Laughing Torso

PARIS AND BRITTANY

blue than the Mediterranean. The whole atmo-
sphere of Brittany reminded me of Wales and I felt
quite at home there.
'The house was in a row with three or four other
houses. I slept in a large room underneath the roof
with beams; it had windows on each of the four
walls. Our house was surrounded by a small garden
and not attached to the houses each side. I found
many subjects to paint and started some water-
colours. There were some charming French people
who lived on the island and we had aperitifs with
them at Madame Balet's before dinner. There was
Monsieur Negroponte, who was really a British
subject, having been born in Egypt. He had had a
son in an English regiment during the War, but he
could only speak a very little English himself. He
had been a very good-looking man when he was
young and still was most amusing and attractive.
He wore a sailor's peaked cap and a check coat.
There were some French painters there and a French
marquis who lived in a chateau near Guingamp,
not very far away on the mainland. They gave
dinner-parties at the hotel with enormous fish,
cooked specially by Monsieur Balet, and to which I
was sometimes invited. The native women, mostly
the older ones, wore the national costume. Black
clothes and enormous black poke bonnets with
strings under their chins. I did some drawings of
them. Tuohyjwrote most of the day and I drew
and painted. Sometimes we took the boat to the
mainland and motored round the countryside.
Kinko knew Brittany very well and had, in fact,
283