The Restless Years (1955-63)

by Cecil Beaton

  ‘And what money do they use? What are these you’ve given me?’

  ‘Kroner — about twenty to the pound!’

  It is Pauline (Baroness Philippe de Rothschild), the romantic self-styled ‘lazy’ woman, who, in her quiet, tactful way, has made this gaunt place into a living entity, and her own life into a nook of art.

  It is fascinating to watch her. In fact I am never tired of doing so for she is like a chameleon, always changing, from beauty to ugliness and back again. As she sits and talks to you, leaning forward with the fluid grace of a dryad, you are hypnotised by her deep-set eyes, by their periwinkle blueness; you admire the modelling of the nose. As she speaks the mouth is beautiful, the arms and hands twist into peculiar shapes around her long body, and her streaming hair flies out in arabesques. She is Ondine, she is Garbo, she is a very young girl. Then she turns in profile and one is fascinated to see that beauty has entirely disappeared. She has a fish face, a fish mouth without form and positively no single chin. She is thick through the neck, and her shoulders are humped. One gasps when she comes in dressed for dinner wearing a short jet jacket and tight, white-satin trousers. Each evening she wears toreador satin trousers of different colours. When I was painting her she said: ‘Of course with looks like mine one can’t do anything except excuse oneself.’ This was a rather tragic revelation of the truth; yet she does not accept the truth; she rises above it, and by determining to play the game, by wearing the most audacious St Laurent clothes, she succeeds in projecting a very personal and exotic brand of beauty.

  Every gesture has been thought out; every pose compensates for some lack of symmetry in her frame, and the study has now developed into something that is of a ‘second nature’ to her. It is a brilliant feat, but then she is a clever woman, and to be admired for it.

  Her face beams with pleasure when someone remarks upon a good action of a friend; she has heart and imagination to a rare degree, and although she has learnt how to appear at her best (placing head high, looking down her nose, pouting her lips, using the old tricks of oeillade to give further emphasis to her remarkable eyes), she emanates the refinement that is in her.

  Pauline is, first and foremost, an intellectual. She reads without cease, has great knowledge of the classics and spends most of the time keeping up with the trends in modern literature. She is an authority on painting. She is extremely well versed in world affairs, in finance, and in politics, and she holds her own with her husband Philippe de Rothschild, who has a tireless curiosity for every subject. She pleases him with her remarkable flair for arranging the house with an individual elegance. A pot of flowers is never put in the centre of a table, always at the side. Objects are not placed symmetrically on the mantle-piece. It is typical of her that she should have chosen to bring him to this ravishing house in a remote part of Denmark; it reminds her of where she lived as a child. Without hope that it will ever be theirs, they have made plans to further beautify the house, which belongs to the Blixen-Finecke family.

  At dinner one evening the talk was on the subject of coquettes who survived the 1914 war and until 1924 were about the last of their profession in our time. It was inspired by a discussion about the remarkable Jeanne Toussaint, the designer at Cartier, who is now the widow of the Baron Elie d’Orsel. Philippe had known her as a coquette when her name to intimates was Pom Pom. She was painted by Helleu. She had great taste and that is why Mizza Bricard admires her. She copies the way Pom Pom decorated her rooms in beige, her Greek and Louis XVI furniture and her method of stringing pearls together.

  Said Philippe: ‘It’s a pity I didn’t write about them, but I didn’t know they’d ever be interesting. I was just having fun with them. For years I lived with Charlotte Bouquet; she was a remarkable woman. Her father kept a hotel in Toulouse and she had an ugly sister who lived with her in her apartment (very Jansen!) on the Quai d’Orsay. The sister was called Blanche Bouquet, but it was smart to have English names at that time of the shingle and the short skirt, and to be rather masculine in appearance, so Charlotte Bouquet became Charlie Brighton. They weren’t beautiful, these coquettes. They were clever and witty. They made you laugh and Charlie was like Mistinguette with a big mouth and too many teeth. But she had such style! She wore Chanel clothes, and none knew more about the way to please a man! Charlie always had the best men in Paris — always six-footers and very rich. I shared her with four others. Only once in five years did I ever run across any of the other men by mistake. It was beautifully managed. The morning was taken up with the dressmaker and the hairdresser. Then the afternoon was given up to her men.

  ‘In the evening we always had the best table at the best restaurant. Charlie said that, when making an entrance, one must walk as straight as a die to one’s seat, never looking to the left or to the right, or greeting anyone you knew. The maître d’hôtel had great respect for these women; they knew more about the men they were with than the men knew themselves, and they knew all the dealings in the banks and stockmarkets.

  ‘Of course coucheage was always at the back of your mind, and that came later, but the coquettes were essentially amusing and their trump card was intimacy. They hardly ever gave parties, and when they did they were always flops. Honor Corbett, the last coquette in Paris, who could be so amusing, tried to give respectable parties but they were always terrible.’

  I asked Philippe how it was arranged that you paid these ladies for their entertainment. ‘Very easy. They just asked for a cheque. They said, “How do you expect me to live? Do you think I live on air? Who pays for my clothes, the apartment, the meals?” If you didn’t pay enough they just tore up the cheque, and you’d have to think again. Thank heavens that never happened to me.

  ‘And the interesting thing is that these women never became absorbed into society. They knew their place. They never wanted to be part of the world. They always remembered their beginnings; although Pom Pom eventually created a new and successful career for herself as Jeanne Toussaint, she would never invite Pauline to her apartment unless Pauline suggested that she should.’

  KAREN BLIXEN AT RUNGSTED KYST

  August 1962

  I remembered that I had told Karen Blixen that I would get in touch with her again on my return from Fyn. I lifted the telephone receiver. After a moment I heard the familiar sepulchral voice.

  ‘Oh, you’re leaving so soon? Then can you come out and have lunch with me today?’ ‘I can’t because my aeroplane leaves at four and I’d have to leave you by two o’clock.’ ‘Oh, I’m very sad about that. You said you’d come. Well you won’t see me ever again, that’s certain!’ My heart stopped. I tried to remonstrate with her but she hung up. I knew I must rush to her immediately. Karen was a rare and wonderful woman whom I had admired for a long time. We were friends and I was proud of that. The last time we had met was in New York. She had appeared so ill and thin that I was convinced she would return to her native country to die.

  No sooner had I arranged to have a hired car take me out to her house, three-quarters-of-an-hour away at Rungsted, than the telephone rang again. ‘I wanted our conversation to end on a happier note.’ ‘I’m coming out to see you now. The car will be here in a few moments.’ ‘Well, you see, now you’ve arranged to go out to lunch with an old infirm woman.’ ‘But I’ll be there before 11.30.’ ‘Oh well, that will be very nice. I am glad. We’ll have a little drink together.’

  I motored through the suburbs of Copenhagen on the way to Elsinore. At one small town I stopped to buy her some flowers. The florist was very sympathetic as he let me choose a flower here, and there, to make a bouquet of apricot and salmon pinks.

  Karen was sitting in a large room on a white Biedermeier sofa against the sun, seemingly surrounded by white muslin curtains. She had an aura of extraordinary beauty. I wondered if tills was created by the colour of her pale, made-up face, lavender hair and blue sweater, or by the expression of the smiling, heavily blackened eyes. Her eyes have never appeared so shrunken, so small. She was even more wr
inkled and thin than the last time I saw her — a gesticulating cadaver.

  Karen welcomed me in her deep booming voice. ‘Oh, I’m so glad to see you. It’s so good of you to come.’ She was delighted with the flowers.

  ‘How young you look, Cecil! Come and talk. You see how thin I am. My arms are like sticks.’ Only too readily she lifted the sleeve of her huge, thick jersey to reveal arms that were indeed matchsticks.

  ‘I’m so weak, of course. I can’t write. It’s intolerable! The newspaper here wrote that I was now so thin that I’d got down to the cranium! I don’t know if you would have liked to photograph my cranium?’

  I was relieved to be asked just at that moment when the sun was coming so felicitously through the curtains. Her sweetly smiling face was sad, and the wrinkles looked like lacework. This woman who knows the whole of King Lear by heart carries the wisdom of the world in her eyes. ‘You know I can walk if you’d like me to move to that other banquette.’ I gave her a hand, and I could feel her elbow like a wishing bone. She smiled grotesquely. In some positions she looked like a scarecrow. But she was really beautiful, and I was excited to be given the chance to take such pictures.

  ‘We must drink your health. Can you open that bottle of fizz?’ I helped myself greedily to some excellent foie gras, and we were joined by the companion, kind, good, utterly devoted Miss Svenson, who had been with Karen for years. But the presence of this grey-haired, robust spinster somewhat prevented us from having a serious conversation. I thought the remark made by Karen on the telephone could be an opening to her views on meeting her saviour, and her regrets at quitting this life. Instead Miss Svenson recalled all the times we had met in New York.

  ‘Do you remember when Mrs Selznick went to a lunch party by mistake? Mrs Paley said, “You’ve come on the wrong day,” but Mrs Selznick didn’t leave. And do you remember the time when we all went to Carson McCullers’?’ Karen recalled the time when we had all stayed at Stratford, and had seen three Shakespeare plays in succession. She had not been too tired to go with Gielgud to see that lovely garden — Laurie Johnson’s. But I had been exhausted by the intellectual effort and had hardly been able to concentrate on the last play.

  We talked non-stop, and I did a sketch of her. But the time was passing.

  ‘I must stand up to say goodbye to you.’ I clasped her in my arms. The little bony body was nothing but a skeleton beneath the thick sweater and the grey flannel trousers. We kissed fondly and fervently; then I hurried out to the hired car. Karen came to the door to wave. Miss Svenson had tactfully disappeared so I had a last glimpse of this great person standing alone in the doorway, waving slowly and sadly. The chauffeur was proud to have seen this distinguished and well-known figure and he bowed low to her.

  As we drove away from her she seemed to be peering into the distance. Her eyes became black holes in her face; a beautiful phantom that I shall always remember. I feel she cannot survive much longer. I hungrily looked my last, as the tiny figure turned to go out of my life for ever.

  Part IX: African Journey

  KENYA

  January 1963

  Sometimes the feathery trees and velvet mountains of Africa remind one of California; occasionally one thinks of Scotland or Ireland, and among the towering rhododendrons and maples one feels one is trespassing into some great prince’s private parkland in India. Six thousand feet high above the sea, and walking along a forget-me-not bordered road leading to some very blue mountains one almost expects to hear yodelling, and one is surprised to see the natives are black, and are wearing sapphire beads and Tanagra-like draperies of terra-cotta.

  The influence of African art on Picasso and most modern sculptors is evident. But one did not realise that Uccello would have delighted in the perspective of the jungle, and Pisanello, and others of the Italian Renaissance, in the detail of leaf and wild flower beneath the foot. Altdorfer could have delineated the elegant forests of saplings, and Velvet Brueghel the contrasts of smooth bark and rugged roots of banyan, the rich darkness of giant maple against the pale-grey blossom. Fragonard and all the eighteenth-century painters could have drawn inspiration from the leafy vistas; Courbet would have done justice to the juicy greenery, lowering crags and opulent waterfalls. The palette of Vuillard is ideal for the limpid greens and mauves of the life bordering the blue lakes.

  VISIT TO A GAME RESERVE

  It was not on a quest to kill, but to explore, and with the wish to admire, that we set forth from Nairobi to visit a game reserve. From that ugly, depersonalised new city, with its bougainvillea avenues, neon advertisements and junky Indian merchandising, we travelled back in distance many thousands of years.

  The well-planned autoroute knifed its path through a wilderness of rock and dead trees where the ostrich will eat large stones to aid its gizzard and the stone-grey rhinoceros, that most prehistoric of king animals, will gobble thorn bushes with relish.

  I was particularly fortunate to have Raymond Mortimer as a travelling companion on this safari. My friendship with him goes back to my earliest adult days. I remember the thrill of being invited by him to lunch in his Bloomsbury flat as soon as I left Cambridge. Throughout the years I have seen him from time to time and always found him delightful. He is marvellously well-informed and can see beauty in everything. Our journey was made even more enjoyable by our having Lettice Ashley Cooper with us. Lettice is extremely intelligent and perceptive. Perhaps her deafness has given her sharper intuitions, for although she may miss a great deal by not hearing the flow of strangers’ conversations, she somehow gets to the pith of everything. She ruminates, and comes out with some very pointed and wise observations, about earth formations, the character of people or the habits of birds. Lettice knows a lot about the various races of the world and their religions. She is obviously well-educated and has read and remembered. She has a wry sense of humour, and is not embittered in any way.

  Almost our first delight was to see a giraffe, eating at a convenient height a pepper tree. It looked as if it was made of dappled silk, pale primrose and honey-coloured. After exposing itself to our admiration, the giraffe, its head fluttering with white birds (the egrets, living off ticks and knowing where to find the most succulent), loped off in an absurd gangling dance.

  Merely to stop the motorcar was to bring the Piero di Cosimo world close to us. At our feet a family of foxes; the young, so pretty with bat-ears and large eyes, were completely unabashed by our curiosity, while the parents skulked off to leave the young to their fate. But it was best not to leave for too long the sanctuary of the motor, and certainly not when a whole tribe of baboons swarmed onto the bonnet of the car.

  It is almost inevitably dramatic to see one’s first lion, for the ‘King of Beasts’ has received such inordinate publicity from Metro-Goldwyn and the British Empire. Already, at seven in the morning, after their breakfast kill, a lioness and her cubs had taken to the shade of the bush; nothing could be seen but the upstretched paw of the sleeping lioness. By dint of nosing our landrover into the sanctuary, within a few feet, we managed to disturb the sleepy animal who awoke, blinked at us with vague surprise, became bored with the attention of the camera, yawned, joined the rest of the family and continued her interrupted day’s sleep.

  The way to another pride of lions was signposted by the vultures waiting among the branches of a dead tree for the moment when the meal is abandoned and they can finish off the carcass of the recently-killed wildebeest.

  The brutality of the jungle is epitomised by another scene of slaughter. Pools of blood, guts and the striped tail were all that remained of a zebra. A jackal, with the strongest teeth of all animals, was already running off with a large shinbone. A lion, with its dusty, over-life-size head, merely yawned at us, and we, in turn, were beginning to become bored with lions and to wonder if they should not remain in Trafalgar Square.

  At Amboceli, still in Kenya, morning mists lifted to reveal Kilimanjaro, suspended above as if cut out of paper. A herd of buck gambolled past in
the thick, dew-jewelled grass.

  The animals rest or hide in the scrub while the sun is at its height. It is in the late afternoon, when shadows become mauve and the evening settles into itself, and everything seems at peace, that birds of prey, clean-cut and Egyptian-looking, swoop to the ground and perch on a rock. At this hour the lilac-breasted doves, rollers, magpies, blue and green chaffinches, weave through the aromatic scent of herbs and dark ferns. The late sun dapples the Arcadian glades, and suddenly a torrent of impala, pale biscuit-colour, appears. Eyes so brilliant-looking, ears cocked, listening; to our infinite delight they do not flee from sight, but remain nibbling at the long, thin grass. Only when we encroach too impetuously do they bound in athletic groups over fern and bracken to stand still again, staring.

  The evening was fast closing in: a few eagles and hawks circled the periwinkle sky, but even the wart hog, whom Alan Moorehead flatters by calling it the ‘Jolie Laide’ of the desert, hurries off before it is too dark for even its safety.

  Those other horrid scavengers among birds, long, obscene, pink-necked marabou storks, become panic-stricken at one’s approach, and have a certain difficulty in becoming airborne.

  On the way home to the safety of our camp, in the gloaming, we made our first acquaintance with the most dangerous of all wild creatures. Poised, or rather posed, on a white rock, surrounded by grey branches of a thorn tree, sat a young leopard. A twitch of his chest muscles, or a flick of the head, sends a chill down human spines. When the pale blue eyes are turned with curiosity onto oneself, terror and admiration are interwoven. White (only his back pale canary-yellow), with the blackest of velvet tâches placed in the most perfect Persian pattern, it is no wonder that he cannot, nor has any desire to, change his spots. With his beauty dots around the mouth, crisp white symmetry of whiskers, small neat oval of the twitching ears, the soft arms and paws, he is surely nature’s masterpiece.