stop directly, lest you should come within the range of the new explosion.

There were numbers of men, working high up in these hills—on the sides—clearing away, and sending down the broken masses of stone and earth, to make way for the blocks of marble that had been discovered. As these came rolling down from unseen hands into the narrow valley, I could not help thinking of the deep glen (just the same sort of glen) where the Roc left Sindbad the Sailor; and where the merchants from the heights above, flung down great pieces of meat for the diamonds to stick to. There were no eagles here, to darken the sun in their swoop, and pounce upon them; but it was as wild and fierce as if there had been hundreds.

But the road, the road down which the marble comes, however immense the blocks! The genius of the country, and the spirit of its institutions, pave that road: repair it, watch it, keep it going! Conceive a channel of water running over a rocky bed, beset with great heaps of stone of all shapes and sizes, winding down the middle of this valley; and that being the road—because it was the road five hundred years ago! Imagine the clumsy carts of five hundred years ago, being used to this hour, and drawn, as they used to be, five hundred years ago, by oxen, whose ancestors were worn to death five hundred years ago, as their unhappy descendants are now, in twelve months, by the suffering and agony of this cruel work! Two pair, four pair, ten pair, twenty pair, to one block, according to its size; down it must come, this way. In their struggling from stone to stone, with their enormous loads behind them, they die frequently upon the spot; and not they alone; for their passionate drivers, sometimes tumbling down in their energy, are crushed to death beneath the wheels. But it was good five hundred years ago, and it must be good now: and a railroad down one of these steeps (the easiest thing in the world) would be flat blasphemy.

When we stood aside, to see one of these cars drawn by only a pair of oxen (for it had but one small block of marble on it), coming down, I hailed, in my heart, the man who sat upon the heavy yoke, to keep it on the neck of the poor beasts—and who faced backwards: not before him—as the very Devil of true despotism. He had a great rod in his hand, with an iron point; and when they could plough and force their way through the loose bed of the torrent no longer, and came to a stop, he poked it into their bodies, beat it on their heads, screwed it round and round in their nostrils, got them on a yard or two, in the madness of intense pain; repeated all these persuasions, with increased intensity of purpose, when they stopped again; got them on, once more; forced and goaded them to an abrupter point of the descent; and when their writhing and smarting, and the weight behind them, bore them plunging down the precipice in a cloud of scattered water, whirled his rod above his head, and gave a great whoop and hallo, as if he had achieved something, and had no idea that they might shake him off, and blindly mash his brains upon the road, in the noontide of his triumph.

Standing in one of the many studii of Carrara, that afternoon—for it is a great workshop, full of beautifully-finished copies in marble, of almost every figure, group, and bust, we know—it seemed, at first, so strange to me that those exquisite shapes, replete with grace, and thought, and delicate repose, should grow out of all this toil, and sweat, and torture! But I soon found a parallel to it, and an explanation of it, in every virtue that springs up in miserable ground, and every good thing that has its birth in sorrow and distress. And, looking out of the sculptor’s great window, upon the marble mountains, all red and glowing in the decline of day, but stern and solemn to the last, I thought, my God! how many quarries of human hearts and souls, capable of far more beautiful results, are left shut up and mouldering away: while pleasure-travellers through life, avert their faces, as they pass, and shudder at the gloom and ruggedness that conceal them!

The then reigning Duke of Modena, to whom this territory in part belonged, claimed the proud distinction of being the only sovereign in Europe who had not recognised Louis-Philippe as King of the French! He was not a wag, but quite in earnest. He was also much opposed to railroads; and if certain lines in contemplation by other potentates, on either side of him, had been executed, would have probably enjoyed the satisfaction of having an omnibus plying to and fro across his not very vast dominions, to forward travellers from one terminus to another.

Carrara, shut in by great hills, is very picturesque and bold. Few tourists stay there; and the people are nearly all connected, in one way or other, with the working of marble. There are also villages among the caves, where the workmen live. It contains a beautiful little Theatre, newly built; and it is an interesting custom there, to form the chorus of labourers in the marble quarries, who are self-taught and sing by ear. I heard them in a comic opera, and in an act of ‘Norma;’ and they acquitted themselves very well; unlike the common people of Italy generally, who (with some exceptions among the Neapolitans) sing vilely out of tune, and have very disagreeable singing voices.

From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of the fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies—with Leghorn, a purple spot in the flat distance—is enchanting. Nor is it only distance that lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitful country, and rich woods of olive-trees through which the road subsequently passes, render it delightful.

The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in school-books, setting forth ‘The Wonders of the World.’ Like most things connected in their first associations with school-books and school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing like so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of the many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, London. His Tower was a fiction, but this was a reality—and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The quiet air of Pisa too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two little soldiers in it; the streets with scarcely any show of people in them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next morning.

I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it, casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave retired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. But, the group of buildings, clustered on and about this verdant carpet: comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo: is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and from being clustered there, together, away from the ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed out, and filtered away.

Simond compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in children’s books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general appearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an easy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the summit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in a ship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb-tide. The effect upon the low side, so to speak—looking over from the gallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its base—is very startling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the Tower involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of propping it up. The view within, from the ground—looking up, as through a slanted tube—is also very curious. It certainly inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The natural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were about to recline upon the grass below it, to rest, and contemplate the adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up their position under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant.

The manifold beauties of the Cathedral and Baptistery need no recapitulation from me; though in this case, as in a hundred others, I find it difficult to separate my own delight in recalling them, from your weariness in having them recalled. There is a picture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there are a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt me strongly.

It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-grown graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years ago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them, such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows falling through their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely the dullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn and lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated and decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost any collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there are many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental likeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with the speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had a foreboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreak such destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets of great pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs of architecture. But the same Corsican face is so plentiful in some parts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace solution of the coincidence is unavoidable.

If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower, it may claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of its beggars. They waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort him to every door he enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strong reinforcements, at every door by which they know he must come out. The grating of the portal on its hinges is the signal for a general shout, and the moment he appears, he is hemmed in, and fallen on, by heaps of rags and personal distortions. The beggars seem to embody all the trade and enterprise of Pisa. Nothing else is stirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts of the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still and quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater part of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during a general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where windows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar of course) is seen walking off by itself into illimitable perspective.

Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by Smollett’s grave), which is a thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed there, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and free; and the town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a bad name in connection with stabbers, and with some justice it must be allowed; for, not many years ago, there was an assassination club there, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody in particular, but stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in the streets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of the recreation. I think the president of this amiable society was a shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. It would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events, before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one, and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement—the most dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when the first Italian railroad was thrown open.

Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturíno, and his four horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant Tuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses in this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of every possible object that can be connected with the Saviour’s death. The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, is usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he generally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to the cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the instrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went to the tomb (I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote the servant of the high priest,—a perfect toy-shop of little objects, repeated at every four or five miles, all along the highway.

On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached the beautiful old city of Siena. There was what they called a Carnival, in progress; but, as its secret lay in a score or two of melancholy people walking up and down the principal street in common toy-shop masks, and being more melancholy, if possible, than the same sort of people in England, I say no more of it. We went off, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral, which is wonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the latter—also the market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square, with a great broken-nosed fountain in it: some quaint Gothic houses: and a high square brick tower; outside the top of which—a curious feature in such views in Italy—hangs an enormous bell. It is like a bit of Venice, without the water. There are some curious old Palazzi in the town, which is very ancient; and without having (for me) the interest of Verona, or Genoa, it is very dreamy and fantastic, and most interesting.

We went on again, as soon as we had seen these things, and going over a rather bleak country (there had been nothing but vines until now: mere walking-sticks at that season of the year), stopped, as usual, between one and two hours in the middle of the day, to rest the horses; that being a part of every Vetturíno contract. We then went on again, through a region gradually becoming bleaker and wilder, until it became as bare and desolate as any Scottish moors. Soon after dark, we halted for the night, at the osteria of La Scala: a perfectly lone house, where the family were sitting round a great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone platform three or four feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an ox. On the upper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great, wild, rambling sála, with one very little window in a by-corner, and four black doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions. To say nothing of another large black door, opening into another large black sála, with the staircase coming abruptly through a kind of trap-door in the floor, and the rafters of the roof looming above: a suspicious little press skulking in one obscure corner: and all the knives in the house lying about in various directions. The fireplace was of the purest Italian architecture, so that it was perfectly impossible to see it for the smoke. The waitress was like a dramatic brigand’s wife, and wore the same style of dress upon her head. The dogs barked like mad; the echoes returned the compliments bestowed upon them; there was not another house within twelve miles; and things had a dreary, and rather a cut-throat, appearance.

They were not improved by rumours of robbers having come out, strong and boldly, within a few nights; and of their having stopped the mail very near that place. They were known to have waylaid some travellers not long before, on Mount Vesuvius itself, and were the talk at all the roadside inns. As they were no business of ours, however (for we had very little with us to lose), we made ourselves merry on the subject, and were very soon as comfortable as need be. We had the usual dinner in this solitary house; and a very good dinner it is, when you are used to it. There is something with a vegetable or some rice in it which is a sort of shorthand or arbitrary character for soup, and which tastes very well, when you have flavoured it with plenty of grated cheese, lots of salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of which this soup has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with the gizzards and livers of himself and other birds stuck all round him. There is a bit of roast beef, the size of a small French roll. There are a scrap of Parmesan cheese, and five little withered apples, all huddled together on a small plate, and crowding one upon the other, as if each were trying to save itself from the chance of being eaten. Then there is coffee; and then there is bed. You don’t mind brick floors; you don’t mind yawning doors, nor banging windows; you don’t mind your own horses being stabled under the bed: and so close, that every time a horse coughs or sneezes, he wakes you. If you are good-humoured to the people about you, and speak pleasantly, and look cheerful, take my word for it you may be well entertained in the very worst Italian Inn, and always in the most obliging manner, and may go from one end of the country to the other (despite all stories to the contrary) without any great trial of your patience anywhere. Especially, when you get such wine in flasks, as the Orvieto, and the Monte Pulciano.

It was a bad morning when we left this place; and we went, for twelve miles, over a country as barren, as stony, and as wild, as Cornwall in England, until we came to Radicofani, where there is a ghostly, goblin inn: once a hunting-seat, belonging to the Dukes of Tuscany. It is full of such rambling corridors, and gaunt rooms, that all the murdering and phantom tales that ever were written might have originated in that one house. There are some horrible old Palazzi in Genoa: one in particular, not unlike it, outside: but there is a winding, creaking, wormy, rustling, door-opening, foot-on-staircase-falling character about this Radicofani Hotel, such as I never saw, anywhere else. The town, such as it is, hangs on a hill-side above the house, and in front of it. The inhabitants are all beggars; and as soon as they see a carriage coming, they swoop down upon it, like so many birds of prey.

When we got on the mountain pass, which lies beyond this place, the wind (as they had forewarned us at the inn) was so terrific, that we were obliged to take my other half out of the carriage, lest she should be blown over, carriage and all, and to hang to it, on the windy side (as well as we could for laughing), to prevent its going, Heaven knows where. For mere force of wind, this land-storm might have competed with an Atlantic gale, and had a reasonable chance of coming off victorious. The blast came sweeping down great gullies in a range of mountains on the right: so that we looked with positive awe at a great morass on the left, and saw that there was not a bush or twig to hold by. It seemed as if, once blown from our feet, we must be swept out to sea, or away into space. There was snow, and hail, and rain, and lightning, and thunder; and there were rolling mists, travelling with incredible velocity. It was dark, awful, and solitary to the last degree; there were mountains above mountains, veiled in angry clouds; and there was such a wrathful, rapid, violent, tumultuous hurry, everywhere, as rendered the scene unspeakably exciting and grand.

It was a relief to get out of it, notwithstanding; and to cross even the dismal, dirty Papal Frontier. After passing through two little towns; in one of which, Acquapendente, there was also a ‘Carnival’ in progress: consisting of one man dressed and masked as a woman, and one woman dressed and masked as a man, walking ankle-deep, through the muddy streets, in a very melancholy manner: we came, at dusk, within sight of the Lake of Bolsena, on whose bank there is a little town of the same name, much celebrated for malaria. With the exception of this poor place, there is not a cottage on the banks of the lake, or near it (for nobody dare sleep there); not a boat upon its waters; not a stick or stake to break the dismal monotony of seven-and-twenty watery miles. We were late in getting in, the roads being very bad from heavy rains; and, after dark, the dulness of the scene was quite intolerable.

We entered on a very different, and a finer scene of desolation, next night, at sunset. We had passed through Montefiaschone (famous for its wine) and Viterbo (for its fountains): and after climbing up a long hill of eight or ten miles’ extent, came suddenly upon the margin of a solitary lake: in one part very beautiful, with a luxuriant wood; in another, very barren, and shut in by bleak volcanic hills. Where this lake flows, there stood, of old, a city. It was swallowed up one day; and in its stead, this water rose. There are ancient traditions (common to many parts of the world) of the ruined city having been seen below, when the water was clear; but however that may be, from this spot of earth it vanished. The ground came bubbling up above it; and the water too; and here they stand, like ghosts on whom the other world closed suddenly, and who have no means of getting back again. They seem to be waiting the course of ages, for the next earthquake in that place; when they will plunge below the ground, at its first yawning, and be seen no more. The unhappy city below, is not more lost and dreary, than these fire-charred hills and the stagnant water, above. The red sun looked strangely on them, as with the knowledge that they were made for caverns and darkness; and the melancholy water oozed and sucked the mud, and crept quietly among the marshy grass and reeds, as if the overthrow of all the ancient towers and housetops, and the death of all the ancient people born and bred there, were yet heavy on its conscience.

A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a little town like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morning at seven o’clock, we started for Rome.

As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the Campagna Romana; an undulating flat (as you know), where few people can live; and where, for miles and miles, there is nothing to relieve the terrible monotony and gloom. Of all kinds of country that could, by possibility, lie outside the gates of Rome, this is the aptest and fittest burial-ground for the Dead City. So sad, so quiet, so sullen; so secret in its covering up of great masses of ruin, and hiding them; so like the waste places into which the men possessed with devils used to go and howl, and rend themselves, in the old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty miles of this Campagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing nothing but now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking shepherd: with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the chin in a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of that distance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch, in a common malaria-shaken, despondent little public-house, whose every inch of wall and beam, inside, was (according to custom) painted and decorated in a way so miserable that every room looked like the wrong side of another room, and, with its wretched imitation of drapery, and lop-sided little daubs of lyres, seemed to have been plundered from behind the scenes of some travelling circus.

When we were fairly going off again, we began, in a perfect fever, to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two, the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it looked like—I am half afraid to write the word—like LONDON!!! There it lay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples, and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and high above them all, one Dome. I swear, that keenly as I felt the seeming absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that distance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I should have taken it for nothing else.

p. 308ROME

We entered the Eternal City, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo, and came immediately—it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been heavy rain—on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, know that we were only looking at the fag end of the masks, who were driving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find a promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene.

We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three miles before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurrying on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of desolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of the Carnival, did great violence to this promise. There were no great ruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to be seen;—they all lie on the other side of the city. There seemed to be long streets of commonplace shops and houses, such as are to be found in any European town; there were busy people, equipages, ordinary walkers to and fro; a multitude of chattering strangers. It was no more my Rome: the Rome of anybody’s fancy, man or boy; degraded and fallen and lying asleep in the sun among a heap of ruins: than the Place de la Concorde in Paris is. A cloudy sky, a dull cold rain, and muddy streets, I was prepared for, but not for this: and I confess to having gone to bed, that night, in a very indifferent humour, and with a very considerably quenched enthusiasm.

Immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter’s. It looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedly small, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the Piazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns, and its gushing fountains—so fresh, so broad, and free, and beautiful—nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most of all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to be forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel: which is before it: in the centre of the church: were like a goldsmith’s shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing. I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedral of San Mark at Venice.

When we came out of the church again (we stood nearly an hour staring up into the dome: and would not have ‘gone over’ the Cathedral then, for any money), we said to the coachman, ‘Go to the Coliseum.’ In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped at the gate, and we went in.

It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: so suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment—actually in passing in—they who will, may have the whole great pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon the stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight, not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.

To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its chinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth, and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to climb into its upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; the Roman Forum; the Palace of the Cæsars; the temples of the old religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome, wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one’s heart, as it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!

As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain among graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated Coliseum to-morrow.

Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine in its full and awful grandeur! We wandered out upon the Appian Way, and then went on, through miles of ruined tombs and broken walls, with here and there a desolate and uninhabited house: past the Circus of Romulus, where the course of the chariots, the stations of the judges, competitors, and spectators, are yet as plainly to be seen as in old time: past the tomb of Cecilia Metella: past all inclosure, hedge, or stake, wall or fence: away upon the open Campagna, where on that side of Rome, nothing is to be beheld but Ruin. Except where the distant Apennines bound the view upon the left, the whole wide prospect is one field of ruin. Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautiful clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of decay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with a history in every stone that strews the ground.

On Sunday, the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St. Peter’s. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after many visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is an immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon; and it tires itself with wandering round and round. The very purpose of the place, is not expressed in anything you see there, unless you examine its details—and all examination of details is incompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a Senate House, or a great architectural trophy, having no other object than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue of St. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger than life and which is constantly having its great toe kissed by good Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominent and popular. But it does not heighten the effect of the temple, as a work of art; and it is not expressive—to me at least—of its high purpose.

A large space behind the altar, was fitted up with boxes, shaped like those at the Italian Opera in England, but in their decoration much more gaudy. In the centre of the kind of theatre thus railed off, was a canopied dais with the Pope’s chair upon it. The pavement was covered with a carpet of the brightest green; and what with this green, and the intolerable reds and crimsons, and gold borders of the hangings, the whole concern looked like a stupendous Bonbon. On either side of the altar, was a large box for lady strangers. These were filled with ladies in black dresses and black veils. The gentlemen of the Pope’s guard, in red coats, leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all this reserved space, with drawn swords that were very flashy in every sense; and from the altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept clear by the Pope’s Swiss guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and striped tight legs, and carry halberds like those which are usually shouldered by those theatrical supernumeraries, who never can get off the stage fast enough, and who may be generally observed to linger in the enemy’s camp after the open country, held by the opposite forces, has been split up the middle by a convulsion of Nature.

I got upon the border of the green carpet, in company with a great many other gentlemen, attired in black (no other passport is necessary), and stood there at my ease, during the performance of Mass. The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in one corner; and sang most atrociously. All about the green carpet, there was a slowly moving crowd of people: talking to each other: staring at the Pope through eye-glasses; defrauding one another, in moments of partial curiosity, out of precarious seats on the bases of pillars: and grinning hideously at the ladies. Dotted here and there, were little knots of friars (Frances-cáni, or Cappuccíni, in their coarse brown dresses and peaked hoods) making a strange contrast to the gaudy ecclesiastics of higher degree, and having their humility gratified to the utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and stained garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces of the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their dogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour, having something in it, half miserable, and half ridiculous.

Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, was a perfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple, violet, white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these, went to and fro among the crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and receiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; other functionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in court-dresses, were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, and stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their own devout legs, tripped up other people’s by the dozen.

There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me, which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-work tippet, like a summer ornament for a fireplace in tissue-paper, made himself very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: one a-piece. They loitered about with these for some time, under their arms like walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At a certain period of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle up to the Pope, laid it across his two knees to be blessed, took it back again, and filed off. This was done in a very attenuated procession, as you may suppose, and occupied a long time. Not because it takes long to bless a candle through and through, but because there were so many candles to be blessed. At last they were all blessed: and then they were all lighted; and then the Pope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the church.

I must say, that I never saw anything, out of November, so like the popular English commemoration of the fifth of that month. A bundle of matches and a lantern, would have made it perfect. Nor did the Pope, himself, at all mar the resemblance, though he has a pleasant and venerable face; for, as this part of the ceremony makes him giddy and sick, he shuts his eyes when it is performed: and having his eyes shut and a great mitre on his head, and his head itself wagging to and fro as they shook him in carrying, he looked as if his mask were going to tumble off. The two immense fans which are always borne, one on either side of him, accompanied him, of course, on this occasion. As they carried him along, he blessed the people with the mystic sign; and as he passed them, they kneeled down. When he had made the round of the church, he was brought back again, and if I am not mistaken, this performance was repeated, in the whole, three times. There was, certainly nothing solemn or effective in it; and certainly very much that was droll and tawdry. But this remark applies to the whole ceremony, except the raising of the Host, when every man in the guard dropped on one knee instantly, and dashed his naked sword on the ground; which had a fine effect.

The next time I saw the cathedral, was some two or three weeks afterwards, when I climbed up into the ball; and then, the hangings being taken down, and the carpet taken up, but all the framework left, the remnants of these decorations looked like an exploded cracker.

The Friday and Saturday having been solemn Festa days, and Sunday being always a dies non in carnival proceedings, we had looked forward, with some impatience and curiosity, to the beginning of the new week: Monday and Tuesday being the two last and best days of the Carnival.

On the Monday afternoon at one or two o’clock, there began to be a great rattling of carriages into the court-yard of the hotel; a hurrying to and fro of all the servants in it; and, now and then, a swift shooting across some doorway or balcony, of a straggling stranger in a fancy dress: not yet sufficiently well used to the same, to wear it with confidence, and defy public opinion. All the carriages were open, and had the linings carefully covered with white cotton or calico, to prevent their proper decorations from being spoiled by the incessant pelting of sugar-plums; and people were packing and cramming into every vehicle as it waited for its occupants, enormous sacks and baskets full of these confétti, together with such heaps of flowers, tied up in little nosegays, that some carriages were not only brimful of flowers, but literally running over: scattering, at every shake and jerk of the springs, some of their abundance on the ground. Not to be behindhand in these essential particulars, we caused two very respectable sacks of sugar-plums (each about three feet high) and a large clothes-basket full of flowers to be conveyed into our hired barouche, with all speed. And from our place of observation, in one of the upper balconies of the hotel, we contemplated these arrangements with the liveliest satisfaction. The carriages now beginning to take up their company, and move away, we got into ours, and drove off too, armed with little wire masks for our faces; the sugar-plums, like Falstaff’s adulterated sack, having lime in their composition.

The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces, and private houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. There are verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almost every house—not on one story alone, but often to one room or another on every story—put there in general with so little order or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies, hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blown balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more disorderly manner.

This is the great fountain-head and focus of the Carnival. But all the streets in which the Carnival is held, being vigilantly kept by dragoons, it is necessary for carriages, in the first instance, to pass, in line, down another thoroughfare, and so come into the Corso at the end remote from the Piázza del Popolo; which is one of its terminations. Accordingly, we fell into the string of coaches, and, for some time, jogged on quietly enough; now crawling on at a very slow walk; now trotting half-a-dozen yards; now backing fifty; and now stopping altogether: as the pressure in front obliged us. If any impetuous carriage dashed out of the rank and clattered forward, with the wild idea of getting on faster, it was suddenly met, or overtaken, by a trooper on horseback, who, deaf as his own drawn sword to all remonstrances, immediately escorted it back to the very end of the row, and made it a dim speck in the remotest perspective. Occasionally, we interchanged a volley of confétti with the carriage next in front, or the carriage next behind; but as yet, this capturing of stray and errant coaches by the military, was the chief amusement.

Presently, we came into a narrow street, where, besides one line of carriages going, there was another line of carriages returning. Here the sugar-plums and the nosegays began to fly about, pretty smartly; and I was fortunate enough to observe one gentleman attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway—one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle—who had offered him his congratulations on this achievement, he received an orange from a housetop, full on his left ear, and was much surprised, not to say discomfited. Especially, as he was standing up at the time; and in consequence of the carriage moving on suddenly, at the same moment, staggered ignominiously, and buried himself among his flowers.

Some quarter of an hour of this sort of progress, brought us to the Corso; and anything so gay, so bright, and lively as the whole scene there, it would be difficult to imagine. From all the innumerable balconies: from the remotest and highest, no less than from the lowest and nearest: hangings of bright red, bright green, bright blue, white and gold, were fluttering in the brilliant sunlight. From windows, and from parapets, and tops of houses, streamers of the richest colours, and draperies of the gaudiest and most sparkling hues, were floating out upon the street. The buildings seemed to have been literally turned inside out, and to have all their gaiety towards the highway. Shop-fronts were taken down, and the windows filled with company, like boxes at a shining theatre; doors were carried off their hinges, and long tapestried groves, hung with garlands of flowers and evergreens, displayed within; builders’ scaffoldings were gorgeous temples, radiant in silver, gold, and crimson; and in every nook and corner, from the pavement to the chimney-tops, where women’s eyes could glisten, there they danced, and laughed, and sparkled, like the light in water. Every sort of bewitching madness of dress was there. Little preposterous scarlet jackets; quaint old stomachers, more wicked than the smartest bodices; Polish pelisses, strained and tight as ripe gooseberries; tiny Greek caps, all awry, and clinging to the dark hair, Heaven knows how; every wild, quaint, bold, shy, pettish, madcap fancy had its illustration in a dress; and every fancy was as dead forgotten by its owner, in the tumult of merriment, as if the three old aqueducts that still remain entire had brought Lethe into Rome, upon their sturdy arches, that morning.

The carriages were now three abreast; in broader places four; often stationary for a long time together, always one close mass of variegated brightness; showing, the whole street-full, through the storm of flowers, like flowers of a larger growth themselves. In some, the horses were richly caparisoned in magnificent trappings; in others they were decked from head to tail, with flowing ribbons. Some were driven by coachmen with enormous double faces: one face leering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyes into the carriage: and both rattling again, under the hail of sugar-plums. Other drivers were attired as women, wearing long ringlets and no bonnets, and looking more ridiculous in any real difficulty with the horses (of which, in such a concourse, there were a great many) than tongue can tell, or pen describe. Instead of sitting in the carriages, upon the seats, the handsome Roman women, to see and to be seen the better, sit in the heads of the barouches, at this time of general licence, with their feet upon the cushions—and oh, the flowing skirts and dainty waists, the blessed shapes and laughing faces, the free, good-humoured, gallant figures that they make! There were great vans, too, full of handsome girls—thirty, or more together, perhaps—and the broadsides that were poured into, and poured out of, these fairy fire-shops, splashed the air with flowers and bon-bons for ten minutes at a time. Carriages, delayed long in one place, would begin a deliberate engagement with other carriages, or with people at the lower windows; and the spectators at some upper balcony or window, joining in the fray, and attacking both parties, would empty down great bags of confétti, that descended like a cloud, and in an instant made them white as millers. Still, carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Men and boys clinging to the wheels of coaches, and holding on behind, and following in their wake, and diving in among the horses’ feet to pick up scattered flowers to sell again; maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantastic exaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng through enormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy of love, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window; long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladders at the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming and tearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with their horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a man-monkey on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs’ faces, and lions’ tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully over their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Not many actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering the number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, and flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour of the time—an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, so irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle in flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, and thinks of nothing else till half-past four o’clock, when he is suddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the whole business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, and seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street.

How it ever is cleared for the race that takes place at five, or how the horses ever go through the race, without going over the people, is more than I can say. But the carriages get out into the by-streets, or up into the Piázza del Popolo, and some people sit in temporary galleries in the latter place, and tens of thousands line the Corso on both sides, when the horses are brought out into the Piázza—to the foot of that same column which, for centuries, looked down upon the games and chariot-races in the Circus Maximus.

At a given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, the whole length of the Corso, they fly like the wind: riderless, as all the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, and twisted in their plaited manes: and with heavy little balls stuck full of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on. The jingling of these trappings, and the rattling of their hoofs upon the hard stones; the dash and fury of their speed along the echoing street; nay, the very cannon that are fired—these noises are nothing to the roaring of the multitude: their shouts: the clapping of their hands. But it is soon over—almost instantaneously. More cannon shake the town. The horses have plunged into the carpets put across the street to stop them; the goal is reached; the prizes are won (they are given, in part, by the poor Jews, as a compromise for not running foot-races themselves); and there is an end to that day’s sport.

But if the scene be bright, and gay, and crowded, on the last day but one, it attains, on the concluding day, to such a height of glittering colour, swarming life, and frolicsome uproar, that the bare recollection of it makes me giddy at this moment. The same diversions, greatly heightened and intensified in the ardour with which they are pursued, go on until the same hour. The race is repeated; the cannon are fired; the shouting and clapping of hands are renewed; the cannon are fired again; the race is over; and the prizes are won. But the carriages: ankle-deep with sugar-plums within, and so be-flowered and dusty without, as to be hardly recognisable for the same vehicles that they were, three hours ago: instead of scampering off in all directions, throng into the Corso, where they are soon wedged together in a scarcely moving mass. For the diversion of the Moccoletti, the last gay madness of the Carnival, is now at hand; and sellers of little tapers like what are called Christmas candles in England, are shouting lustily on every side, ‘Moccoli, Moccoli! Ecco Moccoli!’—a new item in the tumult; quite abolishing that other item of ‘Ecco Fióri! Ecco Fior-r-r!’ which has been making itself audible over all the rest, at intervals, the whole day through.

As the bright hangings and dresses are all fading into one dull, heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day, lights begin flashing, here and there: in the windows, on the housetops, in the balconies, in the carriages, in the hands of the foot-passengers: little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until the whole long street is one great glare and blaze of fire. Then, everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, to extinguish other people’s candles, and to keep his own alight; and everybody: man, woman, or child, gentleman or lady, prince or peasant, native or foreigner: yells and screams, and roars incessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, ‘Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccolo!’ (Without a light! Without a light!) until nothing is heard but a gigantic chorus of those two words, mingled with peals of laughter.

The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraordinary that can be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by, with everybody standing on the seats or on the box, holding up their lights at arms’ length, for greater safety; some in paper shades; some with a bunch of undefended little tapers, kindled altogether; some with blazing torches; some with feeble little candles; men on foot, creeping along, among the wheels, watching their opportunity, to make a spring at some particular light, and dash it out; other people climbing up into carriages, to get hold of them by main force; others, chasing some unlucky wanderer, round and round his own coach, to blow out the light he has begged or stolen somewhere, before he can ascend to his own company, and enable them to light their extinguished tapers; others, with their hats off, at a carriage-door, humbly beseeching some kind-hearted lady to oblige them with a light for a cigar, and when she is in the fulness of doubt whether to comply or no, blowing out the candle she is guarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at the windows, fishing for candles with lines and hooks, or letting down long willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping them out, dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph, others, biding their time in corners, with immense extinguishers like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches; others, gathered round one coach, and sticking to it; others, raining oranges and nosegays at an obdurate little lantern, or regularly storming a pyramid of men, holding up one man among them, who carries one feeble little wick above his head, with which he defies them all! Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo! Beautiful women, standing up in coaches, pointing in derision at extinguished lights, and clapping their hands, as they pass on, crying, ‘Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo!’; low balconies full of lovely faces and gay dresses, struggling with assailants in the streets; some repressing them as they climb up, some bending down, some leaning over, some shrinking back—delicate arms and bosoms—graceful figures—glowing lights, fluttering dresses, Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccoli, Senza Moc-co-lo-o-o-o!—when in the wildest enthusiasm of the cry, and fullest ecstasy of the sport, the Ave Maria rings from the church steeples, and the Carnival is over in an instant—put out like a taper, with a breath!

There was a masquerade at the theatre at night, as dull and senseless as a London one, and only remarkable for the summary way in which the house was cleared at eleven o’clock: which was done by a line of soldiers forming along the wall, at the back of the stage, and sweeping the whole company out before them, like a broad broom. The game of the Moccoletti (the word, in the singular, Moccoletto, is the diminutive of Moccolo, and means a little lamp or candlesnuff) is supposed by some to be a ceremony of burlesque mourning for the death of the Carnival: candles being indispensable to Catholic grief. But whether it be so, or be a remnant of the ancient Saturnalia, or an incorporation of both, or have its origin in anything else, I shall always remember it, and the frolic, as a brilliant and most captivating sight: no less remarkable for the unbroken good-humour of all concerned, down to the very lowest (and among those who scaled the carriages, were many of the commonest men and boys), than for its innocent vivacity. For, odd as it may seem to say so, of a sport so full of thoughtlessness and personal display, it is as free from any taint of immodesty as any general mingling of the two sexes can possibly be; and there seems to prevail, during its progress, a feeling of general, almost childish, simplicity and confidence, which one thinks of with a pang, when the Ave Maria has rung it away, for a whole year.

Availing ourselves of a part of the quiet interval between the termination of the Carnival and the beginning of the Holy Week: when everybody had run away from the one, and few people had yet begun to run back again for the other: we went conscientiously to work, to see Rome. And, by dint of going out early every morning, and coming back late every evening, and labouring hard all day, I believe we made acquaintance with every post and pillar in the city, and the country round; and, in particular, explored so many churches, that I abandoned that part of the enterprise at last, before it was half finished, lest I should never, of my own accord, go to church again, as long as I lived. But, I managed, almost every day, at one time or other, to get back to the Coliseum, and out upon the open Campagna, beyond the Tomb of Cecilia Metella.

We often encountered, in these expeditions, a company of English Tourists, with whom I had an ardent, but ungratified longing, to establish a speaking acquaintance. They were one Mr. Davis, and a small circle of friends. It was impossible not to know Mrs. Davis’s name, from her being always in great request among her party, and her party being everywhere. During the Holy Week, they were in every part of every scene of every ceremony. For a fortnight or three weeks before it, they were in every tomb, and every church, and every ruin, and every Picture Gallery; and I hardly ever observed Mrs. Davis to be silent for a moment. Deep underground, high up in St. Peter’s, out on the Campagna, and stifling in the Jews’ quarter, Mrs. Davis turned up, all the same. I don’t think she ever saw anything, or ever looked at anything; and she had always lost something out of a straw hand-basket, and was trying to find it, with all her might and main, among an immense quantity of English halfpence, which lay, like sands upon the sea-shore, at the bottom of it. There was a professional Cicerone always attached to the party (which had been brought over from London, fifteen or twenty strong, by contract), and if he so much as looked at Mrs. Davis, she invariably cut him short by saying, ‘There, God bless the man, don’t worrit me! I don’t understand a word you say, and shouldn’t if you was to talk till you was black in the face!’ Mr. Davis always had a snuff-coloured great-coat on, and carried a great green umbrella in his hand, and had a slow curiosity constantly devouring him, which prompted him to do extraordinary things, such as taking the covers off urns in tombs, and looking in at the ashes as if they were pickles—and tracing out inscriptions with the ferrule of his umbrella, and saying, with intense thoughtfulness, ‘Here’s a B you see, and there’s a R, and this is the way we goes on in; is it!’ His antiquarian habits occasioned his being frequently in the rear of the rest; and one of the agonies of Mrs. Davis, and the party in general, was an ever-present fear that Davis would be lost. This caused them to scream for him, in the strangest places, and at the most improper seasons. And when he came, slowly emerging out of some sepulchre or other, like a peaceful Ghoule, saying ‘Here I am!’ Mrs. Davis invariably replied, ‘You’ll be buried alive in a foreign country, Davis, and it’s no use trying to prevent you!’

Mr. and Mrs. Davis, and their party, had, probably, been brought from London in about nine or ten days. Eighteen hundred years ago, the Roman legions under Claudius, protested against being led into Mr. and Mrs. Davis’s country, urging that it lay beyond the limits of the world.

Among what may be called the Cubs or minor Lions of Rome, there was one that amused me mightily. It is always to be found there; and its den is on the great flight of steps that lead from the Piazza di Spágna, to the church of Trínita del Monte. In plainer words, these steps are the great place of resort for the artists’ ‘Models,’ and there they are constantly waiting to be hired. The first time I went up there, I could not conceive why the faces seemed familiar to me; why they appeared to have beset me, for years, in every possible variety of action and costume; and how it came to pass that they started up before me, in Rome, in the broad day, like so many saddled and bridled nightmares. I soon found that we had made acquaintance, and improved it, for several years, on the walls of various Exhibition Galleries. There is one old gentleman, with long white hair and an immense beard, who, to my knowledge, has gone half through the catalogue of the Royal Academy. This is the venerable, or patriarchal model. He carries a long staff; and every knot and twist in that staff I have seen, faithfully delineated, innumerable times. There is another man in a blue cloak, who always pretends to be asleep in the sun (when there is any), and who, I need not say, is always very wide awake, and very attentive to the disposition of his legs. This is the dolce far’ niente model. There is another man in a brown cloak, who leans against a wall, with his arms folded in his mantle, and looks out of the corners of his eyes: which are just visible beneath his broad slouched hat. This is the assassin model. There is another man, who constantly looks over his own shoulder, and is always going away, but never does. This is the haughty, or scornful model. As to Domestic Happiness, and Holy Families, they should come very cheap, for there are lumps of them, all up the steps; and the cream of the thing is, that they are all the falsest vagabonds in the world, especially made up for the purpose, and having no counterparts in Rome or any other part of the habitable globe.

My recent mention of the Carnival, reminds me of its being said to be a mock mourning (in the ceremony with which it closes), for the gaieties and merry-makings before Lent; and this again reminds me of the real funerals and mourning processions of Rome, which, like those in most other parts of Italy, are rendered chiefly remarkable to a Foreigner, by the indifference with which the mere clay is universally regarded, after life has left it. And this is not from the survivors having had time to dissociate the memory of the dead from their well-remembered appearance and form on earth; for the interment follows too speedily after death, for that: almost always taking place within four-and-twenty hours, and, sometimes, within twelve.

At Rome, there is the same arrangement of Pits in a great, bleak, open, dreary space, that I have already described as existing in Genoa. When I visited it, at noonday, I saw a solitary coffin of plain deal: uncovered by any shroud or pall, and so slightly made, that the hoof of any wandering mule would have crushed it in: carelessly tumbled down, all on one side, on the door of one of the pits—and there left, by itself, in the wind and sunshine. ‘How does it come to be left here?’ I asked the man who showed me the place. ‘It was brought here half an hour ago, Signore,’ he said. I remembered to have met the procession, on its return: straggling away at a good round pace. ‘When will it be put in the pit?’ I asked him. ‘When the cart comes, and it is opened to-night,’ he said. ‘How much does it cost to be brought here in this way, instead of coming in the cart?’ I asked him. ‘Ten scudi,’ he said (about two pounds, two-and-sixpence, English). ‘The other bodies, for whom nothing is paid, are taken to the church of the Santa Maria della Consolázione,’ he continued, ‘and brought here altogether, in the cart at night.’ I stood, a moment, looking at the coffin, which had two initial letters scrawled upon the top; and turned away, with an expression in my face, I suppose, of not much liking its exposure in that manner: for he said, shrugging his shoulders with great vivacity, and giving a pleasant smile, ‘But he’s dead, Signore, he’s dead. Why not?’

Among the innumerable churches, there is one I must select for separate mention. It is the church of the Ara Coeli, supposed to be built on the site of the old Temple of Jupiter Feretrius; and approached, on one side, by a long steep flight of steps, which seem incomplete without some group of bearded soothsayers on the top. It is remarkable for the possession of a miraculous Bambíno, or wooden doll, representing the Infant Saviour; and I first saw this miraculous Bambíno, in legal phrase, in manner following, that is to say:

We had strolled into the church one afternoon, and were looking down its long vista of gloomy pillars (for all these ancient churches built upon the ruins of old temples, are dark and sad), when the Brave came running in, with a grin upon his face that stretched it from ear to ear, and implored us to follow him, without a moment’s delay, as they were going to show the Bambíno to a select party. We accordingly hurried off to a sort of chapel, or sacristy, hard by the chief altar, but not in the church itself, where the select party, consisting of two or three Catholic gentlemen and ladies (not Italians), were already assembled: and where one hollow-cheeked young monk was lighting up divers candles, while another was putting on some clerical robes over his coarse brown habit. The candles were on a kind of altar, and above it were two delectable figures, such as you would see at any English fair, representing the Holy Virgin, and Saint Joseph, as I suppose, bending in devotion over a wooden box, or coffer; which was shut.

The hollow-cheeked monk, number One, having finished lighting the candles, went down on his knees, in a corner, before this set-piece; and the monk number Two, having put on a pair of highly ornamented and gold-bespattered gloves, lifted down the coffer, with great reverence, and set it on the altar. Then, with many genuflexions, and muttering certain prayers, he opened it, and let down the front, and took off sundry coverings of satin and lace from the inside. The ladies had been on their knees from the commencement; and the gentlemen now dropped down devoutly, as he exposed to view a little wooden doll, in face very like General Tom Thumb, the American Dwarf: gorgeously dressed in satin and gold lace, and actually blazing with rich jewels. There was scarcely a spot upon its little breast, or neck, or stomach, but was sparkling with the costly offerings of the Faithful. Presently, he lifted it out of the box, and carrying it round among the kneelers, set its face against the forehead of every one, and tendered its clumsy foot to them to kiss—a ceremony which they all performed down to a dirty little ragamuffin of a boy who had walked in from the street. When this was done, he laid it in the box again: and the company, rising, drew near, and commended the jewels in whispers. In good time, he replaced the coverings, shut up the box, put it back in its place, locked up the whole concern (Holy Family and all) behind a pair of folding-doors; took off his priestly vestments; and received the customary ‘small charge,’ while his companion, by means of an extinguisher fastened to the end of a long stick, put out the lights, one after another. The candles being all extinguished, and the money all collected, they retired, and so did the spectators.

I met this same Bambíno, in the street a short time afterwards, going, in great state, to the house of some sick person. It is taken to all parts of Rome for this purpose, constantly; but, I understand that it is not always as successful as could be wished; for, making its appearance at the bedside of weak and nervous people in extremity, accompanied by a numerous escort, it not unfrequently frightens them to death. It is most popular in cases of child-birth, where it has done such wonders, that if a lady be longer than usual in getting through her difficulties, a messenger is despatched, with all speed, to solicit the immediate attendance of the Bambíno. It is a very valuable property, and much confided in—especially by the religious body to whom it belongs.

I am happy to know that it is not considered immaculate, by some who are good Catholics, and who are behind the scenes, from what was told me by the near relation of a Priest, himself a Catholic, and a gentleman of learning and intelligence. This Priest made my informant promise that he would, on no account, allow the Bambíno to be borne into the bedroom of a sick lady, in whom they were both interested. ‘For,’ said he, ‘if they (the monks) trouble her with it, and intrude themselves into her room, it will certainly kill her.’ My informant accordingly looked out of the window when it came; and, with many thanks, declined to open the door. He endeavoured, in another case of which he had no other knowledge than such as he gained as a passer-by at the moment, to prevent its being carried into a small unwholesome chamber, where a poor girl was dying. But, he strove against it unsuccessfully, and she expired while the crowd were pressing round her bed.

Among the people who drop into St. Peter’s at their leisure, to kneel on the pavement, and say a quiet prayer, there are certain schools and seminaries, priestly and otherwise, that come in, twenty or thirty strong. These boys always kneel down in single file, one behind the other, with a tall grim master in a black gown, bringing up the rear: like a pack of cards arranged to be tumbled down at a touch, with a disproportionately large Knave of clubs at the end. When they have had a minute or so at the chief altar, they scramble up, and filing off to the chapel of the Madonna, or the sacrament, flop down again in the same order; so that if anybody did stumble against the master, a general and sudden overthrow of the whole line must inevitably ensue.

The scene in all the churches is the strangest possible. The same monotonous, heartless, drowsy chaunting, always going on; the same dark building, darker from the brightness of the street without; the same lamps dimly burning; the selfsame people kneeling here and there; turned towards you, from one altar or other, the same priest’s back, with the same large cross embroidered on it; however different in size, in shape, in wealth, in architecture, this church is from that, it is the same thing still. There are the same dirty beggars stopping in their muttered prayers to beg; the same miserable cripples exhibiting their deformity at the doors; the same blind men, rattling little pots like kitchen pepper-castors: their depositories for alms; the same preposterous crowns of silver stuck upon the painted heads of single saints and Virgins in crowded pictures, so that a little figure on a mountain has a head-dress bigger than the temple in the foreground, or adjacent miles of landscape; the same favourite shrine or figure, smothered with little silver hearts and crosses, and the like: the staple trade and show of all the jewellers; the same odd mixture of respect and indecorum, faith and phlegm: kneeling on the stones, and spitting on them, loudly; getting up from prayers to beg a little, or to pursue some other worldly matter: and then kneeling down again, to resume the contrite supplication at the point where it was interrupted. In one church, a kneeling lady got up from her prayer, for a moment, to offer us her card, as a teacher of Music; and in another, a sedate gentleman with a very thick walking-staff, arose from his devotions to belabour his dog, who was growling at another dog: and whose yelps and howls resounded through the church, as his master quietly relapsed into his former train of meditation—keeping his eye upon the dog, at the same time, nevertheless.

Above all, there is always a receptacle for the contributions of the Faithful, in some form or other. Sometimes, it is a money-box, set up between the worshipper, and the wooden life-size figure of the Redeemer; sometimes, it is a little chest for the maintenance of the Virgin; sometimes, an appeal on behalf of a popular Bambíno; sometimes, a bag at the end of a long stick, thrust among the people here and there, and vigilantly jingled by an active Sacristan; but there it always is, and, very often, in many shapes in the same church, and doing pretty well in all. Nor, is it wanting in the open air—the streets and roads—for, often as you are walking along, thinking about anything rather than a tin canister, that object pounces out upon you from a little house by the wayside; and on its top is painted, ‘For the Souls in Purgatory;’ an appeal which the bearer repeats a great many times, as he rattles it before you, much as Punch rattles the cracked bell which his sanguine disposition makes an organ of.

And this reminds me that some Roman altars of peculiar sanctity, bear the inscription, ‘Every Mass performed at this altar frees a soul from Purgatory.’ I have never been able to find out the charge for one of these services, but they should needs be expensive. There are several Crosses in Rome too, the kissing of which, confers indulgences for varying terms. That in the centre of the Coliseum, is worth a hundred days; and people may be seen kissing it from morning to night. It is curious that some of these crosses seem to acquire an arbitrary popularity: this very one among them. In another part of the Coliseum there is a cross upon a marble slab, with the inscription, ‘Who kisses this cross shall be entitled to Two hundred and forty days’ indulgence.’ But I saw no one person kiss it, though, day after day, I sat in the arena, and saw scores upon scores of peasants pass it, on their way to kiss the other.

To single out details from the great dream of Roman Churches, would be the wildest occupation in the world. But St. Stefano Rotondo, a damp, mildewed vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome, will always struggle uppermost in my mind, by reason of the hideous paintings with which its walls are covered. These represent the martyrdoms of saints and early Christians; and such a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he were to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men being boiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild beasts, worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped up small with hatchets: women having their breasts torn with iron pinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jaws broken, their bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon the stake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among the mildest subjects. So insisted on, and laboured at, besides, that every sufferer gives you the same occasion for wonder as poor old Duncan awoke, in Lady Macbeth, when she marvelled at his having so much blood in him.

There is an upper chamber in the Mamertine prisons, over what is said to have been—and very possibly may have been—the dungeon of St. Peter. This chamber is now fitted up as an oratory, dedicated to that saint; and it lives, as a distinct and separate place, in my recollection, too. It is very small and low-roofed; and the dread and gloom of the ponderous, obdurate old prison are on it, as if they had come up in a dark mist through the floor. Hanging on the walls, among the clustered votive offerings, are objects, at once strangely in keeping, and strangely at variance, with the place—rusty daggers, knives, pistols, clubs, divers instruments of violence and murder, brought here, fresh from use, and hung up to propitiate offended Heaven: as if the blood upon them would drain off in consecrated air, and have no voice to cry with. It is all so silent and so close, and tomb-like; and the dungeons below are so black and stealthy, and stagnant, and naked; that this little dark spot becomes a dream within a dream: and in the vision of great churches which come rolling past me like a sea, it is a small wave by itself, that melts into no other wave, and does not flow on with the rest.

It is an awful thing to think of the enormous caverns that are entered from some Roman churches, and undermine the city. Many churches have crypts and subterranean chapels of great size, which, in the ancient time, were baths, and secret chambers of temples, and what not: but I do not speak of them. Beneath the church of St. Giovanni and St. Paolo, there are the jaws of a terrific range of caverns, hewn out of the rock, and said to have another outlet underneath the Coliseum—tremendous darknesses of vast extent, half-buried in the earth and unexplorable, where the dull torches, flashed by the attendants, glimmer down long ranges of distant vaults branching to the right and left, like streets in a city of the dead; and show the cold damp stealing down the walls, drip-drop, drip-drop, to join the pools of water that lie here and there, and never saw, or never will see, one ray of the sun. Some accounts make these the prisons of the wild beasts destined for the amphitheatre; some the prisons of the condemned gladiators; some, both. But the legend most appalling to the fancy is, that in the upper range (for there are two stories of these caves) the Early Christians destined to be eaten at the Coliseum Shows, heard the wild beasts, hungry for them, roaring down below; until, upon the p. 326night and solitude of their captivity, there burst the sudden noon and life of the vast theatre crowded to the parapet, and of these, their dreaded neighbours, bounding in!

Below the church of San Sebastiano, two miles beyond the gate of San Sebastiano, on the Appian Way, is the entrance to the catacombs of Rome—quarries in the old time, but afterwards the hiding-places of the Christians. These ghastly passages have been explored for twenty miles; and form a chain of labyrinths, sixty miles in circumference.

A gaunt Franciscan friar, with a wild bright eye, was our only guide, down into this profound and dreadful place. The narrow ways and openings hither and thither, coupled with the dead and heavy air, soon blotted out, in all of us, any recollection of the track by which we had come: and I could not help thinking ‘Good Heaven, if, in a sudden fit of madness, he should dash the torches out, or if he should be seized with a fit, what would become of us!’ On we wandered, among martyrs’ graves: passing great subterranean vaulted roads, diverging in all directions, and choked up with heaps of stones, that thieves and murderers may not take refuge there, and form a population under Rome, even worse than that which lives between it and the sun. Graves, graves, graves; Graves of men, of women, of their little children, who ran crying to the persecutors, ‘We are Christians! We are Christians!’ that they might be murdered with their parents; Graves with the palm of martyrdom roughly cut into their stone boundaries, and little niches, made to hold a vessel of the martyrs’ blood; Graves of some who lived down here, for years together, ministering to the rest, and preaching truth, and hope, and comfort, from the rude altars, that bear witness to their fortitude at this hour; more roomy graves, but far more terrible, where hundreds, being surprised, were hemmed in and walled up: buried before Death, and killed by slow starvation.

‘The Triumphs of the Faith are not above ground in our splendid churches,’ said the friar, looking round upon us, as we stopped to rest in one of the low passages, with bones and dust surrounding us on every side. ‘They are here! Among the Martyrs’ Graves!’ He was a gentle, earnest man, and said it from his heart; but when I thought how Christian men have dealt with one another; how, perverting our most merciful religion, they have hunted down and tortured, burnt and beheaded, strangled, slaughtered, and oppressed each other; I pictured to myself an agony surpassing any that this Dust had suffered with the breath of life yet lingering in it, and how these great and constant hearts would have been shaken—how they would have quailed and drooped—if a foreknowledge of the deeds that professing Christians would commit in the Great Name for which they died, could have rent them with its own unutterable anguish, on the cruel wheel, and bitter cross, and in the fearful fire.

Such are the spots and patches in my dream of churches, that remain apart, and keep their separate identity. I have a fainter recollection, sometimes of the relics; of the fragments of the pillar of the Temple that was rent in twain; of the portion of the table that was spread for the Last Supper; of the well at which the woman of Samaria gave water to Our Saviour; of two columns from the house of Pontius Pilate; of the stone to which the Sacred hands were bound, when the scourging was performed; of the grid-iron of Saint Lawrence, and the stone below it, marked with the frying of his fat and blood; these set a shadowy mark on some cathedrals, as an old story, or a fable might, and stop them for an instant, as they flit before me. The rest is a vast wilderness of consecrated buildings of all shapes and fancies, blending one with another; of battered pillars of old Pagan temples, dug up from the ground, and forced, like giant captives, to support the roofs of Christian churches; of pictures, bad, and wonderful, and impious, and ridiculous; of kneeling people, curling incense, tinkling bells, and sometimes (but not often) of a swelling organ: of Madonne, with their breasts stuck full of swords, arranged in a half-circle like a modern fan; of actual skeletons of dead saints, hideously attired in gaudy satins, silks, and velvets trimmed with gold: their withered crust of skull adorned with precious jewels, or with chaplets of crushed flowers; sometimes of people gathered round the pulpit, and a monk within it stretching out the crucifix, and preaching fiercely: the sun just streaming down through some high window on the sail-cloth stretched above him and across the church, to keep his high-pitched voice from being lost among the echoes of the roof. Then my tired memory comes out upon a flight of steps, where knots of people are asleep, or basking in the light; and strolls away, among the rags, and smells, and palaces, and hovels, of an old Italian street.

On one Saturday morning (the eighth of March), a man was beheaded here. Nine or ten months before, he had waylaid a Bavarian countess, travelling as a pilgrim to Rome—alone and on foot, of course—and performing, it is said, that act of piety for the fourth time. He saw her change a piece of gold at Viterbo, where he lived; followed her; bore her company on her journey for some forty miles or more, on the treacherous pretext of protecting her; attacked her, in the fulfilment of his unrelenting purpose, on the Campagna, within a very short distance of Rome, near to what is called (but what is not) the Tomb of Nero; robbed her; and beat her to death with her own pilgrim’s staff. He was newly married, and gave some of her apparel to his wife: saying that he had bought it at a fair. She, however, who had seen the pilgrim-countess passing through their town, recognised some trifle as having belonged to her. Her husband then told her what he had done. She, in confession, told a priest; and the man was taken, within four days after the commission of the murder.

There are no fixed times for the administration of justice, or its execution, in this unaccountable country; and he had been in prison ever since. On the Friday, as he was dining with the other prisoners, they came and told him he was to be beheaded next morning, and took him away. It is very unusual to execute in Lent; but his crime being a very bad one, it was deemed advisable to make an example of him at that time, when great numbers of pilgrims were coming towards Rome, from all parts, for the Holy Week. I heard of this on the Friday evening, and saw the bills up at the churches, calling on the people to pray for the criminal’s soul. So, I determined to go, and see him executed.

The beheading was appointed for fourteen and a-half o’clock, Roman time: or a quarter before nine in the forenoon. I had two friends with me; and as we did not know but that the crowd might be very great, we were on the spot by half-past seven. The place of execution was near the church of San Giovanni decolláto (a doubtful compliment to Saint John the Baptist) in one of the impassable back streets without any footway, of which a great part of Rome is composed—a street of rotten houses, which do not seem to belong to anybody, and do not seem to have ever been inhabited, and certainly were never built on any plan, or for any particular purpose, and have no window-sashes, and are a little like deserted breweries, and might be warehouses but for having nothing in them. Opposite to one of these, a white house, the scaffold was built. An untidy, unpainted, uncouth, crazy-looking thing of course: some seven feet high, perhaps: with a tall, gallows-shaped frame rising above it, in which was the knife, charged with a ponderous mass of iron, all ready to descend, and glittering brightly in the morning sun, whenever it looked out, now and then, from behind a cloud.

There were not many people lingering about; and these were kept at a considerable distance from the scaffold, by parties of the Pope’s dragoons. Two or three hundred foot-soldiers were under arms, standing at ease in clusters here and there; and the officers were walking up and down in twos and threes, chatting together, and smoking cigars.

At the end of the street, was an open space, where there would be a dust-heap, and piles of broken crockery, and mounds of vegetable refuse, but for such things being thrown anywhere and everywhere in Rome, and favouring no particular sort of locality. We got into a kind of wash-house, belonging to a dwelling-house on this spot; and standing there in an old cart, and on a heap of cartwheels piled against the wall, looked, through a large grated window, at the scaffold, and straight down the street beyond it until, in consequence of its turning off abruptly to the left, our perspective was brought to a sudden termination, and had a corpulent officer, in a cocked hat, for its crowning feature.

Nine o’clock struck, and ten o’clock struck, and nothing happened. All the bells of all the churches rang as usual. A little parliament of dogs assembled in the open space, and chased each other, in and out among the soldiers. Fierce-looking Romans of the lowest class, in blue cloaks, russet cloaks, and rags uncloaked, came and went, and talked together. Women and children fluttered, on the skirts of the scanty crowd. One large muddy spot was left quite bare, like a bald place on a man’s head. A cigar-merchant, with an earthen pot of charcoal ashes in one hand, went up and down, crying his wares. A pastry-merchant divided his attention between the scaffold and his customers. Boys tried to climb up walls, and tumbled down again. Priests and monks elbowed a passage for themselves among the people, and stood on tiptoe for a sight of the knife: then went away. Artists, in inconceivable hats of the middle-ages, and beards (thank Heaven!) of no age at all, flashed picturesque scowls about them from their stations in the throng. One gentleman (connected with the fine arts, I presume) went up and down in a pair of Hessian-boots, with a red beard hanging down on his breast, and his long and bright red hair, plaited into two tails, one on either side of his head, which fell over his shoulders in front of him, very nearly to his waist, and were carefully entwined and braided!

Eleven o’clock struck and still nothing happened. A rumour got about, among the crowd, that the criminal would not confess; in which case, the priests would keep him until the Ave Maria (sunset); for it is their merciful custom never finally to turn the crucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to be shriven, and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, until then. People began to drop off. The officers shrugged their shoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding up below our window, every now and then, to order an unlucky hackney-coach or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably established itself, and was covered with exulting people (but never before), became imperious, and quick-tempered. The bald place hadn’t a straggling hair upon it; and the corpulent officer, crowning the perspective, took a world of snuff.

Suddenly, there was a noise of trumpets. ‘Attention!’ was among the foot-soldiers instantly. They were marched up to the scaffold and formed round it. The dragoons galloped to their nearer stations too. The guillotine became the centre of a wood of bristling bayonets and shining sabres. The people closed round nearer, on the flank of the soldiery. A long straggling stream of men and boys, who had accompanied the procession from the prison, came pouring into the open space. The bald spot was scarcely distinguishable from the rest. The cigar and pastry-merchants resigned all thoughts of business, for the moment, and abandoning themselves wholly to pleasure, got good situations in the crowd. The perspective ended, now, in a troop of dragoons. And the corpulent officer, sword in hand, looked hard at a church close to him, which he could see, but we, the crowd, could not.

After a short delay, some monks were seen approaching to the scaffold from this church; and above their heads, coming on slowly and gloomily, the effigy of Christ upon the cross, canopied with black. This was carried round the foot of the scaffold, to the front, and turned towards the criminal, that he might see it to the last. It was hardly in its place, when he appeared on the platform, bare-footed; his hands bound; and with the collar and neck of his shirt cut away, almost to the shoulder. A young man—six-and-twenty—vigorously made, and well-shaped. Face pale; small dark moustache; and dark brown hair.

He had refused to confess, it seemed, without first having his wife brought to see him; and they had sent an escort for her, which had occasioned the delay.

He immediately kneeled down, below the knife. His neck fitting into a hole, made for the purpose, in a cross plank, was shut down, by another plank above; exactly like the pillory. Immediately below him was a leathern bag. And into it his head rolled instantly.

The executioner was holding it by the hair, and walking with it round the scaffold, showing it to the people, before one quite knew that the knife had fallen heavily, and with a rattling sound.

When it had travelled round the four sides of the scaffold, it was set upon a pole in front—a little patch of black and white, for the long street to stare at, and the flies to settle on. The eyes were turned upward, as if he had avoided the sight of the leathern bag, and looked to the crucifix. Every tinge and hue of life had left it in that instant. It was dull, cold, livid, wax. The body also.

There was a great deal of blood. When we left the window, and went close up to the scaffold, it was very dirty; one of the two men who were throwing water over it, turning to help the other lift the body into a shell, picked his way as through mire. A strange appearance was the apparent annihilation of the neck. The head was taken off so close, that it seemed as if the knife had narrowly escaped crushing the jaw, or shaving off the ear; and the body looked as if there were nothing left above the shoulder.

Nobody cared, or was at all affected. There was no manifestation of disgust, or pity, or indignation, or sorrow. My empty pockets were tried, several times, in the crowd immediately below the scaffold, as the corpse was being put into its coffin. It was an ugly, filthy, careless, sickening spectacle; meaning nothing but butchery beyond the momentary interest, to the one wretched actor. Yes! Such a sight has one meaning and one warning. Let me not forget it. The speculators in the lottery, station themselves at favourable points for counting the gouts of blood that spirt out, here or there; and buy that number. It is pretty sure to have a run upon it.

The body was carted away in due time, the knife cleansed, the scaffold taken down, and all the hideous apparatus removed. The executioner: an outlaw ex officio (what a satire on the Punishment!) who dare not, for his life, cross the Bridge of St. Angelo but to do his work: retreated to his lair, and the show was over.

At the head of the collections in the palaces of Rome, the Vatican, of course, with its treasures of art, its enormous galleries, and staircases, and suites upon suites of immense chambers, ranks highest and stands foremost. Many most noble statues, and wonderful pictures, are there; nor is it heresy to say that there is a considerable amount of rubbish there, too. When any old piece of sculpture dug out of the ground, finds a place in a gallery because it is old, and without any reference to its intrinsic merits: and finds admirers by the hundred, because it is there, and for no other reason on earth: there will be no lack of objects, very indifferent in the plain eyesight of any one who employs so vulgar a property, when he may wear the spectacles of Cant for less than nothing, and establish himself as a man of taste for the mere trouble of putting them on.

I unreservedly confess, for myself, that I cannot leave my natural perception of what is natural and true, at a palace-door, in Italy or elsewhere, as I should leave my shoes if I were travelling in the East. I cannot forget that there are certain expressions of face, natural to certain passions, and as unchangeable in their nature as the gait of a lion, or the flight of an eagle. I cannot dismiss from my certain knowledge, such commonplace facts as the ordinary proportion of men’s arms, and legs, and heads; and when I meet with performances that do violence to these experiences and recollections, no matter where they may be, I cannot honestly admire them, and think it best to say so; in spite of high critical advice that we should sometimes feign an admiration, though we have it not.

Therefore, I freely acknowledge that when I see a jolly young Waterman representing a cherubim, or a Barclay and Perkins’s Drayman depicted as an Evangelist, I see nothing to commend or admire in the performance, however great its reputed Painter. Neither am I partial to libellous Angels, who play on fiddles and bassoons, for the edification of sprawling monks apparently in liquor. Nor to those Monsieur Tonsons of galleries, Saint Francis and Saint Sebastian; both of whom I submit should have very uncommon and rare merits, as works of art, to justify their compound multiplication by Italian Painters.

It seems to me, too, that the indiscriminate and determined raptures in which some critics indulge, is incompatible with the true appreciation of the really great and transcendent works. I cannot imagine, for example, how the resolute champion of undeserving pictures can soar to the amazing beauty of Titian’s great picture of the Assumption of the Virgin at Venice; or how the man who is truly affected by the sublimity of that exquisite production, or who is truly sensible of the beauty of Tintoretto’s great picture of the Assembly of the Blessed in the same place, can discern in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, in the Sistine chapel, any general idea, or one pervading thought, in harmony with the stupendous subject. He who will contemplate Raphael’s masterpiece, the Transfiguration, and will go away into another chamber of that same Vatican, and contemplate another design of Raphael, representing (in incredible caricature) the miraculous stopping of a great fire by Leo the Fourth—and who will say that he admires them both, as works of extraordinary genius—must, as I think, be wanting in his powers of perception in one of the two instances, and, probably, in the high and lofty one.

It is easy to suggest a doubt, but I have a great doubt whether, sometimes, the rules of art are not too strictly observed, and whether it is quite well or agreeable that we should know beforehand, where this figure will be turning round, and where that figure will be lying down, and where there will be drapery in folds, and so forth. When I observe heads inferior to the subject, in pictures of merit, in Italian galleries, I do not attach that reproach to the Painter, for I have a suspicion that these great men, who were, of necessity, very much in the hands of monks and priests, painted monks and priests a great deal too often. I frequently see, in pictures of real power, heads quite below the story and the painter: and I invariably observe that those heads are of the Convent stamp, and have their counterparts among the Convent inmates of this hour; so, I have settled with myself that, in such cases, the lameness was not with the painter, but with the vanity and ignorance of certain of his employers, who would be apostles—on canvas, at all events.

The exquisite grace and beauty of Canova’s statues; the wonderful gravity and repose of many of the ancient works in sculpture, both in the Capitol and the Vatican; and the strength and fire of many others; are, in their different ways, beyond all reach of words. They are especially impressive and delightful, after the works of Bernini and his disciples, in which the churches of Rome, from St. Peter’s downward, abound; and which are, I verily believe, the most detestable class of productions in the wide world. I would infinitely rather (as mere works of art) look upon the three deities of the Past, the Present, and the Future, in the Chinese Collection, than upon the best of these breezy maniacs; whose every fold of drapery is blown inside-out; whose smallest vein, or artery, is as big as an ordinary forefinger; whose hair is like a nest of lively snakes; and whose attitudes put all other extravagance to shame. Insomuch that I do honestly believe, there can be no place in the world, where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor’s chisel, are to be found in such profusion, as in Rome.

There is a fine collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the Vatican; and the ceilings of the rooms in which they are arranged, are painted to represent a starlight sky in the Desert. It may seem an odd idea, but it is very effective. The grim, half-human monsters from the temples, look more grim and monstrous underneath the deep dark blue; it sheds a strange uncertain gloomy air on everything—a mystery adapted to the objects; and you leave them, as you find them, shrouded in a solemn night.

In the private palaces, pictures are seen to the best advantage. There are seldom so many in one place that the attention need become distracted, or the eye confused. You see them very leisurely; and are rarely interrupted by a crowd of people. There are portraits innumerable, by Titian, and Rembrandt, and Vandyke; heads by Guido, and Domenichino, and Carlo Dolci; various subjects by Correggio, and Murillo, and Raphael, and Salvator Rosa, and Spagnoletto—many of which it would be difficult, indeed, to praise too highly, or to praise enough; such is their tenderness and grace; their noble elevation, purity, and beauty.

The portrait of Beatrice di Cenci, in the Palazzo Berberini, is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a something shining out, that haunts me. I see it now, as I see this paper, or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes—although they are very tender and gentle—as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories say that Guido painted it, the night before her execution; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her, on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci: blighting a whole quarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains: had that face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black, blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, and growing out of the darkness of the ghostly galleries. The History is written in the Painting; written, in the dying girl’s face, by Nature’s own hand. And oh! how in that one touch she puts to flight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claim to be related to her, in right of poor conventional forgeries!

I saw in the Palazzo Spada, the statue of Pompey; the statue at whose base Cæsar fell. A stern, tremendous figure! I imagined one of greater finish: of the last refinement: full of delicate touches: losing its distinctness, in the giddy eyes of one whose blood was ebbing before it, and settling into some such rigid majesty as this, as Death came creeping over the upturned face.

The excursions in the neighbourhood of Rome are charming, and would be full of interest were it only for the changing views they afford, of the wild Campagna. But, every inch of ground, in every direction, is rich in associations, and in natural beauties. There is Albano, with its lovely lake and wooded shore, and with its wine, that certainly has not improved since the days of Horace, and in these times hardly justifies his panegyric. There is squalid Tivoli, with the river Anio, diverted from its course, and plunging down, headlong, some eighty feet in search of it. With its picturesque Temple of the Sibyl, perched high on a crag; its minor waterfalls glancing and sparkling in the sun; and one good cavern yawning darkly, where the river takes a fearful plunge and shoots on, low down under beetling rocks. There, too, is the Villa d’Este, deserted and decaying among groves of melancholy pine and cypress trees, where it seems to lie in state. Then, there is Frascati, and, on the steep above it, the ruins of Tusculum, where Cicero lived, and wrote, and adorned his favourite house (some fragments of it may yet be seen there), and where Cato was born. We saw its ruined amphitheatre on a grey, dull day, when a shrill March wind was blowing, and when the scattered stones of the old city lay strewn about the lonely eminence, as desolate and dead as the ashes of a long extinguished fire.

One day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteen miles distant; possessed by a great desire to go there by the ancient Appian way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started at half-past seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were out upon the open Campagna. For twelve miles we went climbing on, over an unbroken succession of mounds, and heaps, and hills, of ruin. Tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate; small fragments of columns, friezes, pediments; great blocks of granite and marble; mouldering arches, grass-grown and decayed; ruin enough to build a spacious city from; lay strewn about us. Sometimes, loose walls, built up from these fragments by the shepherds, came across our path; sometimes, a ditch between two mounds of broken stones, obstructed our progress; sometimes, the fragments themselves, rolling from beneath our feet, made it a toilsome matter to advance; but it was always ruin. Now, we tracked a piece of the old road, above the ground; now traced it, underneath a grassy covering, as if that were its grave; but all the way was ruin. In the distance, ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant course along the plain; and every breath of wind that swept towards us, stirred early flowers and grasses, springing up, spontaneously, on miles of ruin. The unseen larks above us, who alone disturbed the awful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen, clad in sheepskins, who now and then scowled out upon us from their sleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the desolate Campagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me of an American prairie; but what is the solitude of a region where men have never dwelt, to that of a Desert, where a mighty race have left their footprints in the earth from which they have vanished; where the resting-places of their Dead, have fallen like their Dead; and the broken hour-glass of Time is but a heap of idle dust! Returning, by the road, at sunset! and looking, from the distance, on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost feel (as I had felt when I first saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would never rise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world.

To come again on Rome, by moonlight, after such an expedition, is a fitting close to such a day. The narrow streets, devoid of footways, and choked, in every obscure corner, by heaps of dunghill-rubbish, contrast so strongly, in their cramped dimensions, and their filth, and darkness, with the broad square before some haughty church: in the centre of which, a hieroglyphic-covered obelisk, brought from Egypt in the days of the Emperors, looks strangely on the foreign scene about it; or perhaps an ancient pillar, with its honoured statue overthrown, supports a Christian saint: Marcus Aurelius giving place to Paul, and Trajan to St. Peter. Then, there are the ponderous buildings reared from the spoliation of the Coliseum, shutting out the moon, like mountains: while here and there, are broken arches and rent walls, through which it gushes freely, as the life comes pouring from a wound. The little town of miserable houses, walled, and shut in by barred gates, is the quarter where the Jews are locked up nightly, when the clock strikes eight—a miserable place, densely populated, and reeking with bad odours, but where the people are industrious and money-getting. In the day-time, as you make your way along the narrow streets, you see them all at work: upon the pavement, oftener than in their dark and frouzy shops: furbishing old clothes, and driving bargains.

Crossing from these patches of thick darkness, out into the moon once more, the fountain of Trevi, welling from a hundred jets, and rolling over mimic rocks, is silvery to the eye and ear. In the narrow little throat of street, beyond, a booth, dressed out with flaring lamps, and boughs of trees, attracts a group of sulky Romans round its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew; its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattle round the sharply-twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. The coachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by, preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer; and a priest: the latter chaunting as he goes. It is the Dead Cart, with the bodies of the poor, on their way to burial in the Sacred Field outside the walls, where they will be thrown into the pit that will be covered with a stone to-night, and sealed up for a year.

But whether, in this ride, you pass by obelisks, or columns ancient temples, theatres, houses, porticoes, or forums: it is strange to see, how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blended into some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose—a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable—some use for which it never was designed, and associated with which it cannot otherwise than lamely assort. It is stranger still, to see how many ruins of the old mythology: how many fragments of obsolete legend and observance: have been incorporated into the worship of Christian altars here; and how, in numberless respects, the false faith and the true are fused into a monstrous union.

From one part of the city, looking out beyond the walls, a squat and stunted pyramid (the burial-place of Caius Cestius) makes an opaque triangle in the moonlight. But, to an English traveller, it serves to mark the grave of Shelley too, whose ashes lie beneath a little garden near it. Nearer still, almost within its shadow, lie the bones of Keats, ‘whose name is writ in water,’ that shines brightly in the landscape of a calm Italian night.

The Holy Week in Rome is supposed to offer great attractions to all visitors; but, saving for the sights of Easter Sunday, I would counsel those who go to Rome for its own interest, to avoid it at that time. The ceremonies, in general, are of the most tedious and wearisome kind; the heat and crowd at every one of them, painfully oppressive; the noise, hubbub, and confusion, quite distracting. We abandoned the pursuit of these shows, very early in the proceedings, and betook ourselves to the Ruins again. But, we plunged into the crowd for a share of the best of the sights; and what we saw, I will describe to you.

At the Sistine chapel, on the Wednesday, we saw very little, for by the time we reached it (though we were early) the besieging crowd had filled it to the door, and overflowed into the adjoining hall, where they were struggling, and squeezing, and mutually expostulating, and making great rushes every time a lady was brought out faint, as if at least fifty people could be accommodated in her vacant standing-room. Hanging in the doorway of the chapel, was a heavy curtain, and this curtain, some twenty people nearest to it, in their anxiety to hear the chaunting of the Miserere, were continually plucking at, in opposition to each other, that it might not fall down and stifle the sound of the voices. The consequence was, that it occasioned the most extraordinary confusion, and seemed to wind itself about the unwary, like a Serpent. Now, a lady was wrapped up in it, and couldn’t be unwound. Now, the voice of a stifling gentleman was heard inside it, beseeching to be let out. Now, two muffled arms, no man could say of which sex, struggled in it as in a sack. Now, it was carried by a rush, bodily overhead into the chapel, like an awning. Now, it came out the other way, and blinded one of the Pope’s Swiss Guard, who had arrived, that moment, to set things to rights.

Being seated at a little distance, among two or three of the Pope’s gentlemen, who were very weary and counting the minutes—as perhaps his Holiness was too—we had better opportunities of observing this eccentric entertainment, than of hearing the Miserere. Sometimes, there was a swell of mournful voices that sounded very pathetic and sad, and died away, into a low strain again; but that was all we heard.

At another time, there was the Exhibition of Relics in St. Peter’s, which took place at between six and seven o’clock in the evening, and was striking from the cathedral being dark and gloomy, and having a great many people in it. The place into which the relics were brought, one by one, by a party of three priests, was a high balcony near the chief altar. This was the only lighted part of the church. There are always a hundred and twelve lamps burning near the altar, and there were two tall tapers, besides, near the black statue of St. Peter; but these were nothing in such an immense edifice. The gloom, and the general upturning of faces to the balcony, and the prostration of true believers on the pavement, as shining objects, like pictures or looking-glasses, were brought out and shown, had something effective in it, despite the very preposterous manner in which they were held up for the general edification, and the great elevation at which they were displayed; which one would think rather calculated to diminish the comfort derivable from a full conviction of their being genuine.

On the Thursday, we went to see the Pope convey the Sacrament from the Sistine chapel, to deposit it in the Capella Paolina, another chapel in the Vatican;—a ceremony emblematical of the entombment of the Saviour before His Resurrection. We waited in a great gallery with a great crowd of people (three-fourths of them English) for an hour or so, while they were chaunting the Miserere, in the Sistine chapel again. Both chapels opened out of the gallery; and the general attention was concentrated on the occasional opening and shutting of the door of the one for which the Pope was ultimately bound. None of these openings disclosed anything more tremendous than a man on a ladder, lighting a great quantity of candles; but at each and every opening, there was a terrific rush made at this ladder and this man, something like (I should think) a charge of the heavy British cavalry at Waterloo. The man was never brought down, however, nor the ladder; for it performed the strangest antics in the world among the crowd—where it was carried by the man, when the candles were all lighted; and finally it was stuck up against the gallery wall, in a very disorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, and the commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of his Holiness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had been poking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery: and the procession came up, between the two lines they made.

There were a few choristers, and then a great many priests, walking two and two, and carrying—the good-looking priests at least—their lighted tapers, so as to throw the light with a good effect upon their faces: for the room was darkened. Those who were not handsome, or who had not long beards, carried their tapers anyhow, and abandoned themselves to spiritual contemplation. Meanwhile, the chaunting was very monotonous and dreary. The procession passed on, slowly, into the chapel, and the drone of voices went on, and came on, with it, until the Pope himself appeared, walking under a white satin canopy, and bearing the covered Sacrament in both hands; cardinals and canons clustered round him, making a brilliant show. The soldiers of the guard knelt down as he passed; all the bystanders bowed; and so he passed on into the chapel: the white satin canopy being removed from over him at the door, and a white satin parasol hoisted over his poor old head, in place of it. A few more couples brought up the rear, and passed into the chapel also. Then, the chapel door was shut; and it was all over; and everybody hurried off headlong, as for life or death, to see something else, and say it wasn’t worth the trouble.

I think the most popular and most crowded sight (excepting those of Easter Sunday and Monday, which are open to all classes of people) was the Pope washing the feet of Thirteen men, representing the twelve apostles, and Judas Iscariot. The place in which this pious office is performed, is one of the chapels of St. Peter’s, which is gaily decorated for the occasion; the thirteen sitting, ‘all of a row,’ on a very high bench, and looking particularly uncomfortable, with the eyes of Heaven knows how many English, French, Americans, Swiss, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, and other foreigners, nailed to their faces all the time. They are robed in white; and on their heads they wear a stiff white cap, like a large English porter-pot, without a handle. Each carries in his hand, a nosegay, of the size of a fine cauliflower; and two of them, on this occasion, wore spectacles; which, remembering the characters they sustained, I thought a droll appendage to the costume. There was a great eye to character. St. John was represented by a good-looking young man. St. Peter, by a grave-looking old gentleman, with a flowing brown beard; and Judas Iscariot by such an enormous hypocrite (I could not make out, though, whether the expression of his face was real or assumed) that if he had acted the part to the death and had gone away and hanged himself, he would have left nothing to be desired.

As the two large boxes, appropriated to ladies at this sight, were full to the throat, and getting near was hopeless, we posted off, along with a great crowd, to be in time at the Table, where the Pope, in person, waits on these Thirteen; and after a prodigious struggle at the Vatican staircase, and several personal conflicts with the Swiss guard, the whole crowd swept into the room. It was a long gallery hung with drapery of white and red, with another great box for ladies (who are obliged to dress in black at these ceremonies, and to wear black veils), a royal box for the King of Naples and his party; and the table itself, which, set out like a ball supper, and ornamented with golden figures of the real apostles, was arranged on an elevated platform on one side of the gallery. The counterfeit apostles’ knives and forks were laid out on that side of the table which was nearest to the wall, so that they might be stared at again, without let or hindrance.

The body of the room was full of male strangers; the crowd immense; the heat very great; and the pressure sometimes frightful. It was at its height, when the stream came pouring in, from the feet-washing; and then there were such shrieks and outcries, that a party of Piedmontese dragoons went to the rescue of the Swiss guard, and helped them to calm the tumult.

The ladies were particularly ferocious, in their struggles for places. One lady of my acquaintance was seized round the waist, in the ladies’ box, by a strong matron, and hoisted out of her place; and there was another lady (in a back row in the same box) who improved her position by sticking a large pin into the ladies before her.

The gentlemen about me were remarkably anxious to see what was on the table; and one Englishman seemed to have embarked the whole energy of his nature in the determination to discover whether there was any mustard. ‘By Jupiter there’s vinegar!’ I heard him say to his friend, after he had stood on tiptoe an immense time, and had been crushed and beaten on all sides. ‘And there’s oil! I saw them distinctly, in cruets! Can any gentleman, in front there, see mustard on the table? Sir, will you oblige me! Do you see a Mustard-Pot?’

The apostles and Judas appearing on the platform, after much expectation, were marshalled, in line, in front of the table, with Peter at the top; and a good long stare was taken at them by the company, while twelve of them took a long smell at their nosegays, and Judas—moving his lips very obtrusively—engaged in inward prayer. Then, the Pope, clad in a scarlet robe, and wearing on his head a skull-cap of white satin, appeared in the midst of a crowd of Cardinals and other dignitaries, and took in his hand a little golden ewer, from which he poured a little water over one of Peter’s hands, while one attendant held a golden basin; a second, a fine cloth; a third, Peter’s nosegay, which was taken from him during the operation. This his Holiness performed, with considerable expedition, on every man in the line (Judas, I observed, to be particularly overcome by his condescension); and then the whole Thirteen sat down to dinner. Grace said by the Pope. Peter in the chair.

There was white wine, and red wine: and the dinner looked very good. The courses appeared in portions, one for each apostle: and these being presented to the Pope, by Cardinals upon their knees, were by him handed to the Thirteen. The manner in which Judas grew more white-livered over his victuals, and languished, with his head on one side, as if he had no appetite, defies all description. Peter was a good, sound, old man, and went in, as the saying is, ‘to win;’ eating everything that was given him (he got the best: being first in the row) and saying nothing to anybody. The dishes appeared to be chiefly composed of fish and vegetables. The Pope helped the Thirteen to wine also; and, during the whole dinner, somebody read something aloud, out of a large book—the Bible, I presume—which nobody could hear, and to which nobody paid the least attention. The Cardinals, and other attendants, smiled to each other, from time to time, as if the thing were a great farce; and if they thought so, there is little doubt they were perfectly right. His Holiness did what he had to do, as a sensible man gets through a troublesome ceremony, and seemed very glad when it was all over.

The Pilgrims’ Suppers: where lords and ladies waited on the Pilgrims, in token of humility, and dried their feet when they had been well washed by deputy: were very attractive. But, of all the many spectacles of dangerous reliance on outward observances, in themselves mere empty forms, none struck me half so much as the Scala Santa, or Holy Staircase, which I saw several times, but to the greatest advantage, or disadvantage, on Good Friday.

This holy staircase is composed of eight-and-twenty steps, said to have belonged to Pontius Pilate’s house and to be the identical stair on which Our Saviour trod, in coming down from the judgment-seat. Pilgrims ascend it, only on their knees. It is steep; and, at the summit, is a chapel, reported to be full of relics; into which they peep through some iron bars, and then come down again, by one of two side staircases, which are not sacred, and may be walked on.

On Good Friday, there were, on a moderate computation, a hundred people, slowly shuffling up these stairs, on their knees, at one time; while others, who were going up, or had come down—and a few who had done both, and were going up again for the second time—stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in a sort of watch-box, rattled a tin canister, with a slit in the top, incessantly, to remind them that he took the money. The majority were country-people, male and female. There were four or five Jesuit priests, however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. A whole school of boys, twenty at least, were about half-way up—evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together, pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide a berth as possible, in consequence of their betraying some recklessness in the management of their boots.

I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight—ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather broad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing on their knees, as well as up the stairs; and the figures they cut, in their shuffling progress over the level surface, no description can paint. Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch, and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And to see one man with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for it was a fine day) hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observe a demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now and then, to assure herself that her legs were properly disposed!

There were such odd differences in the speed of different people, too. Some got on as if they were doing a match against time; others stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touched every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly and fresh, as having done a real good substantial deed which it would take a good deal of sin to counterbalance; and the old gentleman in the watch-box was down upon them with his canister while they were in this humour, I promise you.

As if such a progress were not in its nature inevitably droll enough, there lay, on the top of the stairs, a wooden figure on a crucifix, resting on a sort of great iron saucer: so rickety and unsteady, that whenever an enthusiastic person kissed the figure, with more than usual devotion, or threw a coin into the saucer, with more than common readiness (for it served in this respect as a second or supplementary canister), it gave a great leap and rattle, and nearly shook the attendant lamp out: horribly frightening the people further down, and throwing the guilty party into unspeakable embarrassment.

On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope bestows his benediction on the people, from the balcony in front of St. Peter’s. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: so cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad weather vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen the Thursday’s Benediction dropping damply on some hundreds of umbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then, in all the hundred fountains of Rome—such fountains as they are!—and on this Sunday morning they were running diamonds. The miles of miserable streets through which we drove (compelled to a certain course by the Pope’s dragoons: the Roman police on such occasions) were so full of colour, that nothing in them was capable of wearing a faded aspect. The common people came out in their gayest dresses; the richer people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the church of the Poor Fishermen in their state carriages; shabby magnificence flaunted its thread-bare liveries and tarnished cocked hats, in the sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition for the Great Piazza of St. Peter’s.

One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet there was ample room. How many carriages were there, I don’t know; yet there was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps of the church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini, from Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, and the mingling of bright colours in the crowd was beautiful. Below the steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent proportions of the place they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans, lively peasants from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrims from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing foreigners of all nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; and high above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbow colours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled and tumbled bountifully.

A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and the sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery. An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old man from the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were turned up to this window. In due time, the chair was seen approaching to the front, with the gigantic fans of peacock’s feathers, close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony is very high) then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while all the male spectators in the square uncovered, and some, but not by any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon the ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, that the benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smaller heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like parti-coloured sand.

What a bright noon it was, as we rode away! The Tiber was no longer yellow, but blue. There was a blush on the old bridges, that made them fresh and hale again. The Pantheon, with its majestic front, all seamed and furrowed like an old face, had summer light upon its battered walls. Every squalid and desolate hut in the Eternal City (bear witness every grim old palace, to the filth and misery of the plebeian neighbour that elbows it, as certain as Time has laid its grip on its patrician head!) was fresh and new with some ray of the sun. The very prison in the crowded street, a whirl of carriages and people, had some stray sense of the day, dropping through its chinks and crevices: and dismal prisoners who could not wind their faces round the barricading of the blocked-up windows, stretched out their hands, and clinging to the rusty bars, turned them towards the overflowing street: as if it were a cheerful fire, and could be shared in, that way.

But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon, what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and shining all round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense of exultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half-past seven—on the instant—to behold one bright red mass of fire, soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summit of the cross, and the moment it leaped into its place, become the signal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great, and red, and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; so that every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone, expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork of the enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!

A train of gunpowder, an electric chain—nothing could be fired, more suddenly and swiftly, than this second illumination; and when we had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked towards it two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining and glittering in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of its proportions wanting; not an angle blunted; not an atom of its radiance lost.

The next night—Easter Monday—there was a great display of fireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo. We hired a room in an opposite house, and made our way, to our places, in good time, through a dense mob of people choking up the square in front, and all the avenues leading to it; and so loading the bridge by which the castle is approached, that it seemed ready to sink into the rapid Tiber below. There are statues on this bridge (execrable works), and, among them, great vessels full of burning tow were placed: glaring strangely on the faces of the crowd, and not less strangely on the stone counterfeits above them.

The show began with a tremendous discharge of cannon; and then, for twenty minutes or half an hour, the whole castle was one incessant sheet of fire, and labyrinth of blazing wheels of every colour, size, and speed: while rockets streamed into the sky, not by ones or twos, or scores, but hundreds at a time. The concluding burst—the Girandola—was like the blowing up into the air of the whole massive castle, without smoke or dust.

In half an hour afterwards, the immense concourse had dispersed; the moon was looking calmly down upon her wrinkled image in the river; and half-a-dozen men and boys, with bits of lighted candle in their hands: moving here and there, in search of anything worth having, that might have been dropped in the press: had the whole scene to themselves.

By way of contrast we rode out into old ruined Rome, after all this firing and booming, to take our leave of the Coliseum. I had seen it by moonlight before (I could never get through a day without going back to it), but its tremendous solitude that night is past all telling. The ghostly pillars in the Forum; the Triumphal Arches of Old Emperors; those enormous masses of ruins which were once their palaces; the grass-grown mounds that mark the graves of ruined temples; the stones of the Via Sacra, smooth with the tread of feet in ancient Rome; even these were dimmed, in their transcendent melancholy, by the dark ghost of its bloody holidays, erect and grim; haunting the old scene; despoiled by pillaging Popes and fighting Princes, but not laid; wringing wild hands of weed, and grass, and bramble; and lamenting to the night in every gap and broken arch—the shadow of its awful self, immovable!

As we lay down on the grass of the Campagna, next day, on our way to Florence, hearing the larks sing, we saw that a little wooden cross had been erected on the spot where the poor Pilgrim Countess was murdered. So, we piled some loose stones about it, as the beginning of a mound to her memory, and wondered if we should ever rest there again, and look back at Rome.

p. 345A RAPID DIORAMA

We are bound for Naples! And we cross the threshold of the Eternal City at yonder gate, the Gate of San Giovanni Laterano, where the two last objects that attract the notice of a departing visitor, and the two first objects that attract the notice of an arriving one, are a proud church and a decaying ruin—good emblems of Rome.

Our way lies over the Campagna, which looks more solemn on a bright blue day like this, than beneath a darker sky; the great extent of ruin being plainer to the eye: and the sunshine through the arches of the broken aqueducts, showing other broken arches shining through them in the melancholy distance. When we have traversed it, and look back from Albano, its dark, undulating surface lies below us like a stagnant lake, or like a broad, dull Lethe flowing round the walls of Rome, and separating it from all the world! How often have the Legions, in triumphant march, gone glittering across that purple waste, so silent and unpeopled now! How often has the train of captives looked, with sinking hearts, upon the distant city, and beheld its population pouring out, to hail the return of their conqueror! What riot, sensuality and murder, have run mad in the vast palaces now heaps of brick and shattered marble! What glare of fires, and roar of popular tumult, and wail of pestilence and famine, have come sweeping over the wild plain where nothing is now heard but the wind, and where the solitary lizards gambol unmolested in the sun!

The train of wine-carts going into Rome, each driven by a shaggy peasant reclining beneath a little gipsy-fashioned canopy of sheep-skin, is ended now, and we go toiling up into a higher country where there are trees. The next day brings us on the Pontine Marshes, wearily flat and lonesome, and overgrown with brushwood, and swamped with water, but with a fine road made across them, shaded by a long, long avenue. Here and there, we pass a solitary guard-house; here and there a hovel, deserted, and walled up. Some herdsmen loiter on the banks of the stream beside the road, and sometimes a flat-bottomed boat, towed by a man, comes rippling idly along it. A horseman passes occasionally, carrying a long gun cross-wise on the saddle before him, and attended by fierce dogs; but there is nothing else astir save the wind and the shadows, until we come in sight of Terracina.

How blue and bright the sea, rolling below the windows of the inn so famous in robber stories! How picturesque the great crags and points of rock overhanging to-morrow’s narrow road, where galley-slaves are working in the quarries above, and the sentinels who guard them lounge on the sea-shore! All night there is the murmur of the sea beneath the stars; and, in the morning, just at daybreak, the prospect suddenly becoming expanded, as if by a miracle, reveals—in the far distance, across the sea there!—Naples with its islands, and Vesuvius spouting fire! Within a quarter of an hour, the whole is gone as if it were a vision in the clouds, and there is nothing but the sea and sky.

The Neapolitan frontier crossed, after two hours’ travelling; and the hungriest of soldiers and custom-house officers with difficulty appeased; we enter, by a gateless portal, into the first Neapolitan town—Fondi. Take note of Fondi, in the name of all that is wretched and beggarly.

A filthy channel of mud and refuse meanders down the centre of the miserable streets, fed by obscene rivulets that trickle from the abject houses. There is not a door, a window, or a shutter; not a roof, a wall, a post, or a pillar, in all Fondi, but is decayed, and crazy, and rotting away. The wretched history of the town, with all its sieges and pillages by Barbarossa and the rest, might have been acted last year. How the gaunt dogs that sneak about the miserable streets, come to be alive, and undevoured by the people, is one of the enigmas of the world.

A hollow-cheeked and scowling people they are! All beggars; but that’s nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some, are too indolent to come down-stairs, or are too wisely mistrustful of the stairs, perhaps, to venture: so stretch out their lean hands from upper windows, and howl; others, come flocking about us, fighting and jostling one another, and demanding, incessantly, charity for the love of God, charity for the love of the Blessed Virgin, charity for the love of all the Saints. A group of miserable children, almost naked, screaming forth the same petition, discover that they can see themselves reflected in the varnish of the carriage, and begin to dance and make grimaces, that they may have the pleasure of seeing their antics repeated in this mirror. A crippled idiot, in the act of striking one of them who drowns his clamorous demand for charity, observes his angry counterpart in the panel, stops short, and thrusting out his tongue, begins to wag his head and chatter. The shrill cry raised at this, awakens half-a-dozen wild creatures wrapped in frowsy brown cloaks, who are lying on the church-steps with pots and pans for sale. These, scrambling up, approach, and beg defiantly. ‘I am hungry. Give me something. Listen to me, Signor. I am hungry!’ Then, a ghastly old woman, fearful of being too late, comes hobbling down the street, stretching out one hand, and scratching herself all the way with the other, and screaming, long before she can be heard, ‘Charity, charity! I’ll go and pray for you directly, beautiful lady, if you’ll give me charity!’ Lastly, the members of a brotherhood for burying the dead: hideously masked, and attired in shabby black robes, white at the skirts, with the splashes of many muddy winters: escorted by a dirty priest, and a congenial cross-bearer: come hurrying past. Surrounded by this motley concourse, we move out of Fondi: bad bright eyes glaring at us, out of the darkness of every crazy tenement, like glistening fragments of its filth and putrefaction.

A noble mountain-pass, with the ruins of a fort on a strong eminence, traditionally called the Fort of Fra Diavolo; the old town of Itrí, like a device in pastry, built up, almost perpendicularly, on a hill, and approached by long steep flights of steps; beautiful Mola di Gaëta, whose wines, like those of Albano, have degenerated since the days of Horace, or his taste for wine was bad: which is not likely of one who enjoyed it so much, and extolled it so well; another night upon the road at St. Agatha; a rest next day at Capua, which is picturesque, but hardly so seductive to a traveller now, as the soldiers of Prætorian Rome were wont to find the ancient city of that name; a flat road among vines festooned and looped from tree to tree; and Mount Vesuvius close at hand at last!—its cone and summit whitened with snow; and its smoke hanging over it, in the heavy atmosphere of the day, like a dense cloud. So we go, rattling down hill, into Naples.

A funeral is coming up the street, towards us. The body, on an open bier, borne on a kind of palanquin, covered with a gay cloth of crimson and gold. The mourners, in white gowns and masks. If there be death abroad, life is well represented too, for all Naples would seem to be out of doors, and tearing to and fro in carriages. Some of these, the common Vetturíno vehicles, are drawn by three horses abreast, decked with smart trappings and great abundance of brazen ornament, and always going very fast. Not that their loads are light; for the smallest of them has at least six people inside, four in front, four or five more hanging on behind, and two or three more, in a net or bag below the axle-tree, where they lie half-suffocated with mud and dust. Exhibitors of Punch, buffo singers with guitars, reciters of poetry, reciters of stories, a row of cheap exhibitions with clowns and showmen, drums, and trumpets, painted cloths representing the wonders within, and admiring crowds assembled without, assist the whirl and bustle. Ragged lazzaroni lie asleep in doorways, archways, and kennels; the gentry, gaily dressed, are dashing up and down in carriages on the Chiaji, or walking in the Public Gardens; and quiet letter-writers, perched behind their little desks and inkstands under the Portico of the Great Theatre of San Carlo, in the public street, are waiting for clients.

Here is a galley-slave in chains, who wants a letter written to a friend. He approaches a clerkly-looking man, sitting under the corner arch, and makes his bargain. He has obtained permission of the sentinel who guards him: who stands near, leaning against the wall and cracking nuts. The galley-slave dictates in the ear of the letter-writer, what he desires to say; and as he can’t read writing, looks intently in his face, to read there whether he sets down faithfully what he is told. After a time, the galley-slave becomes discursive—incoherent. The secretary pauses and rubs his chin. The galley-slave is voluble and energetic. The secretary, at length, catches the idea, and with the air of a man who knows how to word it, sets it down; stopping, now and then, to glance back at his text admiringly. The galley-slave is silent. The soldier stoically cracks his nuts. Is there anything more to say? inquires the letter-writer. No more. Then listen, friend of mine. He reads it through. The galley-slave is quite enchanted. It is folded, and addressed, and given to him, and he pays the fee. The secretary falls back indolently in his chair, and takes a book. The galley-slave gathers up an empty sack. The sentinel throws away a handful of nut-shells, shoulders his musket, and away they go together.

Why do the beggars rap their chins constantly, with their right hands, when you look at them? Everything is done in pantomime in Naples, and that is the conventional sign for hunger. A man who is quarrelling with another, yonder, lays the palm of his right hand on the back of his left, and shakes the two thumbs—expressive of a donkey’s ears—whereat his adversary is goaded to desperation. Two people bargaining for fish, the buyer empties an imaginary waistcoat pocket when he is told the price, and walks away without a word: having thoroughly conveyed to the seller that he considers it too dear. Two people in carriages, meeting, one touches his lips, twice or thrice, holding up the five fingers of his right hand, and gives a horizontal cut in the air with the palm. The other nods briskly, and goes his way. He has been invited to a friendly dinner at half-past five o’clock, and will certainly come.

All over Italy, a peculiar shake of the right hand from the wrist, with the forefinger stretched out, expresses a negative—the only negative beggars will ever understand. But, in Naples, those five fingers are a copious language.

All this, and every other kind of out-door life and stir, and macaroni-eating at sunset, and flower-selling all day long, and begging and stealing everywhere and at all hours, you see upon the bright sea-shore, where the waves of the bay sparkle merrily. But, lovers and hunters of the picturesque, let us not keep too studiously out of view the miserable depravity, degradation, and wretchedness, with which this gay Neapolitan life is inseparably associated! It is not well to find Saint Giles’s so repulsive, and the Porta Capuana so attractive. A pair of naked legs and a ragged red scarf, do not make all the difference between what is interesting and what is coarse and odious? Painting and poetising for ever, if you will, the beauties of this most beautiful and lovely spot of earth, let us, as our duty, try to associate a new picturesque with some faint recognition of man’s destiny and capabilities; more hopeful, I believe, among the ice and snow of the North Pole, than in the sun and bloom of Naples.

Capri—once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius—Ischia, Procida, and the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in the blue sea yonder, changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a-day: now close at hand, now far off, now unseen. The fairest country in the world, is spread about us. Whether we turn towards the Miseno shore of the splendid watery amphitheatre, and go by the Grotto of Posilipo to the Grotto del Cane and away to Baiæ: or take the other way, towards Vesuvius and Sorrento, it is one succession of delights. In the last-named direction, where, over doors and archways, there are countless little images of San Gennaro, with his Canute’s hand stretched out, to check the fury of the Burning Mountain, we are carried pleasantly, by a railroad on the beautiful Sea Beach, past the town of Torre del Greco, built upon the ashes of the former town destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, within a hundred years; and past the flat-roofed houses, granaries, and macaroni manufactories; to Castel-a-Mare, with its ruined castle, now inhabited by fishermen, standing in the sea upon a heap of rocks. Here, the railroad terminates; but, hence we may ride on, by an unbroken succession of enchanting bays, and beautiful scenery, sloping from the highest summit of Saint Angelo, the highest neighbouring mountain, down to the water’s edge—among vineyards, olive-trees, gardens of oranges and lemons, orchards, heaped-up rocks, green gorges in the hills—and by the bases of snow-covered heights, and through small towns with handsome, dark-haired women at the doors—and pass delicious summer villas—to Sorrento, where the Poet Tasso drew his inspiration from the beauty surrounding him. Returning, we may climb the heights above Castel-a-Mare, and looking down among the boughs and leaves, see the crisp water glistening in the sun; and clusters of white houses in distant Naples, dwindling, in the great extent of prospect, down to dice. The coming back to the city, by the beach again, at sunset: with the glowing sea on one side, and the darkening mountain, with its smoke and flame, upon the other: is a sublime conclusion to the glory of the day.

That church by the Porta Capuana—near the old fisher-market in the dirtiest quarter of dirty Naples, where the revolt of Masaniello began—is memorable for having been the scene of one of his earliest proclamations to the people, and is particularly remarkable for nothing else, unless it be its waxen and bejewelled Saint in a glass case, with two odd hands; or the enormous number of beggars who are constantly rapping their chins there, like a battery of castanets. The cathedral with the beautiful door, and the columns of African and Egyptian granite that once ornamented the temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacred blood of San Gennaro or Januarius: which is preserved in two phials in a silver tabernacle, and miraculously liquefies three times a-year, to the great admiration of the people. At the same moment, the stone (distant some miles) where the Saint suffered martyrdom, becomes faintly red. It is said that the officiating priests turn faintly red also, sometimes, when these miracles occur.

The old, old men who live in hovels at the entrance of these ancient catacombs, and who, in their age and infirmity, seem waiting here, to be buried themselves, are members of a curious body, called the Royal Hospital, who are the official attendants at funerals. Two of these old spectres totter away, with lighted tapers, to show the caverns of death—as unconcerned as if they were immortal. They were used as burying-places for three hundred years; and, in one part, is a large pit full of skulls and bones, said to be the sad remains of a great mortality occasioned by a plague. In the rest there is nothing but dust. They consist, chiefly, of great wide corridors and labyrinths, hewn out of the rock. At the end of some of these long passages, are unexpected glimpses of the daylight, shining down from above. It looks as ghastly and as strange; among the torches, and the dust, and the dark vaults: as if it, too, were dead and buried.

The present burial-place lies out yonder, on a hill between the city and Vesuvius. The old Campo Santo with its three hundred and sixty-five pits, is only used for those who die in hospitals, and prisons, and are unclaimed by their friends. The graceful new cemetery, at no great distance from it, though yet unfinished, has already many graves among its shrubs and flowers, and airy colonnades. It might be reasonably objected elsewhere, that some of the tombs are meretricious and too fanciful; but the general brightness seems to justify it here; and Mount Vesuvius, separated from them by a lovely slope of ground, exalts and saddens the scene.

If it be solemn to behold from this new City of the Dead, with its dark smoke hanging in the clear sky, how much more awful and impressive is it, viewed from the ghostly ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii!

Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look up the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open to the day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance; and lose all count of time, and heed of other things, in the strange and melancholy sensation of seeing the Destroyed and the Destroyer making this quiet picture in the sun. Then, ramble on, and see, at every turn, the little familiar tokens of human habitation and every-day pursuits; the chafing of the bucket-rope in the stone rim of the exhausted well; the track of carriage-wheels in the pavement of the street; the marks of drinking-vessels on the stone counter of the wine-shop; the amphoræ in private cellars, stored away so many hundred years ago, and undisturbed to this hour—all rendering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness of the place, ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea.

After it was shaken by the earthquake which preceded the eruption, workmen were employed in shaping out, in stone, new ornaments for temples and other buildings that had suffered. Here lies their work, outside the city gate, as if they would return to-morrow.

In the cellar of Diomede’s house, where certain skeletons were found huddled together, close to the door, the impression of their bodies on the ashes, hardened with the ashes, and became stamped and fixed there, after they had shrunk, inside, to scanty bones. So, in the theatre of Herculaneum, a comic mask, floating on the stream when it was hot and liquid, stamped its mimic features in it as it hardened into stone; and now, it turns upon the stranger the fantastic look it turned upon the audiences in that same theatre two thousand years ago.

Next to the wonder of going up and down the streets, and in and out of the houses, and traversing the secret chambers of the temples of a religion that has vanished from the earth, and finding so many fresh traces of remote antiquity: as if the course of Time had been stopped after this desolation, and there had been no nights and days, months, years, and centuries, since: nothing is more impressive and terrible than the many evidences of the searching nature of the ashes, as bespeaking their irresistible power, and the impossibility of escaping them. In the wine-cellars, they forced their way into the earthen vessels: displacing the wine and choking them, to the brim, with dust. In the tombs, they forced the ashes of the dead from the funeral urns, and rained new ruin even into them. The mouths, and eyes, and skulls of all the skeletons, were stuffed with this terrible hail. In Herculaneum, where the flood was of a different and a heavier kind, it rolled in, like a sea. Imagine a deluge of water turned to marble, at its height—and that is what is called ‘the lava’ here.

Some workmen were digging the gloomy well on the brink of which we now stand, looking down, when they came on some of the stone benches of the theatre—those steps (for such they seem) at the bottom of the excavation—and found the buried city of Herculaneum. Presently going down, with lighted torches, we are perplexed by great walls of monstrous thickness, rising up between the benches, shutting out the stage, obtruding their shapeless forms in absurd places, confusing the whole plan, and making it a disordered dream. We cannot, at first, believe, or picture to ourselves, that This came rolling in, and drowned the city; and that all that is not here, has been cut away, by the axe, like solid stone. But this perceived and understood, the horror and oppression of its presence are indescribable.

Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless chambers of both cities, or carefully removed to the museum at Naples, are as fresh and plain, as if they had been executed yesterday. Here are subjects of still life, as provisions, dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like; familiar classical stories, or mythological fables, always forcibly and plainly told; conceits of cupids, quarrelling, sporting, working at trades; theatrical rehearsals; poets reading their productions to their friends; inscriptions chalked upon the walls; political squibs, advertisements, rough drawings by schoolboys; everything to people and restore the ancient cities, in the fancy of their wondering visitor. Furniture, too, you see, of every kind—lamps, tables, couches; vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking; workmen’s tools, surgical instruments, tickets for the theatre, pieces of money, personal ornaments, bunches of keys found clenched in the grasp of skeletons, helmets of guards and warriors; little household bells, yet musical with their old domestic tones.

The least among these objects, lends its aid to swell the interest of Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect fascination. The looking, from either ruined city, into the neighbouring grounds overgrown with beautiful vines and luxuriant trees; and remembering that house upon house, temple on temple, building after building, and street after street, are still lying underneath the roots of all the quiet cultivation, waiting to be turned up to the light of day; is something so wonderful, so full of mystery, so captivating to the imagination, that one would think it would be paramount, and yield to nothing else. To nothing but Vesuvius; but the mountain is the genius of the scene. From every indication of the ruin it has worked, we look, again, with an absorbing interest to where its smoke is rising up into the sky. It is beyond us, as we thread the ruined streets: above us, as we stand upon the ruined walls, we follow it through every vista of broken columns, as we wander through the empty court-yards of the houses; and through the garlandings and interlacings of every wanton vine. Turning away to Pæstum yonder, to see the awful structures built, the least aged of them, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and standing yet, erect in lonely majesty, upon the wild, malaria-blighted plain—we watch Vesuvius as it disappears from the prospect, and watch for it again, on our return, with the same thrill of interest: as the doom and destiny of all this beautiful country, biding its terrible time.

It is very warm in the sun, on this early spring-day, when we return from Pæstum, but very cold in the shade: insomuch, that although we may lunch, pleasantly, at noon, in the open air, by the gate of Pompeii, the neighbouring rivulet supplies thick ice for our wine. But, the sun is shining brightly; there is not a cloud or speck of vapour in the whole blue sky, looking down upon the bay of Naples; and the moon will be at the full to-night. No matter that the snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesuvius, or that we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or that croakers maintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by night, in such an unusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine weather; make the best of our way to Resina, the little village at the foot of the mountain; prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so short a notice, at the guide’s house; ascend at once, and have sunset half-way up, moonlight at the top, and midnight to come down in!

At four o’clock in the afternoon, there is a terrible uproar in the little stable-yard of Signior Salvatore, the recognised head-guide, with the gold band round his cap; and thirty under-guides who are all scuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozen saddled ponies, three litters, and some stout staves, for the journey. Every one of the thirty, quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the six ponies; and as much of the village as can possibly squeeze itself into the little stable-yard, participates in the tumult, and gets trodden on by the cattle.

After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would suffice for the storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head-guide, who is liberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in advance of the party; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward with the litters that are to be used by-and-by; and the remaining two-and-twenty beg.

We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like rough broad flights of stairs, for some time. At length, we leave these, and the vineyards on either side of them, and emerge upon a bleak bare region where the lava lies confusedly, in enormous rusty masses; as if the earth had been ploughed up by burning thunderbolts. And now, we halt to see the sun set. The change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on—and the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever forget!

It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the broken ground, we arrive at the foot of the cone: which is extremely steep, and seems to rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. The only light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise before we reach the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two ladies; the third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose hospitality and good-nature have attached him to the expedition, and determined him to assist in doing the honours of the mountain. The rather heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies by half-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and so the whole party begin to labour upward over the snow,—as if they were toiling to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake.

We are a long time toiling up; and the head-guide looks oddly about him when one of the company—not an Italian, though an habitué of the mountain for many years: whom we will call, for our present purpose, Mr. Pickle of Portici—suggests that, as it is freezing hard, and the usual footing of ashes is covered by the snow and ice, it will surely be difficult to descend. But the sight of the litters above, tilting up and down, and jerking from this side to that, as the bearers continually slip and tumble, diverts our attention; more especially as the whole length of the rather heavy gentleman is, at that moment, presented to us alarmingly foreshortened, with his head downwards.

The rising of the moon soon afterwards, revives the flagging spirits of the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual watchword, ‘Courage, friend! It is to eat macaroni!’ they press on, gallantly, for the summit.

From tingeing the top of the snow above us, with a band of light, and pouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we have been ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white mountain-side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the distance, and every village in the country round. The whole prospect is in this lovely state, when we come upon the platform on the mountain-top—the region of Fire—an exhausted crater formed of great masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from some tremendous waterfall, burnt up; from every chink and crevice of which, hot, sulphurous smoke is pouring out: while, from another conical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising abruptly from this platform at the end, great sheets of fire are streaming forth: reddening the night with flame, blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up into the air like feathers, and fall down like lead. What words can paint the gloom and grandeur of this scene!

The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from the sulphur: the fear of falling down through the crevices in the yawning ground; the stopping, every now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark (for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intolerable noise of the thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain; make it a scene of such confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging the ladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of the present Volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and then sit down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence; faintly estimating the action that is going on within, from its being full a hundred feet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago.

There is something in the fire and roar, that generates an irresistible desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest long, without starting off, two of us, on our hands and knees, accompanied by the head-guide, to climb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile, the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding, and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out of their wits.

What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust of ground, that seems about to open underneath our feet and plunge us in the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any); and what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of red-hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulphur; we may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive to climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the Hell of boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy: and each with his dress alight in half-a-dozen places.

You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is, by sliding down the ashes: which, forming a gradually-increasing ledge below the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed the two exhausted craters on our way back and are come to this precipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige of ashes to be seen; the whole being a smooth sheet of ice.

In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, and make a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as well as they can, a rough track with their sticks, down which we prepare to follow. The way being fearfully steep, and none of the party: even of the thirty: being able to keep their feet for six paces together, the ladies are taken out of their litters, and placed, each between two careful persons; while others of the thirty hold by their skirts, to prevent their falling forward—a necessary precaution, tending to the immediate and hopeless dilapidation of their apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is abjured to leave his litter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but he resolves to be brought down as he was brought up, on the principle that his fifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that he is safer so, than trusting to his own legs.

In this order, we begin the descent: sometimes on foot, sometimes shuffling on the ice: always proceeding much more quietly and slowly, than on our upward way: and constantly alarmed by the falling among us of somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party, and clings pertinaciously to anybody’s ankles. It is impossible for the litter to be in advance, too, as the track has to be made; and its appearance behind us, overhead—with some one or other of the bearers always down, and the rather heavy gentleman with his legs always in the air—is very threatening and frightful. We have gone on thus, a very little way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it as a great success—and have all fallen several times, and have all been stopped, somehow or other, as we were sliding away—when Mr. Pickle of Portici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances as quite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, with quick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges away head foremost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface of the cone!

Sickening as it is to look, and be so powerless to help him, I see him there, in the moonlight—I have had such a dream often—skimming over the white ice, like a cannon-ball. Almost at the same moment, there is a cry from behind; and a man who has carried a light basket of spare cloaks on his head, comes rolling past, at the same frightful speed, closely followed by a boy. At this climax of the chapter of accidents, the remaining eight-and-twenty vociferate to that degree, that a pack of wolves would be music to them!

Giddy, and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Portici when we reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horses are waiting; but, thank God, sound in limb! And never are we likely to be more glad to see a man alive and on his feet, than to see him now—making light of it too, though sorely bruised and in great pain. The boy is brought into the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are at supper, with his head tied up; and the man is heard of, some hours afterwards. He too is bruised and stunned, but has broken no bones; the snow having, fortunately, covered all the larger blocks of rock and stone, and rendered them harmless.

After a cheerful meal, and a good rest before a blazing fire, we again take horse, and continue our descent to Salvatore’s house—very slowly, by reason of our bruised friend being hardly able to keep the saddle, or endure the pain of motion. Though it is so late at night, or early in the morning, all the people of the village are waiting about the little stable-yard when we arrive, and looking up the road by which we are expected. Our appearance is hailed with a great clamour of tongues, and a general sensation for which in our modesty we are somewhat at a loss to account, until, turning into the yard, we find that one of a party of French gentlemen who were on the mountain at the same time is lying on some straw in the stable, with a broken limb: looking like Death, and suffering great torture; and that we were confidently supposed to have encountered some worse accident.

So ‘well returned, and Heaven be praised!’ as the cheerful Vetturíno, who has borne us company all the way from Pisa, says, with all his heart! And away with his ready horses, into sleeping Naples!

It wakes again to Policinelli and pickpockets, buffo singers and beggars, rags, puppets, flowers, brightness, dirt, and universal degradation; airing its Harlequin suit in the sunshine, next day and every day; singing, starving, dancing, gaming, on the sea-shore; and leaving all labour to the burning mountain, which is ever at its work.

Our English dilettanti would be very pathetic on the subject of the national taste, if they could hear an Italian opera half as badly sung in England as we may hear the Foscari performed, to-night, in the splendid theatre of San Carlo. But, for astonishing truth and spirit in seizing and embodying the real life about it, the shabby little San Carlino Theatre—the rickety house one story high, with a staring picture outside: down among the drums and trumpets, and the tumblers, and the lady conjurer—is without a rival anywhere.

There is one extraordinary feature in the real life of Naples, at which we may take a glance before we go—the Lotteries.

They prevail in most parts of Italy, but are particularly obvious, in their effects and influences, here. They are drawn every Saturday. They bring an immense revenue to the Government; and diffuse a taste for gambling among the poorest of the poor, which is very comfortable to the coffers of the State, and very ruinous to themselves. The lowest stake is one grain; less than a farthing. One hundred numbers—from one to a hundred, inclusive—are put into a box. Five are drawn. Those are the prizes. I buy three numbers. If one of them come up, I win a small prize. If two, some hundreds of times my stake. If three, three thousand five hundred times my stake. I stake (or play as they call it) what I can upon my numbers, and buy what numbers I please. The amount I play, I pay at the lottery office, where I purchase the ticket; and it is stated on the ticket itself.

Every lottery office keeps a printed book, an Universal Lottery Diviner, where every possible accident and circumstance is provided for, and has a number against it. For instance, let us take two carlini—about sevenpence. On our way to the lottery office, we run against a black man. When we get there, we say gravely, ‘The Diviner.’ It is handed over the counter, as a serious matter of business. We look at black man. Such a number. ‘Give us that.’ We look at running against a person in the street. ‘Give us that.’ We look at the name of the street itself. ‘Give us that.’ Now, we have our three numbers.

If the roof of the theatre of San Carlo were to fall in, so many people would play upon the numbers attached to such an accident in the Diviner, that the Government would soon close those numbers, and decline to run the risk of losing any more upon them. This often happens. Not long ago, when there was a fire in the King’s Palace, there was such a desperate run on fire, and king, and palace, that further stakes on the numbers attached to those words in the Golden Book were forbidden. Every accident or event, is supposed, by the ignorant populace, to be a revelation to the beholder, or party concerned, in connection with the lottery. Certain people who have a talent for dreaming fortunately, are much sought after; and there are some priests who are constantly favoured with visions of the lucky numbers.

I heard of a horse running away with a man, and dashing him down, dead, at the corner of a street. Pursuing the horse with incredible speed, was another man, who ran so fast, that he came up, immediately after the accident. He threw himself upon his knees beside the unfortunate rider, and clasped his hand with an expression of the wildest grief. ‘If you have life,’ he said, ‘speak one word to me! If you have one gasp of breath left, mention your age for Heaven’s sake, that I may play that number in the lottery.’

It is four o’clock in the afternoon, and we may go to see our lottery drawn. The ceremony takes place every Saturday, in the Tribunale, or Court of Justice—this singular, earthy-smelling room, or gallery, as mouldy as an old cellar, and as damp as a dungeon. At the upper end is a platform, with a large horse-shoe table upon it; and a President and Council sitting round—all judges of the Law. The man on the little stool behind the President, is the Capo Lazzarone, a kind of tribune of the people, appointed on their behalf to see that all is fairly conducted: attended by a few personal friends. A ragged, swarthy fellow he is: with long matted hair hanging down all over his face: and covered, from head to foot, with most unquestionably genuine dirt. All the body of the room is filled with the commonest of the Neapolitan people: and between them and the platform, guarding the steps leading to the latter, is a small body of soldiers.

There is some delay in the arrival of the necessary number of judges; during which, the box, in which the numbers are being placed, is a source of the deepest interest. When the box is full, the boy who is to draw the numbers out of it becomes the prominent feature of the proceedings. He is already dressed for his part, in a tight brown Holland coat, with only one (the left) sleeve to it, which leaves his right arm bared to the shoulder, ready for plunging down into the mysterious chest.

During the hush and whisper that pervade the room, all eyes are turned on this young minister of fortune. People begin to inquire his age, with a view to the next lottery; and the number of his brothers and sisters; and the age of his father and mother; and whether he has any moles or pimples upon him; and where, and how many; when the arrival of the last judge but one (a little old man, universally dreaded as possessing the Evil Eye) makes a slight diversion, and would occasion a greater one, but that he is immediately deposed, as a source of interest, by the officiating priest, who advances gravely to his place, followed by a very dirty little boy, carrying his sacred vestments, and a pot of Holy Water.

Here is the last judge come at last, and now he takes his place at the horse-shoe table.

There is a murmur of irrepressible agitation. In the midst of it, the priest puts his head into the sacred vestments, and pulls the same over his shoulders. Then he says a silent prayer; and dipping a brush into the pot of Holy Water, sprinkles it over the box—and over the boy, and gives them a double-barrelled blessing, which the box and the boy are both hoisted on the table to receive. The boy remaining on the table, the box is now carried round the front of the platform, by an attendant, who holds it up and shakes it lustily all the time; seeming to say, like the conjurer, ‘There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; keep your eyes upon me, if you please!’

At last, the box is set before the boy; and the boy, first holding up his naked arm and open hand, dives down into the hole (it is made like a ballot-box) and pulls out a number, which is rolled up, round something hard, like a bonbon. This he hands to the judge next him, who unrolls a little bit, and hands it to the President, next to whom he sits. The President unrolls it, very slowly. The Capo Lazzarone leans over his shoulder. The President holds it up, unrolled, to the Capo Lazzarone. The Capo Lazzarone, looking at it eagerly, cries out, in a shrill, loud voice, ‘Sessantadue!’ (sixty-two), expressing the two upon his fingers, as he calls it out. Alas! the Capo Lazzarone himself has not staked on sixty-two. His face is very long, and his eyes roll wildly.

As it happens to be a favourite number, however, it is pretty well received, which is not always the case. They are all drawn with the same ceremony, omitting the blessing. One blessing is enough for the whole multiplication-table. The only new incident in the proceedings, is the gradually deepening intensity of the change in the Cape Lazzarone, who has, evidently, speculated to the very utmost extent of his means; and who, when he sees the last number, and finds that it is not one of his, clasps his hands, and raises his eyes to the ceiling before proclaiming it, as though remonstrating, in a secret agony, with his patron saint, for having committed so gross a breach of confidence. I hope the Capo Lazzarone may not desert him for some other member of the Calendar, but he seems to threaten it.

Where the winners may be, nobody knows. They certainly are not present; the general disappointment filling one with pity for the poor people. They look: when we stand aside, observing them, in their passage through the court-yard down below: as miserable as the prisoners in the gaol (it forms a part of the building), who are peeping down upon them, from between their bars; or, as the fragments of human heads which are still dangling in chains outside, in memory of the good old times, when their owners were strung up there, for the popular edification.

Away from Naples in a glorious sunrise, by the road to Capua, and then on a three days’ journey along by-roads, that we may see, on the way, the monastery of Monte Cassino, which is perched on the steep and lofty hill above the little town of San Germano, and is lost on a misty morning in the clouds.

So much the better, for the deep sounding of its bell, which, as we go winding up, on mules, towards the convent, is heard mysteriously in the still air, while nothing is seen but the grey mist, moving solemnly and slowly, like a funeral procession. Behold, at length the shadowy pile of building close before us: its grey walls and towers dimly seen, though so near and so vast: and the raw vapour rolling through its cloisters heavily.

There are two black shadows walking to and fro in the quadrangle, near the statues of the Patron Saint and his sister; and hopping on behind them, in and out of the old arches, is a raven, croaking in answer to the bell, and uttering, at intervals, the purest Tuscan. How like a Jesuit he looks! There never was a sly and stealthy fellow so at home as is this raven, standing now at the refectory door, with his head on one side, and pretending to glance another way, while he is scrutinizing the visitors keenly, and listening with fixed attention. What a dull-headed monk the porter becomes in comparison!

‘He speaks like us!’ says the porter: ‘quite as plainly.’ Quite as plainly, Porter. Nothing could be more expressive than his reception of the peasants who are entering the gate with baskets and burdens. There is a roll in his eye, and a chuckle in his throat, which should qualify him to be chosen Superior of an Order of Ravens. He knows all about it. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘We know what we know. Come along, good people. Glad to see you!’ How was this extraordinary structure ever built in such a situation, where the labour of conveying the stone, and iron, and marble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? ‘Caw!’ says the raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled by plunder, fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and been again made what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous and magnificent? ‘Caw!’ says the raven, welcoming the peasants. These people have a miserable appearance, and (as usual) are densely ignorant, and all beg, while the monks are chaunting in the chapel. ‘Caw!’ says the raven, ‘Cuckoo!’

So we leave him, chuckling and rolling his eye at the convent gate, and wind slowly down again through the cloud. At last emerging from it, we come in sight of the village far below, and the flat green country intersected by rivulets; which is pleasant and fresh to see after the obscurity and haze of the convent—no disrespect to the raven, or the holy friars.

Away we go again, by muddy roads, and through the most shattered and tattered of villages, where there is not a whole window among all the houses, or a whole garment among all the peasants, or the least appearance of anything to eat, in any of the wretched hucksters’ shops. The women wear a bright red bodice laced before and behind, a white skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of square folds of linen, primitively meant to carry loads on. The men and children wear anything they can get. The soldiers are as dirty and rapacious as the dogs. The inns are such hobgoblin places, that they are infinitely more attractive and amusing than the best hotels in Paris. Here is one near Valmontone (that is Valmontone the round, walled town on the mount opposite), which is approached by a quagmire almost knee-deep. There is a wild colonnade below, and a dark yard full of empty stables and lofts, and a great long kitchen with a great long bench and a great long form, where a party of travellers, with two priests among them, are crowding round the fire while their supper is cooking. Above stairs, is a rough brick gallery to sit in, with very little windows with very small patches of knotty glass in them, and all the doors that open from it (a dozen or two) off their hinges, and a bare board on tressels for a table, at which thirty people might dine easily, and a fireplace large enough in itself for a breakfast-parlour, where, as the faggots blaze and crackle, they illuminate the ugliest and grimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed chimney-sides by previous travellers. There is a flaring country lamp on the table; and, hovering about it, scratching her thick black hair continually, a yellow dwarf of a woman, who stands on tiptoe to arrange the hatchet knives, and takes a flying leap to look into the water-jug. The beds in the adjoining rooms are of the liveliest kind. There is not a solitary scrap of looking-glass in the house, and the washing apparatus is identical with the cooking utensils. But the yellow dwarf sets on the table a good flask of excellent wine, holding a quart at least; and produces, among half-a-dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a roasted kid, smoking hot. She is as good-humoured, too, as dirty, which is saying a great deal. So here’s long life to her, in the flask of wine, and prosperity to the establishment.

Rome gained and left behind, and with it the Pilgrims who are now repairing to their own homes again—each with his scallop shell and staff, and soliciting alms for the love of God—we come, by a fair country, to the Falls of Terni, where the whole Velino river dashes, headlong, from a rocky height, amidst shining spray and rainbows. Perugia, strongly fortified by art and nature, on a lofty eminence, rising abruptly from the plain where purple mountains mingle with the distant sky, is glowing, on its market-day, with radiant colours. They set off its sombre but rich Gothic buildings admirably. The pavement of its market-place is strewn with country goods. All along the steep hill leading from the town, under the town wall, there is a noisy fair of calves, lambs, pigs, horses, mules, and oxen. Fowls, geese, and turkeys, flutter vigorously among their very hoofs; and buyers, sellers, and spectators, clustering everywhere, block up the road as we come shouting down upon them.

Suddenly, there is a ringing sound among our horses. The driver stops them. Sinking in his saddle, and casting up his eyes to Heaven, he delivers this apostrophe, ‘Oh Jove Omnipotent! here is a horse has lost his shoe!’

Notwithstanding the tremendous nature of this accident, and the utterly forlorn look and gesture (impossible in any one but an Italian Vetturíno) with which it is announced, it is not long in being repaired by a mortal Farrier, by whose assistance we reach Castiglione the same night, and Arezzo next day. Mass is, of course, performing in its fine cathedral, where the sun shines in among the clustered pillars, through rich stained-glass windows: half revealing, half concealing the kneeling figures on the pavement, and striking out paths of spotted light in the long aisles.

But, how much beauty of another kind is here, when, on a fair clear morning, we look, from the summit of a hill, on Florence! See where it lies before us in a sun-lighted valley, bright with the winding Arno, and shut in by swelling hills; its domes, and towers, and palaces, rising from the rich country in a glittering heap, and shining in the sun like gold!

Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautiful Florence; and the strong old piles of building make such heaps of shadow, on the ground and in the river, that there is another and a different city of rich forms and fancies, always lying at our feet. Prodigious palaces, constructed for defence, with small distrustful windows heavily barred, and walls of great thickness formed of huge masses of rough stone, frown, in their old sulky state, on every street. In the midst of the city—in the Piazza of the Grand Duke, adorned with beautiful statues and the Fountain of Neptune—rises the Palazzo Vecchio, with its enormous overhanging battlements, and the Great Tower that watches over the whole town. In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase that the heaviest waggon and the stoutest team of horses might be driven up. Within it, is a Great Saloon, faded and tarnished in its stately decorations, and mouldering by grains, but recording yet, in pictures on its walls, the triumphs of the Medici and the wars of the old Florentine people. The prison is hard by, in an adjacent court-yard of the building—a foul and dismal place, where some men are shut up close, in small cells like ovens; and where others look through bars and beg; where some are playing draughts, and some are talking to their friends, who smoke, the while, to purify the air; and some are buying wine and fruit of women-vendors; and all are squalid, dirty, and vile to look at. ‘They are merry enough, Signore,’ says the jailer. ‘They are all blood-stained here,’ he adds, indicating, with his hand, three-fourths of the whole building. Before the hour is out, an old man, eighty years of age, quarrelling over a bargain with a young girl of seventeen, stabs her dead, in the market-place full of bright flowers; and is brought in prisoner, to swell the number.

Among the four old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio—that bridge which is covered with the shops of Jewellers and Goldsmiths—is a most enchanting feature in the scene. The space of one house, in the centre, being left open, the view beyond is shown as in a frame; and that precious glimpse of sky, and water, and rich buildings, shining so quietly among the huddled roofs and gables on the bridge, is exquisite. Above it, the Gallery of the Grand Duke crosses the river. It was built to connect the two Great Palaces by a secret passage; and it takes its jealous course among the streets and houses, with true despotism: going where it lists, and spurning every obstacle away, before it.

The Grand Duke has a worthier secret passage through the streets, in his black robe and hood, as a member of the Compagnia della Misericordia, which brotherhood includes all ranks of men. If an accident take place, their office is, to raise the sufferer, and bear him tenderly to the Hospital. If a fire break out, it is one of their functions to repair to the spot, and render their assistance and protection. It is, also, among their commonest offices, to attend and console the sick; and they neither receive money, nor eat, nor drink, in any house they visit for this purpose. Those who are on duty for the time, are all called together, on a moment’s notice, by the tolling of the great bell of the Tower; and it is said that the Grand Duke has been seen, at this sound, to rise from his seat at table, and quietly withdraw to attend the summons.

In this other large Piazza, where an irregular kind of market is held, and stores of old iron and other small merchandise are set out on stalls, or scattered on the pavement, are grouped together, the Cathedral with its great Dome, the beautiful Italian Gothic Tower the Campanile, and the Baptistery with its wrought bronze doors. And here, a small untrodden square in the pavement, is ‘the Stone of Dante,’ where (so runs the story) he was used to bring his stool, and sit in contemplation. I wonder was he ever, in his bitter exile, withheld from cursing the very stones in the streets of Florence the ungrateful, by any kind remembrance of this old musing-place, and its association with gentle thoughts of little Beatrice!

The chapel of the Medici, the Good and Bad Angels, of Florence; the church of Santa Croce where Michael Angelo lies buried, and where every stone in the cloisters is eloquent on great men’s deaths; innumerable churches, often masses of unfinished heavy brickwork externally, but solemn and serene within; arrest our lingering steps, in strolling through the city.

In keeping with the tombs among the cloisters, is the Museum of Natural History, famous through the world for its preparations in wax; beginning with models of leaves, seeds, plants, inferior animals; and gradually ascending, through separate organs of the human frame, up to the whole structure of that wonderful creation, exquisitely presented, as in recent death. Few admonitions of our frail mortality can be more solemn and more sad, or strike so home upon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth and Beauty that are lying there, upon their beds, in their last sleep.

Beyond the walls, the whole sweet Valley of the Arno, the convent at Fiesole, the Tower of Galileo, Boccaccio’s house, old villas and retreats; innumerable spots of interest, all glowing in a landscape of surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light; are spread before us. Returning from so much brightness, how solemn and how grand the streets again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces, and many legends: not of siege, and war, and might, and Iron Hand alone, but of the triumphant growth of peaceful Arts and Sciences.

What light is shed upon the world, at this day, from amidst these rugged Palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in their beautiful and calm retreats, the ancient Sculptors are immortal, side by side with Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Poets, Historians, Philosophers—those illustrious men of history, beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed warriors show so poor and small, and are so soon forgotten. Here, the imperishable part of noble minds survives, placid and equal, when strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when the tyranny of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when Pride and Power are so much cloistered dust. The fire within the stern streets, and among the massive Palaces and Towers, kindled by rays from Heaven, is still burning brightly, when the flickering of war is extinguished and the household fires of generations have decayed; as thousands upon thousands of faces, rigid with the strife and passion of the hour, have faded out of the old Squares and public haunts, while the nameless Florentine Lady, preserved from oblivion by a Painter’s hand, yet lives on, in enduring grace and youth.

Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shining Dome is seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, with a bright remembrance of it; for Italy will be the fairer for the recollection. The summer-time being come: and Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como lying far behind us: and we resting at Faido, a Swiss village, near the awful rocks and mountains, the everlasting snows and roaring cataracts, of the Great Saint Gothard: hearing the Italian tongue for the last time on this journey: let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patient, and sweet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit; miserable jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union was destruction, and division strength, have been a canker at their root of nationality, and have barbarized their language; but the good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may be, one day, raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain that hope! And let us not remember Italy the less regardfully, because, in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every stone of her deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lesson that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, and more hopeful, as it rolls!

"I will always love you. That is the only truth that remains. Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I love you. That's all I know."

2016-12-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

"I will always love you. That is the only truth that remains. Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I can't stop loving you. That's all I know."

THE AUGUSTAN AGE

2016-11-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

Monday, 9 March 2015

THE VICTORIAN BUILDING AS OPPOSED TO THE GEORGIAN

The eighteenth century in English literature has been called the Augustan Age, the Neoclassical Age, and the Age of Reason. The term 'the Augustan Age' comes from the self-conscious imitation of the original Augustan writers, Virgil and Horace, by many of the writers of the period.
An enormous emphasis was placed on the ability to think and reason during the Enlightenment. People during this era thought and reasoned about a variety of topics. The first epistle of Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man” can be considered an articulation of the Enlightenment because it encompasses three major concerns of the people during the Enlightenment. Pope addresses man’s ability to reason and think for himself, he questions the church and the nature of Christianity, and he also speculates about man’s place in the world, as a part of the great chain of life.

The ability to reason was the central focus of the Enlightenment also denoted The Age of Reason.

Pope encourages his audience to use the reason they have been given, to examine those things that have been advised against, asking them to look for evidence in the knowledge they receive, rather then allowing the church to spoon-feed them all of their knowledge.

Pope expresses his opinion that man’s place in the Universe, is within “Nature’s chain.” Therefore, man is simply a link within that chain. Pope’s idea that there is this chain or structure to the Universe, is representative of the belief by many Enlightenment thinkers, that there is a “best” way to structure things. During the Enlightenment everything was being organized, and classified. From the structure of society, to the structure of the Universe, there existed a common belief that organization was key to producing the “best” of anything.

Specifically, the Augustan Age was the period after the Restoration era to the death of Alexander Pope (~1690 - 1744). The major writers of the age were Pope and John Dryden in poetry, and Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison in prose.

It is the name of Alexander Pope which is associated with the epoch known as the Augustan Age, despite the fact that other writers such as Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe had a more lasting influence. The 1st half of the 18th century is called the “Augustan age” because of the attention paid to the characteristics of ancient Rome under the Emperor Augustus. Chiswick House is an example of English Palladian Architecture in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England.

Arguably the finest remaining example of Neo-Palladian architecture in London, the house was designed by Lord Burlington, and completed in 1729. The architectural historian Richard Hewlings has established that Chiswick House was an attempt by Lord Burlington to create a Roman villa, rather than Renaissance pastiche, situated in a symbolic Roman garden.The Roman garden was a place of peace and tranquillity – a refuge from urban life – and a place filled with religious and symbolic meanings

Chiswick House is inspired in part by several buildings of the 16th-century Italian architects Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) and his assistant Vincenzo Scamozzi (1552–1616).

The house is often said to be directly inspired by Palladio's Villa Capra "La Rotonda" near Vicenza, Lord Burlington had rejected this design and it was subsequently used at Mereworth Castle, Kent.Whether Palladio's work inspired Chiswick or not, the Renaissance architect exerted an important influence on Lord Burlington through his plans and reconstructions of lost Roman buildings;

The Augustans had turned to classical Rome and Greece, and the ruling class thought to be the true heir of the Roman Empire.

The real English gentleman had the old Roman fortitude, perseverance, and forbearance together with Stoic pride. The great Augustan writers share a belief in reason as capable of imposing some order on an otherwise chaotic world.

In this period rules were important: hey were laid down for every aspect of life, from religion and philosophy to art and sports; from this derives the didactic tone of much Augustan literature. The Augustans were convinced that their aesthetic and moral canons were perfect because they conformed to nature, which they saw as the principle of universe, and to classical rules.

Neo-classicism became a style of life, that influenced poetry, sculpture, painting and gardening and town planning.

As regarding architecture, in the 1730s there was a revolution that broke with the baroque followers of Christopher Wren; many British cities were adorned with classical terraces, squares and crescents, and the gothic style was popular too.The age of reason or “the Enlightenment had particular characteristics that distinguished England from the other European countries.

Many travellers were surprised by what they saw as the comparative freedom enjoyed by the British people in contrast with the more absolutist regimes of their own countries.

'Neoclassicism'
This 'nature' of the Augustans, however, was not the wild, spiritual nature the romantic poets would later idealize, but nature as derived from classical theory: a rational and comprehensible moral order in the universe, demonstrating God's providential design.

The architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century. In its purest form it is a style principally derived from the architecture of Classical antiquity, theVitruvian principles and the architecture of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio.

In form, Neoclassical architecture is manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, . Neoclassical architecture is still designed today, but may be labelled New Classical Architecture for contemporary buildings.

It was symptomatic of a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, to the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts . The idea was that a building should immediately communicate its function to the viewer: taken literally such ideas give rise to "architecture parlante". The baroque style had never truly been to the English taste. At first the book mainly featured the work of Inigo Jones, but the later tomes contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th-century architects. Palladian architecture became well established in 18th-century Britain.
Inigo Jones was the first significant British architect of the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings.
Little is known about Vitruvius' life. Most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work De Architectura. His first name Marcus and his cognomen Pollio are uncertain.

Gerolamo Cardano, in his 16th book De subtilitate rerum, ranks Vitruvius as one of the 12 persons whom he supposes to have excelled all men in the force of genius and inventionVitruvius is the author of De architectura, known today as The Ten Books on Architecture, a treatise written in Latin on architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. This work is the only surviving major book on architecture from classical antiquity. According to Petri Liukkonen, this text "influenced deeply from the Early Renaissance onwards artists, thinkers, and architects, among them Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), and Michelangelo (1475–1564).The next major book on architecture, Alberti's reformulation of Ten Books, was not written until 1452.

Vitruvius is famous for asserting in his book De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas, venustas – that is, it must be solid, useful, beautiful. These are sometimes termed the Vitruvian virtues or the Vitruvian Triad. According to Vitruvius, architecture is an imitation of nature. As birds and bees built their nests, so humans constructed housing from natural materials, that gave them shelter against the elements. When perfecting this art of building, the Greeks invented the architectural orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. It gave them a sense of proportion, culminating in understanding the proportions of the greatest work of art: the human body.

Roman architects practised a wide variety of disciplines; in modern terms, they could be described as being engineers, architects, landscape architects, artists, and craftsmen combined. Etymologically the word architect derives from Greek words meaning 'master' and 'builder'.

His book De architectura was rediscovered in 1414 by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini.Giocondo.

above Ionic

above Doric

Corinthian
The buildings and architecture of Bath, a city in Somerset in the south west of England, reveal significant examples of the architecture of England,and the way in which the city landscape draws together public and private buildings and spaces.The many examples of Palladian architecture are purposefully integrated with the urban spaces to provide "picturesque aestheticism".Important buildings include the Roman Baths; neoclassical architect Robert Adam's Pulteney Bridge, based on an unused design for the Rialto Bridge in Venice and the residential buildings designed and built into boulevards and crescents by the Georgian architects John Wood, the Elder and his son John Wood, the Younger – well-known examples being the Royal Crescent, built around 1770, and The Circus, built around 1760, where each of the three curved segments faces one of the entrances, ensuring that there is always a classical facade facing the entering visitor.

Most of Bath's buildings are made from the local, golden-coloured, Bath Stone. The dominant architectural style is Georgian,which evolved from the Palladian revival style that became popular in the early 18th century. an integration of architecture, urban design, and landscape setting, and the deliberate creation of a beautiful city.

Victorian refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian were used in construction. However, many elements of what is typically termed "Victorian" architecture did not become popular until later in Victoria's reign. The styles often included interpretations and eclectic
(the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them)
revivals of historic styles mixed with the introduction of middle east and Asian influences. The name represents the British and French custom of naming architectural styles for a reigning monarch. Within this naming and classification scheme, it follows Georgian architecture and later Regency architecture, and was succeeded by Edwardian architecture.
Edwardian architecture is generally less ornate than high or late Victorian architecture.

During the early 19th century, the romantic medieval Gothic revival style was developed as a reaction to the symmetry of Palladianism, (below St.Pancras Station). In the face of the idustrial revolution crushing nature in its path some Victorians harked back to the past in their search for meaning and writing, painting and art plus architecture and gardens looked to the past for an answer . Others wanted a national architecture to demonstrate the power of the empire just as Rome had done and Mussolini and Hitler would try to recreate . Neo-Gothis would be the chosen style of architecture as it fulfilled the needs of those Victorians who wanted the past for various reasons. and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were built. By the middle of the 19th century, as a result of newtechnology, construction was able to incorporate steel as a building component; one of the greatest exponents of this was Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace. Paxton also continued to build such houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular English Renaissance styles. In this era of prosperity new methods of construction were developed, but ironically the architectural styles, as developed by such architects as Augustus Pugin, were typically retrospective.

In Scotland, the architect Alexander Thomson who practiced in Glasgow was a pioneer of the use of cast iron and steel for commercial buildings, blending neo-classical conventionality with Egyptian and oriental themes to produce many truly original structures. Other notable Scottish architects of this period are Archibald Simpson and Alexander Marshall Mackenzie whose stylistically varied work can be seen in the architecture of Aberdeen.

ALL ideas come from those that leave through a time, their ideas come from the lives they lead and its influences , even a biro pen shows and leaves its mark on who imagined it then designed it and made it . In Georgian architecture we can see simplicity but superbly mathmatical , reason combined with deep understanding of who they were and where they were going . As soon as we encounter the industrial revolution then this idea of reason balance and logic seems to start falling to pieces . Victorian art seems to lose the fine values of Georgian reason . The age of reason becomes the age of unconscious despair within a framework of seemingly great progress . It culminates in the worlds becoming what it is today with the first great serial killer Jack the Ripper maybe a victim of the new age of unreason , a people alienated from nature where nature exists only in the minds of artists and a letter is sent to the newspaper in blood

BLOODY LATINS

2016-11-02T12:54:00.001-07:00

The Latins have the weather, the food, the style and just about everything else but this popular civilisation is endangered, because of a pincer movement by tourism and the north's economic doctrines.
British middle class ponces like to seek out paradise once a year because it is the only time they feel really alive, their pathetic two weeks if that in the sun.
And for two weeks they eat well.But then some of them get ideas , like.......................

That garage on the winding hill up to Montalcino is now a fancy Enoteca open all hours, its copying the ponces in London.
In the big cities – Rome, Florence – Sunday is just not Sunday any more. Meanwhile, the pressure is on southern Europe to stop the indulgences and heed our own headlines about debt and deficit: CRISIS IN THE EUROZONE! AUSTERITY!

This week is peak holiday season. Millions of people will leave Britain, northern Europe and America, heading for the lands where the olive trees grow. Most will find the cheapest deal at a beach or major "tourist destination". Some will go to second homes converted from what were farmhouses in the days I used to ride my Honda 850 out for a picnic in the hills. Others will rent a villa; many will travel from place to place, either pounding the beaten track or seeking out ever more remote "hidden treasures". And why not? Everyone deserves a break.

Many holidaymakers will enjoy playing at – perhaps even enviably gawping at – the way life is lived among the cypresses. Understandably, they'll adopt a few local habits for this precious week or two: a quick morning espresso at the bar; a longer lunch than at home; a siesta, indeed; an aperitif in the square before dinner outdoors. They may be a little annoyed that the church or museum they wanted to visit is shut for the afternoon, but, walking around, will hear the echo of their footsteps off the old stone walls and admire the tenacity with which the town has gone restfully silent in a way no place in northern Europe does.

They may remark on the impact this way of life seems to have on people's health. There is a sense of wellbeing, especially among the elderly, sitting out on the street for dominoes or totocalcio football pools, that evades us in the north, despite our obsession with keeping trim. Platoons of reporters have plodded around the "blue zones" in Sardinia and the island of Ikaria in the Greek Aegean, trying to unlock "the secret" of why people live longer in these places than anywhere else in the world.

The island has a history of starvation and persecution that forced people to grow much of what they eat, and vice-versa, which today is advantageous, but even that aside, the "secret" is manifestly obvious: Ikarians live mostly in the open air, they do not sit in offices; people work, but not unecessarily.
Fishermen in the port of Evdilos enjoy a long morning of backgammon on the quayside before launching their craft. No one fiddles with digital gadgets; the internet is something you find in a cafe if you need it. Many watch black-and-white TV, partly because they cannot afford a colour set, partly because they see no need for one.

It's like the Italy I knew in the 1970s, including the extremist politics. There are worries too, of course; those of almost every Greek (Spaniard, Italian or Portuguese) about the economy, debt, unemployment – and now that very northern word, arriving on the chill political wind from London, Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington: "austerity". And here's the rub.

The few places left that have fended off mass tourism and preserved their way of life, such as Ikaria, the plains of Castile, the wilds of Abruzzo, are, in reality, everything that our northern society, our managers, the IMF, businessmen, politicians – both Eurosceptics and Angela Merkel – despise. The politics of the EU (and Britain's variation on its theme) are nothing if not a grinding of southern Europe; bludgeoning the south into abandoning its lazy ways, spruce up, pay off its debt and BE LIKE US!

Yes, to adopt our turbo-capitalist zeal in place of these languid Latinate ways; to conjoin our obsessive consumerism, our corporate mindset, our worship of technology. Enough of these ghost town Sundays – where's your 24/7 shopping, triple-A rating, stress medication?

And so our August holidays on cobblestones and land where the vine grows become very weird, as people go to play at the way of life their leaders – maybe even they – are destroying. Many of those from Britain, America, Germany and elsewhere this weekend setting off to savour the southern life are the politicians, bankers, lawyers, managers, civil servants, thinktank "brains" – newspaper columnists indeed – who have decided, generally if not individually, that our Anglo-American way of capitalism is the only way to go. Fuelled, it sometimes feels, more by some combination of cocaine, Red Bull and Viagra than aromatic coffee, a cool aperitif and an afternoon snooze.

But in August, we leave our frantic modus vivendi behind, to enjoy theirs. "Oh, look at those little old men playing chess on the pavement – so sweet!" "Campari-soda per favore!" "Tasha, you MUST try the époisses, it's divine!" "I so love the way they whizz about on scooters without helmets and no one wears seat belts – it's such fun!" Then September comes, back to balancing the books, the shareholders' interests, the "aggressively managed portfolio", the FTSE and Dow Jones. That's enough Caravaggio and mortadella for one year, time for a new austerity package – those lazy bloody Latins…
In 1943, a Greek war veteran named Stamatis Moraitis came to the United States for treatment of a combat-mangled arm. He’d survived a gunshot wound, escaped to Turkey and eventually talked his way onto the Queen Elizabeth, then serving as a troopship, to cross the Atlantic. Moraitis settled in Port Jefferson, N.Y., an enclave of countrymen from his native island, Ikaria. He quickly landed a job doing manual labor. Later, he moved to Boynton Beach, Fla. Along the way, Moraitis married a Greek-American woman, had three children and bought a three-bedroom house and a 1951 Chevrolet.

One day in 1976, Moraitis felt short of breath. Climbing stairs was a chore; he had to quit working midday. After X-rays, his doctor concluded that Moraitis had lung cancer. As he recalls, nine other doctors confirmed the diagnosis. They gave him nine months to live. He was in his mid-60s.

Moraitis considered staying in America and seeking aggressive cancer treatment at a local hospital. That way, he could also be close to his adult children. But he decided instead to return to Ikaria, where he could be buried with his ancestors in a cemetery shaded by oak trees that overlooked the Aegean Sea. He figured a funeral in the United States would cost thousands, a traditional Ikarian one only $200, leaving more of his retirement savings for his wife, Elpiniki. Moraitis and Elpiniki moved in with his elderly parents, into a tiny, whitewashed house on two acres of stepped vineyards near Evdilos, on the north side of Ikaria. At first, he spent his days in bed, as his mother and wife tended to him. He reconnected with his faith. On Sunday mornings, he hobbled up the hill to a tiny Greek Orthodox chapel where his grandfather once served as a priest. When his childhood friends discovered that he had moved back, they started showing up every afternoon. They’d talk for hours, an activity that invariably involved a bottle or two of locally produced wine. I might as well die happy, he thought.

In the ensuing months, something strange happened. He says he started to feel stronger. One day, feeling ambitious, he planted some vegetables in the garden. He didn’t expect to live to harvest them, but he enjoyed being in the sunshine, breathing the ocean air. Elpiniki could enjoy the fresh vegetables after he was gone.Six months came and went. Moraitis didn’t die. Instead, he reaped his garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made himself lunch and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old — according to an official document he disputes; he says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria.

Residents of the island Ikaria in Greece live profoundly long and healthful lives.

I met Moraitis on Ikaria this past July during one of my visits to explore the extraordinary longevity of the island’s residents. For a decade, with support from the National Geographic Society, I’ve been organizing a study of the places where people live longest. The project grew out of studies by my partners, Dr. Gianni Pes of the University of Sassari in Italy and Dr. Michel Poulain, a Belgian demographer. In 2000, they identified a region of Sardinia’s Nuoro province as the place with the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. As they zeroed in on a cluster of villages high in Nuoro’s mountains, they drew a boundary in blue ink on a map and began referring to the area inside as the “blue zone.” Starting in 2002, we identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, we discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., we identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.

In 2003, I started a consulting firm to see if it was possible to take what we were learning in the field and apply it to American communities. We also continued to do research and look for other pockets of longevity, and in 2008, following a lead from a Greek researcher, we began investigating Ikaria. Poulain’s plan there was to track down survivors born between 1900 and 1920 and determine when and where individuals died. The approach was complicated by the fact that people often moved around. That meant that not only were birth and death records required, but also information on immigration and emigration.

The data collection had to be rigorous. Earlier claims about long-lived people in places like Ecuador’s Vilcabamba Valley, Pakistan’s Hunza Valley or the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia had all been debunked after researchers discovered that many residents didn’t actually know their ages. For villagers born without birth certificates, it was easy to lose track. One year they were 80; a few months later they were 82. Pretty soon they claimed to be 100. And when a town discovers that a reputation for centenarians draws tourists, who’s going to question it? Even in Ikaria, the truth has been sometimes difficult to nail down. Stories like the one about Moraitis’s miraculous recovery become instant folklore, told and retold and changed and misattributed. (Stories about Moraitis have appeared on Greek TV.) In fact, when I was doing research there in 2009, I met a different man who told me virtually the exact same story about himself.

The study would try to cut through the stories and establish the facts about Ikaria’s longevity. Before including subjects, Poulain cross-referenced birth records against baptism or military documentation. After gathering all the data, he and his colleagues at the University of Athens concluded that people on Ikaria were, in fact, reaching the age of 90 at two and a half times the rate Americans do. (Ikarian men in particular are nearly four times as likely as their American counterparts to reach 90, often in better health.)

But more than that, they were also living about 8 to 10 years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia. Almost half of Americans 85 and older show signs of Alzheimer’s. (The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that dementia cost Americans some $200 billion in 2012.) On Ikaria, however, people have been managing to stay sharp to the end.

Ikaria, an island of 99 square miles and home to almost 10,000 Greek nationals, lies about 30 miles off the western coast of Turkey. Its jagged ridge of scrub-covered mountains rises steeply out of the Aegean Sea. Before the Christian era, the island was home to thick oak forests and productive vineyards. Its reputation as a health destination dates back 25 centuries, when Greeks traveled to the island to soak in the hot springs near Therma. In the 17th century, Joseph Georgirenes, the bishop of Ikaria, described its residents as proud people who slept on the ground. “The most commendable thing on this island,” he wrote, “is their air and water, both so healthful that people are very long-lived, it being an ordinary thing to see persons in it of 100 years of age.”

Seeking to learn more about the island’s reputation for long-lived residents, I called on Dr. Ilias Leriadis, one of Ikaria’s few physicians, in 2009. On an outdoor patio at his weekend house, he set a table with Kalamata olives, hummus, heavy Ikarian bread and wine. “People stay up late here,” Leriadis said. “We wake up late and always take naps. I don’t even open my office until 11 a.m. because no one comes before then.” He took a sip of his wine. “Have you noticed that no one wears a watch here? No clock is working correctly. When you invite someone to lunch, they might come at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. We simply don’t care about the clock here.”

Pointing across the Aegean toward the neighboring island of Samos, he said: “Just 15 kilometers over there is a completely different world. There they are much more developed. There are high-rises and resorts and homes worth a million euros. In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”

The Ikarian diet: Vegetables from the garden, legumes and greens, and plenty of olive oil.Andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto for The New York Times

Ikaria’s unusual past may explain its communal inclinations. The strong winds that buffet the island — mentioned in the “Iliad” — and the lack of natural harbors kept it outside the main shipping lanes for most of its history. This forced Ikaria to be self-sufficient. Then in the late 1940s, after the Greek Civil War, the government exiled thousands of Communists and radicals to the island. Nearly 40 percent of adults, many of them disillusioned with the high unemployment rate and the dwindling trickle of resources from Athens, still vote for the local Communist Party. About 75 percent of the population on Ikaria is under 65. The youngest adults, many of whom come home after college, often live in their parents’ home. They typically have to cobble together a living through small jobs and family support.

Leriadis also talked about local “mountain tea,” made from dried herbs endemic to the island, which is enjoyed as an end-of-the-day cocktail. He mentioned wild marjoram, sage (flaskomilia), a type of mint tea (fliskouni), rosemary and a drink made from boiling dandelion leaves and adding a little lemon. “People here think they’re drinking a comforting beverage, but they all double as medicine,” Leriadis said. Honey, too, is treated as a panacea. “They have types of honey here you won’t see anyplace else in the world,” he said. “They use it for everything from treating wounds to curing hangovers, or for treating influenza. Old people here will start their day with a spoonful of honey. They take it like medicine.”

Over the span of the next three days, I met some of Leriadis’s patients. In the area known as Raches, I met 20 people over 90 and one who claimed to be 104. I spoke to a 95-year-old man who still played the violin and a 98-year-old woman who ran a small hotel and played poker for money on the weekend.

On a trip the year before, I visited a slate-roofed house built into the slope at the top of a hill. I had come here after hearing of a couple who had been married for more than 75 years. Thanasis and Eirini Karimalis both came to the door, clapped their hands at the thrill of having a visitor and waved me in. They each stood maybe five feet tall. He wore a shapeless cotton shirt and a battered baseball cap, and she wore a housedress with her hair in a bun. Inside, there was a table, a medieval-looking fireplace heating a blackened pot, a nook of a closet that held one woolen suit coat, and fading black-and-white photographs of forebears on a soot-stained wall. The place was warm and cozy. “Sit down,” Eirini commanded. She hadn’t even asked my name or business but was already setting out teacups and a plate of cookies. Meanwhile, Thanasis scooted back and forth across the house with nervous energy, tidying up.

The couple were born in a nearby village, they told me. They married in their early 20s and raised five children on Thanasis’s pay as a lumberjack. Like that of almost all of Ikaria’s traditional folk, their daily routine unfolded much the way Leriadis had described it: Wake naturally, work in the garden, have a late lunch, take a nap. At sunset, they either visited neighbors or neighbors visited them. Their diet was also typical: a breakfast of goat’s milk, wine, sage tea or coffee, honey and bread. Lunch was almost always beans (lentils, garbanzos), potatoes, greens (fennel, dandelion or a spinachlike green called horta) and whatever seasonal vegetables their garden produced; dinner was bread and goat’s milk. At Christmas and Easter, they would slaughter the family pig and enjoy small portions of larded pork for the next several months.

During a tour of their property, Thanasis and Eirini introduced their pigs to me by name. Just after sunset, after we returned to their home to have some tea, another old couple walked in, carrying a glass amphora of homemade wine. The four nonagenarians cheek-kissed one another heartily and settled in around the table. They gossiped, drank wine and occasionally erupted into laughter.

Dr. Ioanna Chinou, a professor at the University of Athens School of Pharmacy, is one of Europe’s top experts on the bioactive properties of herbs and natural products. When I consulted her about Ikarians’ longevity, she told me that many of the teas they consume are traditional Greek remedies. Wild mint fights gingivitis and gastrointestinal disorders; rosemary is used as a remedy for gout; artemisia is thought to improve blood circulation. She invited me to give her samples and later tested seven of the most commonly used herbs on Ikaria. As rich sources of polyphenols, they showed strong antioxidant properties, she reported. Most of these herbs also contained mild diuretics. Doctors often use diuretics to treat hypertension — perhaps by drinking tea nightly, Ikarians have gently lowered their blood pressure throughout their lives.

Figures from the Ikaria Study, which surveyed the island's over-80 population

Meanwhile, my colleagues Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain set out to track down the island’s 164 residents who were over 90 as of 1999, starting in the municipality of Raches. They found that 75 nonagenarians were still alive. Then, along with additional researchers, they fanned out across the island and asked 35 elderly subjects a battery of lifestyle questions to assess physical and cognitive functioning: How much do you sleep? Did you ever smoke? They asked them to get up and down from a chair five times and recorded how long it took them to walk 13 feet. To test mental agility, the researchers had subjects recall a series of items and reproduce geometric shapes.

Pes and Poulain were joined in the field by Dr. Antonia Trichopoulou of the University of Athens, an expert on the Mediterranean diet. She helped administer surveys, often sitting in village kitchens to ask subjects to reconstruct their childhood eating habits. She noted that the Ikarians’ diet, like that of others around the Mediterranean, was rich in olive oil and vegetables, low in dairy (except goat’s milk) and meat products, and also included moderate amounts of alcohol. It emphasized homegrown potatoes, beans (garbanzo, black-eyed peas and lentils), wild greens and locally produced goat milk and honey.

As I knew from my studies in other places with high numbers of very old people, every one of the Ikarians’ dietary tendencies had been linked to increased life spans: low intake of saturated fats from meat and dairy was associated with lower risk of heart disease; olive oil — especially unheated — reduced bad cholesterol and raised good cholesterol. Goat’s milk contained serotonin-boosting tryptophan and was easily digestible for older people. Some wild greens had 10 times as many antioxidants as red wine. Wine — in moderation — had been shown to be good for you if consumed as part of a Mediterranean diet, because it prompts the body to absorb more flavonoids, a type of antioxidant. And coffee, once said to stunt growth, was now associated with lower rates of diabetes, heart disease and, for some, Parkinson’s. Local sourdough bread might actually reduce a meal’s glycemic load. You could even argue that potatoes contributed heart-healthy potassium, vitamin B6 and fiber to the Ikarian diet. Another health factor at work might be the unprocessed nature of the food they consume: as Trichopoulou observed, because islanders eat greens from their gardens and fields, they consume fewer pesticides and more nutrients. She estimated that the Ikarian diet, compared with the standard American diet, might yield up to four additional years of life expectancy.

Of course, it may not be only what they’re eating; it may also be what they’re not eating. “Are they doing something positive, or is it the absence of something negative?” Gary Taubes asked when I described to him the Ikarians’ longevity and their diet. Taubes is a founder of the nonprofit Nutrition Science Initiative and the author of “Why We Get Fat” (and has written several articles for this magazine). “One explanation why they live so long is they eat a plant-based diet. Or it could be the absence of sugar and white flour. From what I know of the Greek diet, they eat very little refined sugar, and their breads have been traditionally made with stone-ground wheat.”

Following the report by Pes and Poulain, Dr. Christina Chrysohoou, a cardiologist at the University of Athens School of Medicine, teamed up with half a dozen scientists to organize the Ikaria Study, which includes a survey of the diet of 673 Ikarians. She found that her subjects consumed about six times as many beans a day as Americans, ate fish twice a week and meat five times a month, drank on average two to three cups of coffee a day and took in about a quarter as much refined sugar — the elderly did not like soda. She also discovered they were consuming high levels of olive oil along with two to four glasses of wine a day.

Chrysohoou also suspected that Ikarians’ sleep and sex habits might have something to do with their long life. She cited a 2008 paper by the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health that studied more than 23,000 Greek adults. The researchers followed subjects for an average of six years, measuring their diets, physical activity and how much they napped. They found that occasional napping was associated with a 12 percent reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease, but that regular napping — at least three days weekly — was associated with a 37 percent reduction. She also pointed out a preliminary study of Ikarian men between 65 and 100 that included the fact that 80 percent of them claimed to have sex regularly, and a quarter of that self-reported group said they were doing so with “good duration” and “achievement.”

During our time on Ikaria, my colleagues and I stayed at Thea Parikos’s guesthouse, the social hub of western Ikaria. Local women gathered in the dining room at midmorning to gossip over tea. Late at night, after the dinner rush, tables were pushed aside and the dining room became a dance floor, with people locking arms and kick-dancing to Greek music.

The key to Ikarian longevity is not simply a healthful diet; daily socializing may be just as crucial. From left: Christos Ploutis, 75; Konstantinos Sakoutis, 82; and Thanasis Kamperis, 62.Andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto for The New York Times

Parikos cooked the way her ancestors had for centuries, giving us a chance to consume the diet we were studying. For breakfast, she served local yogurt and honey from the 90-year-old beekeeper next door. For dinner, she walked out into the fields and returned with handfuls of weedlike greens, combined them with pumpkin and baked them into savory pies. My favorite was a dish made with black-eyed peas, tomatoes, fennel tops and garlic and finished with olive oil that we dubbed Ikarian stew.

Despite her consummately Ikarian air, Parikos was actually born in Detroit to an American father and an Ikarian mother. She had attended high school, worked as a real estate agent and married in the United States. After she and her husband had their first child, she felt a “genetic craving” for Ikaria. “I was not unhappy in America,” she said. “We had good friends, we went out to dinner on the weekends, I drove a Chevrolet. But I was always in a hurry.”

When she and her family moved to Ikaria and opened the guesthouse, everything changed. She stopped shopping for most groceries, instead planting a huge garden that provided most of their fruits and vegetables. She lost weight without trying to. I asked her if she thought her simple diet was going to make her family live longer. “Yes,” she said. “But we don’t think about it that way. It’s bigger than that.”

Although unemployment is high — perhaps as high as 40 percent — most everyone has access to a family garden and livestock, Parikos told me. People who work might have several jobs. Someone involved in tourism, for example, might also be a painter or an electrician or have a store. “People are fine here because we are very self-sufficient,” she said. “We may not have money for luxuries, but we will have food on the table and still have fun with family and friends. We may not be in a hurry to get work done during the day, so we work into the night. At the end of the day, we don’t go home to sit on the couch.”

Parikos was nursing a mug of coffee. Sunlight sifted in through the window shades; the waves of the nearby Aegean could be barely heard over the din of breakfast. “Do you know there’s no word in Greek for privacy?” she declared. “When everyone knows everyone else’s business, you get a feeling of connection and security. The lack of privacy is actually good, because it puts a check on people who don’t want to be caught or who do something to embarrass their family. If your kids misbehave, your neighbor has no problem disciplining them. There is less crime, not because of good policing, but because of the risk of shaming the family. You asked me about food, and yes, we do eat better here than in America. But it’s more about how we eat. Even if it’s your lunch break from work, you relax and enjoy your meal. You enjoy the company of whoever you are with. Food here is always enjoyed in combination with conversation.”

In the United States, when it comes to improving health, people tend to focus on exercise and what we put into our mouths — organic foods, omega-3’s, micronutrients. We spend nearly $30 billion a year on vitamins and supplements alone. Yet in Ikaria and the other places like it, diet only partly explained higher life expectancy. Exercise — at least the way we think of it, as willful, dutiful, physical activity — played a small role at best.

Social structure might turn out to be more important. In Sardinia, a cultural attitude that celebrated the elderly kept them engaged in the community and in extended-family homes until they were in their 100s. Studies have linked early retirement among some workers in industrialized economies to reduced life expectancy. In Okinawa, there’s none of this artificial punctuation of life. Instead, the notion of ikigai — “the reason for which you wake up in the morning” — suffuses people’s entire adult lives. It gets centenarians out of bed and out of the easy chair to teach karate, or to guide the village spiritually, or to pass down traditions to children. The Nicoyans in Costa Rica use the term plan de vida to describe a lifelong sense of purpose. As Dr. Robert Butler, the first director of the National Institute on Aging, once told me, being able to define your life meaning adds to your life expectancy.

Figures from the Ikaria Study, which surveyed the island's over-80 population

The healthful plant-based diet that Seventh-day Adventists eat has been associated with an extra decade of life expectancy. It has also been linked to reduced rates of diabetes and heart disease. Adventists’ diet is inspired by the Bible — Genesis 1:29. (“And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed . . . and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.’ ”) But again, the key insight might be more about social structure than about the diet itself. While for most people, diets eventually fail, the Adventists eat the way they do for decades. How? Adventists hang out with other Adventists. When you go to an Adventist picnic, there’s no steak grilling on the barbecue; it’s a vegetarian potluck. No one is drinking alcohol or smoking. As Nicholas Christakis, a physician and social scientist at Harvard, found when examining data from a long-term study of the residents of Framingham, Mass., health habits can be as contagious as a cold virus. By his calculation, a Framingham individual’s chances of becoming obese shot up by 57 percent if a friend became obese. Among the Adventists we looked at, it was mostly positive social contagions that were in circulation.

Ask the very old on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, “We just forget to die.” The reality is they have no idea how they got to be so old. And neither do we. To answer that question would require carefully tracking the lifestyles of a study group and a control group for an entire human lifetime (and then some). We do know from reliable data that people on Ikaria are outliving those on surrounding islands (a control group, of sorts). Samos, for instance, is just eight miles away. People there with the same genetic background eat yogurt, drink wine, breathe the same air, fish from the same sea as their neighbors on Ikaria. But people on Samos tend to live no longer than average Greeks. This is what makes the Ikarian formula so tantalizing.

If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work. It’s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon naptime. It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful — and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It’s hard to get through the day in Ikaria without walking up 20 hills. You’re not likely to ever feel the existential pain of not belonging or even the simple stress of arriving late. Your community makes sure you’ll always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too. You’re going to grow a garden, because that’s what your parents did, and that’s what your neighbors are doing. You’re less likely to be a victim of crime because everyone at once is a busybody and feels as if he’s being watched. At day’s end, you’ll share a cup of the seasonal herbal tea with your neighbor because that’s what he’s serving. Several glasses of wine may follow the tea, but you’ll drink them in the company of good friends. On Sunday, you’ll attend church, and you’ll fast before Orthodox feast days. Even if you’re antisocial, you’ll never be entirely alone. Your neighbors will cajole you out of your house for the village festival to eat your portion of goat meat.

Every one of these factors can be tied to longevity. That’s what the $70 billion diet industry and $20 billion health-club industry do in their efforts to persuade us that if we eat the right food or do the right workout, we’ll be healthier, lose weight and live longer. But these strategies rarely work. Not because they’re wrong-minded: it’s a good idea for people to do any of these healthful activities. The problem is, it’s difficult to change individual behaviors when community behaviors stay the same. In the United States, you can’t go to a movie, walk through the airport or buy cough medicine without being routed through a gantlet of candy bars, salty snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages. The processed-food industry spends more than $4 billion a year tempting us to eat. How do you combat that? Discipline is a good thing, but discipline is a muscle that fatigues. Sooner or later, most people cave in to relentless temptation.

As our access to calories has increased, we’ve decreased the amount of physical activity in our lives. In 1970, about 40 percent of all children in the U.S. walked to school; now fewer than 12 percent do. Our grandparents, without exercising, burned up about five times as many calories a day in physical activity as we do. At the same time, access to food has exploded.

Despite the island’s relative isolation, its tortuous roads and the fierce independence of its inhabitants, the American food culture, among other forces, is beginning to take root in Ikaria. Village markets are now selling potato chips and soda, which in my experience is replacing tea as the drink of choice among younger Ikarians. As the island’s ancient traditions give way before globalization, the gap between Ikarian life spans and those of the rest of the world seems to be gradually disappearing, as the next generations of old people become less likely to live quite so long.

The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses. The power of such an environment lies in the mutually reinforcing relationships among lots of small nudges and default choices. There’s no silver bullet to keep death and the diseases of old age at bay. If there’s anything close to a secret, it’s silver buckshot.

I called Moraitis a few weeks ago from my home in Minneapolis. Elpiniki died in the spring at age 85, and now he lives alone. He picked up the phone in the same whitewashed house that he’d moved into 35 years ago. It was late afternoon in Ikaria. He had worked in his vineyard that morning and just awakened from a nap. We chatted for a few minutes, but then he warned me that some of his neighbors were coming over for a drink in a few minutes and he’d have to go. I had one last question for him. How does he think he recovered from lung cancer?

“It just went away,” he said. “I actually went back to America about 25 years after moving here to see if the doctors could explain it to me.”

I had heard this part of the story before. It had become a piece of the folklore of Ikaria, proof of its exceptional way of life. Still, I asked him, “What happened?”

“My doctors were all dead.”

Correction: October 28, 2012

An article on Page 36 this weekend about the reasons people on the Greek Island of Ikaria live long lives misstates the period when fasting is practiced by the island’s inhabitants. They fast before Orthodox feast days, not during Orthodox feast days.

If you want to live as long as the inhabitants of Ikaria, whom Dan Buettner wrote about in this Sunday’s magazine, you might want to start by eating like one. Don’t be daunted by their habit of walking out into the fields and returning with what Buettner describes as “handfuls of weedlike greens.” Unless you are an extreme urban forager or Dan Barber , it’s not necessary. There’s nothing here that isn’t in the supermarket or your local farmers’ market.

And don’t forget the wine! (For the flavonoids, of course.) Though Ikarian wine is hard to find in the United States, consider rounding out the meal with a good red like Frank Cornelissen’s from Mount Etna, which was recently called “some of the most natural in the world” in our Oct. 14 Food & Drink issue.

Make sure to stay up late and take naps after lunch, too.

Here are three recipes by Athina Mazari, the cook at Thea Parikos’s Inn in Nas, Ikaria.

Bean Stew

1 pound of black-eyed peas
1 medium onion chopped
Freshly grated or chopped tomatoes, according to taste. (From Thea: We usually don’t make this with a lot of tomato.)
3 leaves of kale
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 chopped carrot
1 tablespoon chopped dill or fennel
olive oil
salt, according to taste

Put beans in the pot, cover with water and bring to boil. Strain the beans and cover with water again. Cook over medium high boil until they are almost cooked, about 1½ hours. Add the vegetables and herbs. When the beans are done, add salt to taste. Turn off the heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil.

Pumpkin or winter squash pie

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped parsley
One-half pound coarsely chopped spinach
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped dill
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped mint
2 chopped onions
1 pound cubed pumpkin or winter squash
Savory pastry dough*

Sauté all ingredients with a little olive oil (enough to cover bottom of pan) until soft. Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt. Brush the bottom of a baking dish with olive oil. Put one piece of pastry dough on the bottom; add filling, cover with the other piece of dough. Brush with a little olive oil. Slice the top into desired portions, just enough for the dough to separate. Cook and enjoy!
*The dough is similar to pizza dough. Thea says they make it with flour, olive oil, water, a little salt and a little yeast and knead it for about ten minutes.

Soufiko

Olive oil
2 medium eggplants coarsely cubed
2 coarsely chopped potatoes
2 zucchinis coarsely cubed
2 green peppers coarsely cubed
2 medium onions coarsely cubed
1 or 2 large ripe cubed tomatoes
Salt
Oregano

In medium to deep frying pan put enough olive oil to cover pan. Add vegetables and a little salt. Cook covered on a very low fire. Approximately 20 minutes cooking time. When done sprinkle a little oregano and raw olive oil.

At the end of the day, though, it’s natural to wonder whether the good health of the Ikarians may have as much to do with what they’re not eating. As Gary Taubes, a journalist who often writes about science and nutrition (and who wrote a 2011 cover article for the magazine on the case against sugar), says in Buettner’s article, “Are they doing something positive, or is it the absence of something negative?”

Six months came and went. Moraitis didn’t die. Instead, he reaped his garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made himself lunch and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old — according to an official document he disputes; he says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria

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2016-10-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

new spearpoint shirts from charles caine shirts 39.95 , the shirts are brilliant and they have a page on facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/CharlesCaineShirts/

THE LIFE STORY OF BODGER SMITH

2016-09-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

THE LIFE STORY OF BODGER SMITH
New Short story

KEEP READING IM ADDING BITS HERE AND THERE

"We are all volunteering next week Bodger , should be a bit of a laugh mate , anything better than this here" Said Tom

"Yeh I think this is something that is not just important but could be exciting " Said Harold

Bodger's Mum had already warned him

"You stay out of that till you have to ok, do you understand"?

Bodger walked over the park thinking about what had been said in the pub. Then he thought about what his Mum had said .It was early morning and he was walking through the park towards his job.One he did not like one little bit, he was working in a sheet metal firm, dirty and boring work

.Simply put, the drive to fight for Crown and Country was too irresistible but it was not for Crown and Country it was out of boredom , anything but the hum drum boring life of the poor in London and elsewhere.

Later that night after work and dinner
"I was in the army you know" said Sam as he supped his beer that night in the local pub, yes I was in it , infantry , fought all over the place of course those that joined up knew someone would get killed but did not have enough imagination that it would be them, never underestimate the stupidity of people, not just stupid Bodger but beyond stupid, dont get involved son till you have to, yes someone will die. Maybe millions" Bodger replied "But surely we can beat the Germans"
"Can you" Replied Sam
"Im sure we can " Replied Bodger
"Why are you sure, do you think the Germans will let you walk all over them"?

Of course, some men simply had no taste for khaki. They were uniformly derided as cowards and socially excluded from life. No girl would speak to them until they enlisted, and patriotic committees threw feathers -- the traditional sign of cowardice -- at those who had no desire to die in the shoulder-high mud of Flanders.But that would be later . at the moment it was just a question of kicking a few Germans around.
Britain was, essentially, in a state of irrational euphoria about the war in the pub people started singing patriotic songs and the beer flowed . Men talked about who they would join.
Sam continued "See all these here , well as soon as they get out to France most of em will never be see again"
"How can you be so sure " Asked Bodger
"Well I met Germans , they can fight, they are oganised and they are itching for a fight with us"
By mid-1915, things became much more serious. Unlike the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War was a far more brutal conflict. No one was mentally prepared for the change in warfare. Entire regiments were regularly decimated and men died in horrific ways.
Half a skull Charlie used to be Charles Milton and half skull was one of the lucky ones as he sat drinking his pint in mid 1915 back in the pub.
People began to come back in body bags and entire generations were wiped out in a matter of weeks. Students at Oxbridge suddenly became aware that their classmates were dying at a faster pace than expected.
At home, people began to experience privation. Great Britain had a limited food supply and the disruption of normal shipping channels led to rationing.
Newspapers printed stories of German atrocities in Belgium -- some true, but mostly false -- and suddenly the idea of going to war became far less sexy.

Unlike previous conflicts, officers began dying in great numbers. After the Prime Minister's only son died during the Somme, people were horrified. The war was all consuming and confusing for the Imperial General Staff. Why doesn't cavalry work? Why can't we simply rush the enemy trench? How do we beat the "Huns" back to Berlin?
Slowly, this anger transformed into rage. Suddenly, tossing around white feathers no longer had the tinge of playfulness it once did. Never before had Britain experienced such a great loss due to war, and people were furious. By 1916, men who weren't in uniform complained that they were being assaulted on the street and the War Office had to mint special badges to identify them as civilians essential to the war effort at home. All others were bluntly told to enlist, before they ended up becoming pariahs in their own country. But by this time Bodger was already thinking how not to get killed

"They had all been at it , bloody stupidity , bloody idiots and they are still the fucking same now " Said Bodger sat in the same pub years and years later talking to Ben
" I was lucky bodger after about a year in France this queer nancy boy officer took a fancy to me and asked "would you like to be my batman "?

"I dont know if I would sir" I replied

"Well I have been ordered back to London . Do you want to come and work alongside me"?

"I think I would very much like that Sir" I replied.

Bodger replied "You told me that bout ten times Ben ".

"I know but when I think about it it seems incredible because none of my mates made it back"

"Dont think any of it meant anything A very bitter victory" Said Bodger. Sometimes memories come back , old things you thought you had forgotten, clear as day " He supped his beer . He stopped seeing but was seeing inside his mind .

"I remember his wearing a smart west end trench coat , army an navy shop most possibly . His smart uniform, plus the fact that he was openly putting himself about marked him out as an officer.
As dawn lit up the sky I told him to get inside the barn where we slept . He wouldn't. It was 1914 , Summer day.
Minutes later, he was shot in the bollocks . Took them clean off. I had blood all over me. It was then I knew that my Mother had been right . I had made the greatest mistake.

"You should have pissed off then in that moment " Said ben
"Why in that moment"
"You could have got to the Netherlands"

"Could I "?

"well the he Germans who occupied Belgium later erected an electric fence on the border between occupied Belgium and the (neutral) Netherlands. They put 2,000 Volts on it, to prevent bordercrossing.
Nevertheless numerous refugees tried to get through. Many got electrocuted. But in the first days of 1914 you could have got through"

"I know of a few who ran , it consisted of flight towards neutral countries (Germans towards Denmark or The Netherlands, Frenchmen towards Spain, Switzerland being a central destination).
most didnt do it because It was an extreme and rare undertaking, as it meant almost certain judicial sentencing (in absentia) and renouncing one’s entire social ties and past." Replied Bodger

The 2,000 Volts wire ran almost 200 Km (125 Miles) long through villages, orchards, meadows, woodland, over brooks - even over the river Meuse.

He continued
"As soon as that officer got killed in that way I remember one day just before getting out to France standing at a busstop and asking this woman if she knew what time the bus come . She told me but then said listen I only live round the corner fancy a cup of tea"?

"Old tart "? Replied B

"Yeh she was about 47 48 , kind of faded beauty . So I went round her house. I was about 18 . I remember getting her drawers down and getting her on the bed. She didnt want money or anything . Anyway I lost my virginity there and then . When the officer copped it I thought about that great day and then thought about where I was , what I had let myself in for . I thought about sex with that woman and what seemed to me the reverse image of that officer getting his bollocks shot off . They actually lay there on the ground a pair of bollocks. Then I thought I had to get out of it."

The Treaty of Versailles confiscated 10% of Germany's territory but left it the largest, richest nation in central Europe.
It was largely unoccupied and financial reparations were linked to its ability to pay, which mostly went unenforced anyway.
The treaty was notably less harsh than treaties that ended the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and World War Two. The German victors in the former annexed large chunks of two rich French provinces, part of France for between 200 and 300 years, and home to most of French iron ore production, as well as presenting France with a massive bill for immediate payment.

"But in the end I got to Holland .I got out of it .I would have got killed so I had to choose life as a social outcast from England or being blown to pieces on the \Western Front .I got leave and went home, the first thing I did was go to Hulll and the second thing I did was meet up with one of the blokes who had been invalided out .He was a fisherman and I kept in touch with him since he had been wounded, he had been terribly disfugured but he could go back to his old job fishing . I gave him some money for his time and he took me out fishing on his boat but took me nearly all the way to Holland .I jumped out of the boat and waded ashore.I was in Holland"

"Really"?

"Yep and as soon as I pulled myself together I headed for the nearest town and got myself taken in "

"So you stayed there"

"yeh stayed there until the end of the 20s"

In March 1917, 3,000 German deserters in Holland were officially registered. But this number should be multipled, as many Germans stayed in Holland illegally. The deserters themselves estimated their number at 80,000 in 1918. Many of them started their residence in Holland in one of the four quarantine stations set up to disinfect refugees that were established near the border. The deserters were imprisoned while police researched their legal status (should they or should they not be treated as military men?).

In Bergen in North-Holland a special detention camp was built for this purpose. The Germans who were freed settled in Rotterdam and the province of Limburg. Der Kampf and Michel im Sumpf newsletters, which were edited by the deserters themselves, were both printed on the press of the Dutch communist daily, De Tribune. They complained bitterly about their miserable treatment by the Dutch government.

"People say now that a whole generation of men were duped by the powers that be but that is not the truth because people too lazy to think at the end of the day get what they get . To be honest I was not very political but I started to think amongst all the slaughter that no I wasn't going to get killed for some high up argument . All of us got to the state where we could not care who won, Im talking about the Germans as well. They fucked off in droves whenever they could but that is the working classes for you, no back bone , real back bone would have meant masses of us telling the ruling class no ! We are not going to get killed for you. The Russians turned it in, killed their commanders and pissed off home"

When I got to Hull I went to see my old friend , as I said he was horribly disfigured , no nose left so they had made him a kind of mask in a flesh colour, think it was made of wax or something like that . I knew how angry he was with what had gone on because even before his disfigurement from shrapnel he had seen his brother blown to pieces in front of his eyes >I told him I wanted out and if he couldtake me to Holland and he agreed , said we would have a good chance of getting caught but he would do it . well it was good weather and it all went ok ,after I waded ashore I went to this small Dutch town and turned myself in to the head policeman. He said that I should stay in the police station, make out I was working there because he didnt know what could happen to me. Hesaid if I helped out the he would feed me and I could sleep in the cell . He said this thing over there is coming to an end so lets see if it finishes soon. One day after a few weeks I asked him if I could becomea Dutch citizen and he replied

"What will you do when we go to war .Will you run again like now"

His question was deep but profound. Yes I had run away because I was scared to die .Teh he said.

"But that is the point, you should forget about belonging top nations because in reality you are only born in that country, do you owe them anything ? And who are them? They certainly are not fighting with you "

"Some are " I replied . "Many officers of high class families have died ,I saw one blown up"

"Yes that might be true but the people who started this ridiculous war started it to sell arms. They wont be here"

The Bolsheviks, a faction of Russian socialists, centered around Vladimir Lenin. Following the outbreak of the war, Lenin was stunned when the large Social Democratic parties of Europe (at that time predominantly Marxist in orientation) supported their various respective countries' war efforts. Lenin (against the war in his belief that the peasants and workers were fighting the battle of the bourgeoisie for them) adopted the stance that what he described as an "imperialist war" ought to be turned into a civil war between the classes.

john brett val D'aosta

2016-09-02T12:22:00.002-07:00

my dishes

2016-09-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Bruschetta formaggio di capra e uva

2016-08-31T05:17:00.000-07:00

Bruschetta formaggio di capra e uva

Ingredienti:

pane tipo toscano
formaggio di capra
uva ben matura ma soda
miele di castagno

Preparazione:

Tappa 1: Lavare e asciugare l'uva.

Tappa 2: Far abbrustolire il pane, aggiungere il formaggio di capra tagliato a fette di 5 mm di spessore.

Rimettere la bruschetta in forno per 5 minuti in modo che il formaggio fonda.

Tappa 3: Togliere dal forno e aggiungere una goccia di miele e gli acini d'uva tagliati a metà e privati dei semi.

shirt measurements

2016-08-31T02:16:00.003-07:00

TRADITIONAL WELSH RECIPES; CUCUMBER SAUCE FOR SEA TROUT

2016-07-17T05:57:00.001-07:00

British sea trout from Welsh waters, known as sewin, are said to be the best in the world and well in to their season during high summer. This traditional Welsh recipe for cucumber sauce is a wonderful summery accompaniment for sewin and makes unusual use of some common ingredients such as lettuce and cucumber. Made using the same process as a roux, yet backwards with a thickening agent called beurre manie, the sauce is a savoury blend of chicken stock, cream, butter and tarragon. Beurre manie is a useful little trick to keep up your culinary sleeve. Equal parts of butter and flour are mixed together and whisked into boiling liquids as a thickening agent. It gives far more finesse than cornflour and is great for adding a little body to a sauce without the heft of a full on roux.

Ingredients for Welsh cucumber sauce

1 cucumber, peeled and finely diced

1 onion, finely diced

2 little gems, shredded

300 ml chicken stock

300 ml double cream

30g butter

1 tsp fresh tarragon, chopped

Pinch sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 to 2 tsp beurre manie

To make Welsh cucumber sauce

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and slowly cook the onion and cucumber with a pinch of salt, just until soft and translucent. Add the lettuce, then the stock, and simmer gently for about 20 minutes. At this point you can blitz the sauce in a blender or experiment with leaving it whole. Add the cream, heat until almost boiling and then whisk in the beurre manie until the sauce has thickened. Stir in the tarragon and check your seasoning before serving hot with poached sewin

MOD CLOTHES

2016-07-17T05:51:00.003-07:00

the tipperary fleet street

2016-07-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Tipperary is a quaint, narrow, old (it celebrated its 400th birthday a short while ago) pub, with a rather welcoming wood-panelled interior, impressive mirrors and a fine shamrock design mosaic floor. If you're interested in the pub's provenance, there's a handy history of the pub on the wall outside. There's another room with a bar upstairs, but even with this, the place is so narrow it's mostly standing room only - which actually adds to the charm and authenticity. Naturally, as you'd expect with a pub called the Tipperary, there's plenty of good Guinness on tap, unpretentious food is served all day and a jolly time is to be had by all. Open on Saturdays and Sundays too - here's to the next 400!

bourne and hollingsworth

2016-07-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

The decor at this Fitzrovia cocktail bar is just about as twee as you can get - think floral wallpaper, frilly bowed-empire lampshades, lace tablecloths and doilies quaint enough to send grannies into quite a fluster. There's a china cup on each table too, just to reinforce the point.

The drinks list brings things firmly into the present, though. Expect creative concoctions like the Chimps Tea - a mix of Monkey Shoulder, peach liqueur, Earl Grey tea syrup and orange zest. A solitary Asahi tap caters to lager drinkers.

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Qualo

Trattoria da Santino

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london

me

I wanted to punch a grown man in the face the other day.

The Walking Dead

The Land of Plenty

Reality Bites

Passion. Purpose. Persistence.

Let's Make a Deal

labtop

look better

get your face in shape

What does it do?

Sprezzatura

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PICTURES FROM ITALY

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

p. 215THE READER’S PASSPORT

p. 218GOING THROUGH FRANCE

p. 225LYONS, THE RHONE, AND THE GOBLIN OF AVIGNON

p. 233AVIGNON TO GENOA

p. 238GENOA AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

p. 264TO PARMA, MODENA, AND BOLOGNA

p. 272THROUGH BOLOGNA AND FERRARA

p. 277AN ITALIAN DREAM

p. 284BY VERONA, MANTUA, AND MILAN, ACROSS THE PASS OF THE SIMPLON INTO SWITZERLAND

p. 297TO ROME BY PISA AND SIENA

p. 308ROME

p. 345A RAPID DIORAMA

"I will always love you. That is the only truth that remains. Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I love you. That's all I know."

THE AUGUSTAN AGE

Monday, 9 March 2015

THE VICTORIAN BUILDING AS OPPOSED TO THE GEORGIAN

BLOODY LATINS

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THE LIFE STORY OF BODGER SMITH

john brett val D'aosta

my dishes

Bruschetta formaggio di capra e uva

Bruschetta formaggio di capra e uva

Ingredienti:

Preparazione:

shirt measurements

TRADITIONAL WELSH RECIPES; CUCUMBER SAUCE FOR SEA TROUT

Ingredients for Welsh cucumber sauce

To make Welsh cucumber sauce

MOD CLOTHES

the tipperary fleet street

bourne and hollingsworth