by Cecil Beaton
Oliver and Peter were going on to Venice, and it did not take much persuasion on their part to make me join them. Here, in the dank alleyways, I foraged for junk and bought for Ashcombe old painted doors and cupboards, and stone ornaments, to be sent home by Petite Vitesse.
With a feeling of almost complete contentment, I returned to England to correct proofs and work on my new acquisition. Rex pencilled designs for a doorway, with a pineapple in its broken pediment, for urns for the parapet and a chimney piece for the sitting-room; these were given to a local stone mason. But since bona fide antiques were beyond my financial reach, ingenuity and the Caledonian market had to come to my rescue for the furnishing of the house. Even carpets and curtains cost more than I could afford. Materials were put to uses never intended. ‘Animal baize’ as the felt is called which covers pantomime zebras and leopards, provided excellent carpeting, and other theatrical materials, originally invented to last for the run of a play, have to stand the test nobly as curtains and sofa coverings.
The wild winter’s evening arrived eventually when Rex, Oliver, Peter and I ventured down the steep chalky hill of the valley to spend the first weekend at Ashcombe. We savoured the chill smells of paint and freshly carpentered wood, combined with the warm smell of calico, new rugs, and crackling log fires. The small habitation, for so long abandoned to its loneliness, suddenly became alive and took on its own personality. It was unlike any other abode, admittedly fantastic and strange with its bright colours and silver trumpery but to me, at any rate, infinitely charming.
Edith Olivier joined us; and together with the cheerful, bucolic creatures who were to work with devotion in house, kitchen and garden, ran out into a wintry holocaust, danced around a bonfire, fell in the mud, and toasted the future in champagne.
Ashcombe became lived in. Imported plants grew in pots, chickens browned and crackled in the unreliable antiquated oven. In addition to the favourite kedgerees, haddock and kipper dishes, we enjoyed the novelty of sweet potatoes and shadroe from America, and the luxuries of branched fruits and cigars from Fortnums. Lorries, bringing more curious pieces of furniture, were lost in Brontë-esque storms, but finally bumped over the hazardous descent through the downland, churning up the courtyard into a playground of mire.
By degrees the stables became a studio, fashionably decorated white upon white; my bedroom acquired circus murals painted by friends. Whatever decorative folly was perpetrated, the mood of this remote and poetic spot remained unharmed. Ashcombe always retained its time-haunted peacefulness. Of course, the chimneys smoked, but I was happy.
Christmas-time saw the first family party. My father was quite baffled by the décor, and tripped over the dais on which my Carousel bed was poised. Rubbing a sprained ankle, he complained that for his taste the house was too full of booby traps. By degrees my mother, forgetting Ashcombe’s impracticabilities and its remoteness, made excellent suggestions for next summer in the garden; while Aunt Jessie, with eyes twinkling, oohed and ahed to my heart’s delight.
The Beauty book appeared: although it ignited perhaps less of a blaze than I had hoped, Lady Cunard added to the conflagration by throwing her copy into the fire. Her luncheon guests were astonished to watch her thrusting a poker through the burning covers as she exclaimed in a high canary squeak, ‘He calls me a hostess, that shows he’s a low fellow!’
In the New Year Peter Watson took the opportunity to make his first trip to America by coming with me on an elaborate journey than encompassed most of the great sights of that vast continent. I soon began to be envious when Marjorie and other friends liked Peter more than they did me. We went together to applaud the Astaires, bought records, listened to opera, concerts, and dance bands in Harlem.
Followed a complicated itinerary of train journeys during which Peter was always beating me at backgammon, and keeping me guessing. We were impressed by the treasures in the museums of the big cities, enjoyed the lazy atmosphere of the southern states, and bathed in the winter sunshine of the Bahamas. In Haiti, more haunting than any voodoo, was the Negro Emperor Christophe’s citadel built by slave labour on the top of the mountain. As a monument to megalomania it is only comparable to the Pyramids.
From Havana, where I first saw orchids growing in a tree, we sailed, to arrive, severely sun-scorched, at Vera Cruz. Then by a slow wooden train a spiral ascent through tropical lushness to Mexico City. The small German pension was preposterously called the Hotel Ritz, and smelled of lignum-vitae woodpanelling. It was the base from which expeditions were made to Churrigueresque churches coarsely carved and tiled with gilt gingerbread madonnas; the bazaars, vivid with poison-coloured masks and paper flowers; to Cuernavaca, Taxco, and Puebla.
When I returned to England, Nancy and Baba, with Peter (who had returned earlier), met me at Southampton. We all drove to Ashcombe, where spring was burgeoning. In the bathroom, I heard Baba saying to Nancy that Peter and I now talked so like one another that we were indistinguishable on the telephone. Reggie, happily ensconced in the Flying Corps, was stationed nearby at Andover. He was a bit worried that his bad headaches might interfere with his career, but otherwise seemed to be thrilled with his new life, though we found the heartiness of some of his fellow officers whom he would bring over en masse was a bit jarring to the rather special atmosphere.
Ashcombe had become my chief interest. I worked hard at this pleasure, planning with Noble, the gardener, the new terraces and orchard, taking measurements, and scouring the antique shops of adjoining counties. By degrees another room was finished, but there was always more to be done.
Each Friday I would motor from London, at breakneck speed, with further additions to the house. The small Ford became almost invisible under its load of wooden statues, bird cages, books, American magazines, hook rugs, gramophone records and boxes of flowers from Covent Garden.
More guests than there was room for would arrive on Saturday, to walk for miles in the wild, uninhabited remoteness of the downs, or lie on the lawns surrounded by pigeons and scrap albums. After dinner there were elaborate entertainments, with Oliver Messel, Oggie Lynn,[54] or John Sutro as star cabaret turns. The large neighbouring family from Feme House, over the hill, were our long-suffering audience while, till early morning, we continued our charades with their endlessly resourceful changes of costume improvised from the depths of the dressing-up chest.
Lord Berners had become a habitué of Ashcombe. Gerald could compose music, write novels, and paint in the manner of Corot. He was also a natural eccentric and practical joker, with the motto ‘Amusement First’ and telegraphic address ‘Neighbourtease.’
PAVLIK TCHELITCHEW
It was while staying with Gerald Berners in his house overlooking the Forum that I saw the apricot light, clear skies and parasol pines of Rome for the first time. Rome does not take strangers to its bosom, and the malice of society in the eternal city was a bit alarming, but painting expeditions, the panoply surrounding the church, Firbankian intrigues, and the eccentrics of the English Tea Room were all part of the general enjoyment. En route for home there was a three-week stop-off in Paris. This coincided with Edward James’s controversial new season of ballet, with Kurt Weill writing music for ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and Lotte Lenya rasping it out: also Pavlik Tchelitchew, the Russian painter designing transparent scenery for ‘Errante’.
Tchelitchew at first intimidated me (he could be devastating in his disapproval) but soon cast an almost hypnotic influence over me, and under his spell my photographs became ‘neoromantic’.
One particular evening he exercised himself on a variety of sacred and profane subjects. He started with colour. Grey: certain greys were gritty and dry to him. Mantegna’s colours are so dry he feels they pop and crack, giving the spectator the feeling of being able to break off with equal ease the drapery, the mountains, or Christ’s feet and legs.
With his histrionic brilliance Pavlik makes even the simplest anecdote a marvel. He whispers and then shouts; he becomes alternately a bull or
a child.
Pavlik rehashed an argument with Virgil Thomson about music. V.T. said the only noise that frightened people today was a siren. Pavlik objected. ‘Some sensitive people are frightened by the flutter of a falling piece of paper, the whisper of a breeze through a window.’
He tells how most people (if no one is around) will touch the private parts of statues in the museum; and in consequence these parts have continually to be washed! He embroiders on this assertion, relating an encounter with Étienne de Beaumont among the statues — all the more exciting an adventure because nothing happens. He conjured up a bad picture in some remote museum, painting it with a few deft verbal strokes that endow it with imaginative immortality.
Pavlik’s imitation of Klessinskaya in her heyday as ballerina and Czar’s darling was accompanied by many twirls and arm flourishes. The subject transports him: he takes to his feet and executes several elaborate arabesques. The impression is that of a bluebottle — darting, resting, then off again on its tormenting flight. And this bluebottle was dressed as follows (Pavlik evoked the costume with gestures): a tutu made of thousands of yards of the most expensive pink silk tulle; over this, black lace; then a bitter-almond-green satin corsage, with a huge pink rose at the breast; neck and chest a dazzle of diamonds, ears heavy with enormous cabochons, elaborately coiffed head sprouting black and white aigrets. It was a performance of sublime ridiculousness. But so intense and successful was his determination to conjure up this phenomenon that the monk-like Slav transcended his outward appearance and, in fact, became this pampered esoteric plaything of a forgotten age.
It was during this visit, despite the danger of being considered disloyal, that I first became a devoted admirer of Pavlik’s great rival Christian Bérard. From the moment we met Bébé gave me his open hand. When George Huene took me to see Jean Cocteau smoking opium I considered that adult life could reach no higher.
FIRST BALLET
My former disappointment and bitterness at not having worked for Cochran had long since been forgotten; now once more he approached me: this time, the offer to decorate a ballet Osbert had written upon a sheet of Renishaw Hall writing paper — was definite. The subject of the work involved the love complications at an Edwardian pheasant shoot. Willie Walton had composed the perversely lyrical music — and this was to be the first of many collaborations with Frederick Ashton.
Over lunch in a Soho restaurant Fred and I discussed the proposed sets and the costumes, and used the menu for pencilled suggestions. More menus were called for. Before the hors d’oeuvres had been cleared, Fred remarked somewhat wryly, ‘You have finished your work — it has taken twenty minutes. I still have all mine to do.’ His face then crinkled into that wonderfully disarming laugh.
A few weeks later, the stage curtains parted to reveal my first living-picture in the theatre. It was a moment of exaltation for which the long wait had been well worth while.
May 17th 1931, London
I had a pleasant afternoon at Frank Dobson’s studio, sitting for my almost completed bust. It doesn’t look anything like me, but I didn’t say so. Afterwards I pottered about among the discarded plaster casts, unearthing heads of Tallulah, Osbert and Lopokova.
Out on the street, I thought for a moment of walking home in the fine spring weather. But an empty taxi rolled by; and instinctively I put up my hand to hail it. I am glad I did: otherwise I should never have obtained a glimpse, after all this time, of my once great friend, Boy le Bas.
For many years Boy and I were inseparable. At Cambridge I saw him every day and, more often than not, all day. I liked and admired Boy; I was more at ease with him than with any other friend I’ve ever had. Yet, when he left Cambridge, he went more or less completely out of my life. Boy turned ‘earnest’. He lived away from his rich family; he never ‘dressed’ or went to parties. He avoided good restaurants, eating in a garret in Soho.
I suppose it was only natural for Boy to avoid me, too. Slowly he dropped me altogether, never answering my letters. Once in a while I still wrote to him, thinking that, even if he despised my dilettante existence, he must surely be interested to see me again after such a lengthy gap. We’d been rare friends — stimulating one another’s efforts, saying funny things together. But now, he didn’t seem curious.
From the taxi window, I spied him walking with a fellow art student. He looked just the same, except that he had grown a beard and his clothes were dirty. The taxi bowled past before I could gather my wits. I must stop and have a word with Boy. I tapped on the window and told the driver to go back. We circled, drawing up close.
I remembered that Boy no longer liked being called Boy, so I shouted, ‘le Bas! le Bas!’
He turned round, baffled, speechless and so nervy that I thought any minute he would bolt away. He seemed unfriendly: when I put my hand out, he hesitated before shaking it.
Hastily, I made conversation about his painting. He replied in a voice that had changed to a deep, dull tone: ‘I’ve nothing to show. It’s a slow business.’ He laughed a hearty, mirthless laugh. I thought it might turn into the old humorous laugh, but it didn’t.
Boy asked no questions about me or my family. I began to feel embarrassed. I had heard Mrs le Bas was ill and now asked, ‘How is your mother?’
‘Oh, she’s definitely on the road to recovery. But she’s still a bundle of nerves. Yes, a bundle of nerves.’ He nodded his head like a professor. Several more lame sentences were exchanged. It seemed incredible. I was talking to a completely different person. Gone were the understanding, the sympathy, the special sense of humour we had once shared. Yet if only for old times’ sake, I wanted to ask a hundred questions. Did he ever see anyone from his former life? Did he resent that life so terribly? Why did he resent me? I wanted him to say what he thought of me now today, of my appearance and manner. I wanted anything but for him to remain so aloof and hostile.
‘Where are you living?’ I persisted.
‘Oh, round about Soho. That part.’
It was a mortifying encounter. There was something shocking about the completeness with which he had interred his old self. I heard this stranger saying, ‘Well, whenever I have any painting worth seeing, I’ll let you know.’
That was my cue for departure. I tapped on the window to the driver. Boy sloughed me off and went on with his unintroduced friend.
Perhaps the whole incident wouldn’t have meant so much to me if it weren’t for the haunting memory of that other Boy. Where was the intelligence and charm? Where was his sense of the ridiculous? He might be an accomplished painter, but did he have to acquire such colourless sobriety?
Or was it my fault? Do I see myself as others see me? Did I strike Boy as being ridiculous, superficial? Perhaps I am, but I have my serious moments. Does Boy think that art and levity are incompatible? Whatever, I felt that our meeting had been tragic. I supposed it was the last time we should cross paths.
Part XI: North Africa, 1931
George Hoyningen-Huene invited me to his newly acquired property in Tunisia. Huene, a pupil of Steichen, that grand old monster of the camera, was one of the photographers whose work I most admired. Whenever I visited him in Paris he had always been generous with his encouragement of my work. On the following trip he helped me to take photographs of ‘places and things’ rather than of people. Before this, I had been satisfied to take snapshot ‘views’. Following in Huene’s steps, I started to make, out of the life around me, pictures that attempted to be interesting as compositions, to bring a point of view to the subject, and, if possible to make a comment. To George my thanks are proffered for adding this additional pleasure to travel and an extra facet to my photographic career.
I was inspired to another new enthusiasm: journeys to exotic and romantic lands.
TUNISIA
Hammarmet
We were unpacking our trunks on arrival at George’s house here, when a heavily burnoosed effigy appeared at the grilled window and resulted in being the old Comte Max Foy. He had a c
oif of white hair, a parrot’s face and the declamatory gesture of a classical French actor. Also he had plans for an immediate trip into the dessert.
For several days the expedition was postponed, but finally we started; I, with the aged and impatient Count in his small car; the two Georges[55] following in a vast Queen Mary limousine. ‘That was an old Roman fort —’ I looked dutifully, and felt selfconscious as I smiled politely. We passed kilometre after kilometre of flat waste land, with distant mountains like the temperature chart of an invalid. An occasional Arab rode his donkey and led a few goats, or a camel ate spiky cacti as though it were enjoying a delicate salad. These would be the only exclamation marks. We came to a lake with water like oil.
Then suddenly, with the sunset, the journey was justified! I lost all shreds of self-consciousness in my sudden enthusiasm. As the sun lowered itself towards the ever distant mountains, the sky became a symphony of unimaginable brilliance.
Leonardo used to see pictures in the uneven surfaces of old walls, in roughly plastered ceilings and crackled paint. It did not need his imagination to recognise the marvellous illustrations projected above. Imperceptibly changing as we watched were scenes of the Apocalypse, of chariot races with Olympian charging horses, kings and emperors sitting in judgement on thrones, mysteriously gesticulating at the top of flights of stairs or in fiery molten caves. Enormous profiles of angels and animals now melted into raging torrents and tempestuous seas and became part of Shakespeare’s Tempest.