Laughing Torso

HY&RES AND NICE

accompaniments and that will give you an inspira-
tion." 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 cc Nautical William."
Georges said, cc If you see Diaghilev don't say any-
thing about the third act!5* 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 Xe Datier. The
railway was very near to the sea and all the places
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