Laughing Torso

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 ModiglianiV 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
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