The Wandering Years (1922-39)

by Cecil Beaton

  On the sumptuous stone terrace people drink aperitifs in the shade of large umbrellas. A flight of alabaster steps flanked by oleanders leads down to rows of bathing cabanas, all gaudily striped. In the sand, people lie practically naked as the sun burns them an even deeper red-brown. The yellow sands are almost too hot to walk on.

  Impatient to be a part of it all, I strip into my bathing costume — the scarlet and white one I wore at Etretat. Here on the Lido, no man wears a top to his costume: just small trousers, the smaller the better. I must buy a pair immediately.

  The Adriatic is pale and tideless. Strange, to swim about in a leisurely manner for as long as one likes and still be thoroughly warm. I paddle along to the place where there are rings for swimmers to pull themselves from the water. Accidentally, I kick someone. It is Nancy and Baba’s Angela Duveen! We are both surprised to see one another, though without her tortoiseshell glasses she doesn’t recognise me for a moment.

  Venice is the place! How provincial of people to mess about at that petty Etretat.

  August 25th

  Mrs Whish and Mrs Settle, in need of copy to send home, arranged to visit the d’Erlangers and hear their plans for the pageant. I was allowed to follow in their wake. We set off blindly, taking the vaporetto or whatever it is called. We got lost, then found a guide who intricately steered us to the palazzo of the Baroness’s daughter, Princess Faucigny-Lucinge.

  When we arrived at an unprepossessing back entrance, there was a lot of shouting to a man leaning out of a window. He proved extremely polite, ushered us through a courtyard of vine leaves, white stone walls and old, terrifically artistic looking wellheads. We went up to the grande sala, an enormous room with mottled marble floor and red brocade wall hangings. The furniture was sumptuous and Italian; there were Greek scrolls of gilt and tall gold lanterns. The room ran the whole length of the palazzo, and must have been a hundred and fifty feet in length.

  The two journalists were asked to go into the Princess’s bedroom. I wished I’d seen her: from her photographs she appears a mixture of Persian miniature and organ-grinder’s monkey. But I had to remain behind, busying myself with browsing through the books on the table, seeing what sort of cigarettes were being smoked, what gramophone records played. The records were flippant ragtimes. The books seemed very good style, mostly belonging to Lady Wimborne, who had written her name across the fly-leaves.

  In the large adjoining room, green brocade hung in folds on the wall, and the ceiling beams had been painted green and gold. There were high-backed throne chairs, needleworked sofas, large glass tubs of lilies with shiny leaves and white tuberoses. A few modern touches had been introduced: the lamps, in round bottles filled with water, were covered with fashionable, pleated parchment shades.

  Presently the journalists reappeared. They’d got all the pageant news about who was going to appear as Water, Seaweed, or the Moon. For further details they must ask the Princess’s mother.

  We went off to a neighbouring palazzo and found the Baroness d’Erlanger with her companion in the garden. The Baroness had scarlet hair and wore a magenta satin dressing gown. She was busy gilding some pumpkins on a huge stone garden ornament. With all these last-minute preparations for the pageant, she didn’t seem to know quite what she was saying. All that the journalists could glean from her staccato mumblings was that the Crown Prince of Italy had promised to come to the Ball, and that Diana Cooper had been in a few minutes before to take away all the remaining costumes. I thought the Baroness rather curt with Mesdames Whish and Settle, but they didn’t seem to mind much.

  After a bit, I left the journalists to file their stories. I felt eager to explore more of the sights of Venice. I peeped into dark churches where my eyes, still dazzled by sunlight, took considerable time to make out the Tiepolo fresco or Carpaccio frieze. I wandered along small canal-ways and over stone bridges, abruptly discovering some lofty piazza decorated with an equestrian statue or fountain. I found myself in a main artery again, and was swept along in the crowd, past sellers of beads, filigree silver and spun glass to the statue of Goldoni and the Merchants’ Rialto. This was really worth living for!

  When the light began to fade I made my way to the Piazza San Marco and had an ice at Florian’s. The ice was good, about six different flavours in compartments. I ate brioches and smoked, enjoying the warm, still evening, and the fight that changed from minute to minute.

  Lady Diana Cooper appeared, wearing an enormous apricot-coloured garden hat. Surely, she must be the most beautiful English woman alive today. I stared in awe. Her face was a perfect oval, her skin white marble. Her lips were japonica red, her hair flaxen, her eyes blue love-in-the-mist.

  With Lady Diana were: Lord Berners, who looks more like a figure in a tailor’s shop window than a composer; Mr St John Hutchinson, huge, jocular and Regency in his arty clothes; and Maurice Baring, who I believe writes novels.

  Whish and Settle returned from the Lido to announce that the beach had been buzzing with the sensational news of Rudolph Valentino’s death. Rumour has it that several flappers shot themselves dead on hearing the news, while thousands of others flocked to see the corpse. Rudy is the first big film favourite to die.

  August 26th

  This evening we got into a gondola and went to hear the grande serenata. Half Venice was out of doors. Crowds lined the Grand Canal, faces stuck from every window. Driven by an unromantic steamboat, a huge barge came into view. On it was a bower-like pavilion strung with electric bulbs and sheltering a full complement of orchestra and singers. Hundreds of gondolas (filled like ours with English trippers) plied about the launch. The gondoliers were loving the performance; and as it was a festive occasion, they overcharged outrageously for their boats.

  I got tired of it all. The gondola dropped me at the nearest striped landing pole, and I started to plough my way back to the Casa Petrarca. The festa mob outside seemed almost impregnable. I couldn’t push my way through to the door, and waited in the hope that the diva on the floating palace wouldn’t scream all night.

  How the Venetians loved her! If any child in arms was unmusical enough to squeak during her song, hundreds of irate women and men would ‘Shhh’ for all they were worth. Other singers then throbbed out their chests, pouring forth pent-up, soul-swelling melodies in a sentimental, unrestrained wallow. Thousands stood breathlessly thrilled, until a prolonged shriek brought immense clapping.

  It was already one o’clock. I had overdone my sunbath and now stood so red and raw that at the slightest jostle I winced in pain.

  At last the illuminated dome moved far enough down the canal for me to get to bed.

  In my room I gingerly unpeeled each piece of clothing in torment. I couldn’t bear to put even my fingertips on my body. I laughed with pain as I crawled under my mosquito netting.

  Outside, the operatic merrymaking continued. Periodic flares were let off, flooding the room with livid daylight. The Italians seem never to go to bed before two or three, and tonight they’d very likely not go at all. Just outside, I could hear peals of laughter, raucous shouts, and then such animated excitement one might have thought a murder had been discovered. It was probably only two men saying what a nice day it had been.

  BARONESS D’ERLANGER’S COSTUME BALL

  August 27th

  The journalists wanted to watch the dress rehearsal for the pageant. An ungainly party, we trooped into the Princess’s palazzo. Poor Mrs Whish looked her worst, hot and sticky in dusty black. There were screams when she appeared, and Mrs Robin d’Erlanger let fly at her in the most surprising manner. It seemed that Mrs Whish was responsible for Mrs d’Erlanger’s costume being lost. Mrs Whish looked thunderstruck. Messengers were sent off in every direction. We sat soddenly apart, ignored while the scarlet-haired Baroness plopped about on flat feet. By degrees, self-conscious young Frenchmen and Italians put in an appearance, dressed as Tritons in bright blue and green sequins. A press photographer waited about, eyeing me and my Kodak with suspicion.


  Mrs Whish regained her journalistic ardour as soon as the lost costume was found. She gushed at a social lion who had no forehead or chin but impressively protruding teeth. He seemed brainless and quite forty-five! Mrs Whish said, ‘Do let me introduce you to Mr Beaton. He wants to photograph you!’

  The lion showed more of what was already showing. ‘Oh well, I’m afraid...’

  I thought, ‘So should I be, if I’d got a face like yours!’

  Lady Wimborne appeared, wearing a crinoline of wheat sheaves embroidered in gold. She wagged her hips, pranced about, ‘talking common’, and shouted to the Duc de Verdura, ‘Allo, dearie.’ Mrs Evelyn Fitzgerald glided in, wearing a poison-green sequinned crinoline. But the best was Princess Baba Lucinge, who really looked the part of ‘Water’ in a flowing armour made of hundreds of strips of tin and a casquette of florin-sized sequins.

  The photographer took the most ordinary group photographs. It seemed to me a wonderful opportunity, but I didn’t dare barge in and ask if I might take pictures also. I felt completely ignored, along with Whish and Settle. Everyone else was offered a cocktail except us.

  Suddenly I plucked up courage and asked Faucigny-Lucinge if she’d let me take some snapshots of her. I explained that I was rather an amateur and didn’t wish to vie with the professional, so might I take them in another room? No, there was nowhere else; if they were to be taken at all, it must be here. I wished I’d said, ‘Well, don’t let’s bother then.’ I felt acutely embarrassed as I somehow clicked three photographs under the professional press photographer’s nose. My amateur tripod kept slipping on the marble floor, while Princess Lucinge giggled with her foreign men friends and posed awkwardly. She seemed surprised when I asked her to move this way or that. I feared the photographs would be the dullest imaginable, yet wanted to capture that perfect head with its high nobbly cheekbones and huge domed crown. Some profile views would do it, if only her hat were not hiding so much. I asked her to remove the casquette. No, that wasn’t suitable: the hat was an intricate part of the costume. I faded away, fuming to myself.

  The Ball took place in the gilded La Fenice Theatre.

  Mrs Settle was having difficulty with her borrowed fancy dress skirt and train. Mrs Whish, wearing her inevitable black, looked like a Holbein creation. I felt self-conscious as a mediaeval page in stencilled tunic and tights.

  Since the Crown Prince was expected, there could be no dancing before he arrived. A blatant band blared, while people wandered about aimlessly, growing tired of looking at one another. Some began to yawn.

  At long last the Crown Prince took his place in the most royal box. He bowed formally from the hips and the pageant unfolded. The d’Erlanger ‘elements’ hobbled in, trashy as a Folies Bergères revue (but, of course, none of the group could do right for me!). Towards the end came Lady Cunard in a highly unsuitable Spinelly outfit of pink ostrich feathers and top hat to match. She looked surprised. Lady Diana Cooper was to have been part of a group of Porcelain Figures. But her prepared costume, a white mackintosh dress with mask, had to be abandoned: Italian etiquette forbids wearing a mask in front of royalty. Home she went, returning in a crinoline and Turkish turban. She looked furiously beautiful now, sitting in her box energetically picking her nose. Lady Abdy and old Princess San Faustino were a study in dramatic contrast. Lady A., like a huge lioness with her mane of oatmeal-coloured hair, wore a black-and-white velvet dress. The bread-stick Princess looked a religious curio in her abbess’s habit and wimple. It gave me a shock, however, to hear this distinguished widow speaking with the most twangy American accent.

  The Prince continued sitting erect in his glut-of-gilt surroundings. He never danced. The brass band trumpeted away. Few people knew there was a room upstairs for supper, and the general rush was for a railway-station buffet, where a crowd fought to buy glasses of beer and sandwiches. With the whole evening so disorganised, it came as no surprise when most of the guests started leaving soon after midnight. A lot of money had been made, but no one had enjoyed the proceedings.

  We trailed home through moonlit Venice. Mrs Settle lagged behind, still having trouble with her train. Whish saw the humour of it all and howled with laughter: fancy her articles telling millions of readers that tonight’s dazzling pageant would make Venetian history!

  ‘Wait! I can’t keep my shoes on,’ moaned poor Mrs Settle from the far side of a ghostly piazza.

  AN ENCOUNTER WITH DIAGHILEV

  August 31st

  I went to the Lido, bathed and felt restless. How could I justify my visit to Venice in my father’s eyes? So far, I’d not met my saviour.

  As this was my last day but one here, I persecuted Miss Gibson, another journalist who had promised to introduce me to Diaghilev. If only I could get a look-in with him! At last Miss Gibson said she had an appointment to interview the great man in the Piazza San Marco at six o’clock. I could join her there.

  I rushed to get back to the pensione and collect my portfolio of drawings and photographs. From San Marco I took what I thought would be a short cut, but lost the way and was soon hurrying through a hopeless maze of back alleys and streets. Knowing no Italian, I hadn’t much courage to ask the way to the Casa Petrarca. In desperation, I retraced my way back to San Marco, then started off again the long way round. By the time I found the pensione, seized my portfolio and ran back to the Piazza to meet Miss Gibson and Diaghilev, I was in a sweat.

  After an anxious time, Miss Gibson appeared. We waited and waited, but Diaghilev never arrived. I seethed with disappointment and dejection. How dare I go home to England and confess having spent all that money if nothing came of it?

  Seven o’clock and still no Diaghilev. Miss Gibson became paler and paler, more unhealthy looking. We kept thinking we saw him in the distance, but when the person approached it was somebody else. Miss Gibson couldn’t understand it at all. He’d seemed so eager to see her, had even volunteered to bring some photographs of the ballet if she cared to publish them.

  At last Miss Gibson gave up. He wouldn’t come now. She went off to send a note from the Danieli, but I sat and continued to wait, just on the off chance.

  Oh God, there he was with Lifar![41] I catapulted forward and spoke in English. ‘Miss Gibson was to have introduced us but she’s gone and may not be back and mayn’t I show you my portfolio?’

  Diaghilev stared at me in surprise. In spite of his colossal stature and dignified mien he reminded me of a pale and fat baby. He was impeccably dressed in white flannel trousers and blue, double-breasted coat with a tuberose in his buttonhole. He wore a formal Panama hat with an Edwardian flourish to the brim. Lifar was identically garbed, but somehow in spite of the natty armour, continued to look like a street urchin.

  They sat down at my table. D. held himself very erect, speaking meekly in pidgin English. I couldn’t think what animal he reminded me of — perhaps a mole or a very nice monkey.

  I fumbled with the knotted strings of my portfolio. Diaghilev pompously, yet carefully, studied the sketches I brought forth, making no remarks but nodding like a mandarin and showing definite interest. Lifar, too, seemed more than polite. Some of the designs I tried to pass by, as I didn’t think them good enough to exhibit. But Diaghilev wouldn’t have that. He looked carefully at everything. I asked his advice on one or two designs, and with astonishing sensitivity he quickly indicated what was lacking or where each had failed. Some he said ‘nice’ to, others ‘original’.

  I gushed; I stammered and overdid the politeness. I spilled an avalanche of sketches and photographs I had never intended to show from the portfolio.

  Diaghilev bent down with difficulty, taking up in his ringed fingers my picture of a double-reflected N. and B. ‘You take photographs, too? I like this. It is very curious.’ He smiled and went through other photographs.

  The waiter appeared. No, the gentlemen wouldn’t have anything as they must be going. Bows and exchange of compliments. I thanked D. for seeing my things. He thanked me profusely, while I sti
ll wondered what animal he looked like. Then they walked away. And that was that!

  Miss Gibson returned and found me in a daze. She turned pale grey when I said, ‘Diaghilev’s been here and you’ve missed him.’

  ‘Golly!’ Miss Gibson was American.

  I said, ‘Don’t worry. He promised to meet you here tomorrow at the same time. Perhaps you can find out what he thought of my work.’

  I then carted my portfolio back to the Casa Petrarca, feeling rather dejected. Mrs Whish greeted me tactlessly, ‘Well, I’m afraid your holiday hasn’t been quite successful.’

  It was all over; and in spite of disappointments it had been beautiful. Oh, but if only I were returning home with a job: if only I’d made some money! I felt squeamish: no success, and I’d taken twenty pounds from Daddy. Including Etretat, my holidays this year had cost fifty pounds.

  I took a gondola to the railway station — such a beautiful station, unlike most. The gondolier tried to rob me. The fare from the Casa Petrarca to the station should have been twelve lire. I gave him twenty-five as I felt particularly kind to Venice. But he pretended that was not enough: he wanted fifty! I felt alarmed, weakly gave another ten to his delight, and boarded the overflowing train to return to — what?

  Part VI: Charmouth, 1926

  September 6th, 61 Sussex Gardens

  Since my return, the subject of Schmiegelow’s office has never been mentioned. It would only be weakness if I went back there. Schmiegelow doesn’t want me, anyway: I’m no use to him, and so it’s a complete waste of both our time. In any case, I felt determined not to go to his office today, even if I had to begin again tomorrow.