Laughing Torso

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 " 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
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