The Times of My Life

As one listens today to voices of indignant incredulity and looks back at one's past, I am reminded of mon maitre, my lawyer, who once wrote a tort for me in Paris. The day his wife was cremated at Père-Lachaise he took me to dinner, a sad, weeping man, and he said, “We must always do something like this to bring back this day, and I want you to have dinner with me. The past slips by so fast, and soon we shall all be dead a hundred years.”

He took me to a place that had a wide classic staircase, one of those perfect symmetrical Louis XV staircases you see only in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer pictures these days. He ordered a soup of oseille—sorrel— then a perfect sole in a white wine sauce, a caneton à la presse (very rare) and caviare aux blinis, made at the table, and of course two wines; a 1916 Montrachet, and with the meat, Clos de Bere.

And he was right, of course; I never forget the death of his wife. As we sat there eating, the blood lymph and salt of our bodies remembered her so lately dead, and when we said goodbye after drinking an 1870 Armagnac brandy, he said, “I have a felling you will soon go away from Paris. You have seen it at its best. The new hordes of sans-culottes are hunting pants again.”

And I went away and in a way he was right. I went to England soon after that and I learned to eat à l'anglaise, the worst food in the world. It happened this way…

At that time the market for paintings by Corot (who was dead, of course, and so couldn't enjoy his success) was very good in England. The wits were all saying that Corot had painted six thousand paintings, of which ten thousand were in England. It was that bad, but one day, Pettie, the English print dealer in Paris, called me into his shop and offered some ale and asked,

“Would you care, chappie, to do me a bit of business in London?”

“I like London.”

“Ai, it's a champion place…but you see I've just sold a Corot to Lord D.”

“What did you get for it?”

“That is no matter, lad, what I want to know is whether he got what I damn well sold him, which is a good one, landscape and ship, not one of those damn trees.”

“What worries you, Pettie?”

“The clerk that delivered it, I sacked him last week for selling prints—bad ones—on the side. Prints from old blocks he sold as originals. I have me a fear maybe that painting “Seaside,” I calls it, it was tampered with— changed. But I can't go and ask Lord D about it…I need a young chap who knows his way around to take a look at it, social like, and tell me if it's what I sold or something else.”

“It costs money to go to London.”

Pettie sighed and reached for his bowler hat, his rolled umbrella, and his cuffs (he attached them with little clips).

“Let's have lunch, chap, and talk it over.”

“Right, Corot and cutlets.”

We went to an old place near the great status of Jeanne d' Arc that directs traffic on a busy corner, and next to the place was a small church where they sang, “Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantobo …I will sing the mercies of the Lord forever”…and at a small table we settled our business under a very bad copy of Miller's “Angelus.”

We had a dish of mushrooms with fennel, a popular dish with the priests next door on meatless days, when they had plenty of time to say their paternosters.

To make it take two tablespoons of fennel root and chop it fine. In a hot, buttered pan, put the fennel and a pinch of chopped parsley and a finely sliced onion. Slice two pints of mushrooms, add them to the fennel root, and cover with a dusting of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Simmer until the mushrooms are soft under the lid of the pan. Meanwhile make a sauce of butter, flour and warm milk; heat and stir this until it is smooth. Now add some of the fennel leaves and pour the sauce over the mushrooms. Let it all become very hot and then add sour cream, three tablespoons into which an egg yolk had been added. Stir this, remove, and serve on a bed of hot rice into which you have chopped three or four big hazelnuts. Even an art dealer has been known to swoon over this during a meatless Friday in Paris.

And we talked about Pinturicchio's frescoes at Siena, women with smooth, waxy, colored eyelids, and the habits of the English in taking their pleasures sadly.

And then he gave me a large Dutch cigar and said, “But be sure about that Corot.”

“I will be.”

“Wire me the moment you know.”

“One way or the other, I'll wire…”

London in those days, and it's not so long ago, before Munich and the depression, and before Lady Astor stopped talking and gave people a chance to shop laughing at her, was a city I always liked. I was to be there later in '41, when the blitz was on, working as a reporter, but at the time I went to see Lord D's paintings, it was just London, touched on one side by characters out of Dickens and on the other by dirty high-class people in love with Hitler.

I always stay in London at a little lodging called the Bagsby Bags; it was bombed out twice later and I lost a valuable letter from Harry Luce of Time inviting me to have lunch, but in those days Mrs. Bagsby Bags was a light blonde woman with a full face, bust, and for an English woman, very lively ways. She had been a waitress in an A B C shop when Colonel Bagsby Bags, Indian Army Ret. (there was talk of something about a mess fund found short) found her and married her and rebuilt the family house into a lodging house “for refined young men and women, rooms and two full baths, good food, a roast every Sunday, and two vegs…”

“'Ello, I siy,” said Mrs. Bags, when I paid off the taxi and lifted my bag onto her front steps where she was stirring the morning soot with a well-worn broom, “'ad a bit of trouble in Paris and 'ad to nip and run for it?”

I kissed her on the cheek (a rule of the house) and said, “No on business, Mrs. Bags. Have you a room?”

“'Ave I got a room. Lord love a duck (I 'ear them Greek goddesses alas loved a duck). I alas 'ave a room. Too many. Come in and wipe yer feet like a good lad.”

“How's the Colonel?” I asked.

“Fine and dandy… down at the Derby makin' book on the Grand National…”

“How's his health?”

I had my usual room under a great carved beam that seemed to have come from one of Lord Nelson's flagships and a bed that seemed also to have suffered. I changed my shirt, brushed my suit, and called up Ned, who worked on a news service to America, and I asked him if still went to parties in Mayfair and he said yes, and I asked if Lord D gave parties and he said of course, but wasn't Lady D too old for me…? But I said I wanted to go and get something over with. So Ned said, hell yes, to put on my fish and tails and he'd take me.

I like to get details like this out of the way. I told Mrs. Bags I was going out for dinner and she pressed my pants in the kitchen, and at about six Colonel Bagsby Bags drove up in front of the place in one of those little motored bugs that the English call a motor car. It had a one-lunged motor, and the Colonel lay almost on his back and drove by peeping over a three-inch windshield. I always liked the Colonel…he was a tall thin man with a clipped brown mustache, no teeth, and a loose, many-chinned neck. His hair was very black …on Monday…by Sunday it showed white at the roots for some reason. He walked very tall and carried the last sword cane in England (in which he kept an account of his bookmaking).

“Cheero,” he said when he saw me, “a proper young sport. Where to?”

“I'm going to Lord D's.”

“Right,” said the colonel, lighting a foul pipe, “Lord D, one of my best customers when he pays up. Been running a horse, the Curry Kid, and not doing well with it.”

“you know Lord D?”

“Just as a bookie. Now would you like a horse that will make you rich, Stevie old man?”

I shook my head, “I'd rather not take any money from you, Colonel.”

The Colonel slapped my back. “Have no mercy on me, boy! Show me no mercy at all!”

“Oh liy off, dearie,” said Mrs. Bags, “'e's an artist chap what don't care about ‘orses’ 'oofs or anything else.”

“Oh well,” said the Colonel, kissing his wife (being her husband didn't keep him from obeying the house rules), “I only like to see a chap make a way for himself in this world…even if it costs me dear.”

“'Ow jolly,” said Mrs, Bags, winking at me as she helped the colonel up to his room; it seemed he had to drink Scotch to carry home all the heavy silver shillings he took in as bets; he was the only man I ever knew who could grow strong on drink.

I met Ned in front of the Tate Gallery and we had a few dry Martinis to keep out a wet night and drove to Lord D's place. All the lights were on there and a steady stream of people were coming and going, actors, writers, prize fighters, Hindus, and eaters of pork, and all those bright people who went to places in London in those days.

Lord D himself stood at the head of the stairs greeting everyone even it he didn't know him. He was round as a ball, had a toothbrush mustache, little fat hands, and the brightest blue eyes in the world. He collected beauty (living or painted), owned coal mines, and was floating a huge company to send divers down to locate the German liner sunk in 1914, loaded with gold…

Ned did the honors and then left to help a red-headed girl find the bar. Lord D was very pleased to hear I was a painter and asked me if he should buy Picasso and I said of course and did he still collect Renoir, and he said no, he was a little tired of the impressionists.

“Too much color in London, you know, looks a little garish.”

“What do you like?”

“The calm school. Dutch, Flemish, some of the French…but not too modern.”

“Daumier?”

“Yes, and Corot. Love that man,” he said, sounding like a song title.

“I would like to see your Corots.”

“I have only six,” he said, as if I had caught him eating out of a tin can.

“A great master of light,”

“Oh, of course.”

“You have some of his best, I hear, Lord D.”

“Only the best for an English lord, you know. The people expect it of me. I'll show them to you after dinner.”

“Thank you.”

“Not all all…now do me a favor and take in that long girl with the short haircut to dinner. She writes the damnest books, they say, and I haven't read them, so be a good chap.”

I said of course, and was introduced to the tall girl who, though a bit long in the tooth, was very bright and had written a novel in which nothing happened but time. Time passed, trees grew up, seas lifted in tide, and smoke came from chimneys…the critics loved it.

Lord D didn't really serve dinner… he laid everything on buffets and handed you plates and gave you a head start, and you were off hunting what you liked best.

The tall thin girl said:

“Unto the Death gois all Estatis,
Princis, Prelatis, and Potestatis,
Baith rich and poor of all degree,
Timor Mortis conturbat me…”

“Your own?” I said politely, handing her a plate of Galert Golly as it was known to people who liked it.

“Fourteenth century…what is this?”

“Galert Golly…or potted-veal-in-jelly.”

“Looks more like the wrath of enraged deities.”

“Oh no… Take a calf's head and two calf's feet, clean them, add three pounds of veal sliced thin. Add onions, a turnip, some salt, water, white wine, and seasoning of bay leaves, barley and peppercorn, and boil until tender. Strain off stock, remove all bones, and put meat through a grinder. You follow me?”

“It has a barren, metaphysical sound.”

“Eat it …Add the ground mixture to the strained stock and bring to a boil. Add three hard-cooked eggs cut in slices, boiled diced carrots, a little chopped parsley and half a cup of butter. Cook hard for five minutes and then chill for six hours in a mold, and look …we are eating it with horse-radish and mustard. Like it?”

She nodded and shoveled in a spoonful.

“It tastes,” she said, “like a sacrifice consummated in full view of the public.”

I excused myself (as they were pouring Cook's wine out of the proper bottles) and I made a mental note not to read her book. She left fingerprints on people's minds, I was sure…

After dinner I ducked out into the gallery and Lord D was there lighting a long cigar. He smiled at me and said, “Ah yes, the young man who wants to see my paintings.”

“If you don't mind…I can come back some other time.”

“No time like the present, my boy.” He led me to one end of the gallery and switched on the lights…and offered me a cigar.

“Very fine painting,” I said.

“Yes, you know a great deal about painting?”

“Not so much as I would like.”

“Well, smoke your cigar and enjoy yourself… I have to see if the guests are having fun…as you Americans say.”

He went out and I looked over the paintings and they were wonderful paintings, beautifully framed, well hung and well lit, and any man would be proud of them; the only trouble with them was that all were wonderful forgeries!

The Corots were grand, but copies, the Courbets, the Dutch seascapes, the Flemish food subjects, all were very good and all were very well-done copies. I couldn't understand it as Mr. Pettie hadn't sold him anything but one Corot.

Still puzzled, I went back to the party just in time to hear Lady Astor say something dull, and hear a member of the Beavebrook papers admire the Germans, and someone offer a toast to Chamberlain…which I suppose dates this event very much.

I was still puzzled when a very small man with blonde hair worn over his green eyes came over and grabbed my hand in his; a hand he kept very unwashed but the hand of a great artist.

“Stevie!…”

“Teja,” I said, “you old fraud!”

Teja bowed and helped me to some brandy. Teja, who was a little Pole from Warsaw (who could paint like an angel if it were someone else's painting), was better known to us in Paris as Teacup, as no one bothered to say Teja everytime he met him. He was the most famous painter in the world, I suppose …examples of his work hang in all the great museums of the world. He once told me he had twenty-two paintings in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Of course, most of his paintings were signed Rembrant, Goya, Hogarth, Corot, and such fancy things.

A light suddenly came over me.

“Teacup, you old bastard,” I said, “you painted all the pictures here at Lord D's!”

“Ha …but of course.”

“But they are not up to your usual greatness…I spotted them at once.”

Teacup grinned. “Listen, my friend, you know I can paint like anyone, and can fool every expert that ever lived …but I must have time, the right canvas, the right colors, and most of all, time. Lord D wanted the whole gallery copied in three months…For that time, is it good?”

“It is dandy…but why, Teacup?”

“Ah, you see he is strapped, broke …could just about pay me. He is playing so many horses to win and they do not win…so he has had to sell his paintings to collectors who ask no question.”

“That is sad,” I said.

“Oh, he will back a winner soon. And you?”

“I am at the Bagsby Bags…”

“Ah, I shall come before I leave for America. i am going to paint some masterpieces…early Italians, for some assorted museums there.”

“Lots of luck.”

“Tell me, this banker Mellon, what does he like?”

“Early Italians.” “Ah, I must take over my Titians and some El Groecos, maybe?”

“Maybe,” I said, and we shook hands and Teacup went off to see a small-boned blonde who said she knew the underworld of London like the palm of her hand; it was a pretty hand.

I have never seen the Mellon collection. I never will, I think. Teacup is very good, but I doubt if he cracked that collection. Still I remember that Titian of his… but that's another story.

I went home and next morning sent Mr. Pettie in Paris a wire.

LORD D VERY SATISFIELD WITH PAINTING JUST AS IT IS YOUR FEARS GROUNDLESS…

And two months after that Colonel Bagsby came home from Epsom Downs looking very deflated and Mrs. Bags took his shoes off and made him a double Scotch.

“Oh, I've been had!” said the Colonel. “Have I been had!”

“'Oo 'ad you?” asked Mrs. Bags.

“Lord D pulled a packet on us! Had a dark horse hidden for a long time, and he opened up today. Took six of us…we pooled his bets…my, how he took us! We shall have to pinch, dear, for some time now. But give me another stake and I'll take back what we lost today.”

Mrs. Bags looked at me. “todiy or any diy, youn'um keep awiy from 'osses. It's the rich 'ave all the fun…it's us poor 'oo piy and piy for it…”

Soon after that a London Magazine ran a color plate on Lord D's famous Corot. And this time it was not by Teacup…