Picasso was also doing the sets for Three-Cornered Hat.
Henri Matisse had been hired to design the costumes and the decor for Le Chant de Rossignol.
And another painter we had not heard of called André Derain was busy preparing the sets for La Boutique Fantasque.
Stravinsky, Picasso, and Matisse were all on our list. On the theory that Monsieur Diaghilev’s judgement was probably sounder than ours, we decided to put Derain’s name on as well. All of these men were in Paris.
We took Stravinsky first. Yasmin walked right in on him while he was working at the piano on Pulcinella. He was more surprised than angry. “Hello,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I have come all the way from England to offer you a chocolate,” she said.
This absurd remark, which Yasmin was to use on many other occasions, disarmed completely this kind and friendly man. The rest was simple, and although I longed for salacious details, Yasmin remained mute.
“You might at least tell me what he was like as a person.”
“Sparkling bright,” she said. “Oh, he was so sparkling bright and so quick and clever. He has a huge head and a nose like a boiled egg.”
“Is he a genius?”
“Yes,” she said, “he’s a genius. He’s got the spark, the same as Monet and Renoir.”
“What is this spark?” I said. “Where is it? Is it in the eyes?”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t anywhere special. It’s just there. You know it’s there. It’s like an invisible halo.”
I made fifty straws from Stravinsky.
Next it was Picasso’s turn. He had a studio at that time in the rue de la Boétie and I dropped Yasmin off in front of a rickety-looking door with brown paint peeling off it. There was no bell or knocker so Yasmin simply pushed it open and went in. Outside in the car I settled down with La Cousine Bette, which I still think is the best thing the old French master ever wrote.
I don’t believe I had read more than four pages when the car door was flung open and Yasmin tumbled in and flopped onto the seat beside me. Her hair was all over the place and she was blowing like a sperm whale.
“Christ, Yasmin! What happened?”
“My God!” she gasped. “Oh, my God!”
“Did he throw you out?” I cried. “Did he hurt you?”
She was too out of breath to answer me at once. A trickle of sweat was running down the side of her forehead. She looked as though she’d been chased around the block four times by a maniac with a carving knife. I waited for her to simmer down.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re bound to have one or two washouts.”
“He’s a demon!” she said.
“What did he do to you?”
“He’s a bull! He’s like a little brown bull!”
“Go on.”
“He was painting on a huge canvassy thing when I went in and he turned round and his eyes opened so wide they became circles and they were black and he shouted ‘Ole’ or something like that and then came towards me very slowly and sort of crouching as though he was going to spring. .
“And did he spring?”
“Yes,” she said. “He sprang.”
“Good Lord.”
“He didn’t even put his paint-brush down.”
“So you had no chance to get the mackintosh on?”
“Afraid not. Didn’t even have time to open my purse.”
“Hell.”
“I was hit by a hurricane, Oswald.”
“Couldn’t you have slowed him down a bit? You remember what you did to old Woresley to make him keep still?”
“Nothing would have stopped this one.”
“Were you on the floor?”
“No. He threw me onto a filthy sofa thing. There were tubes of paint everywhere.”
“It’s all over you now. Look at your dress.”
“I know.”
One couldn’t blame Yasmin for the failure, I knew that. But I felt pretty ratty all the same. It was our first miss. I only hoped there wouldn’t be many more.
“Do you know what he did afterwards?” Yasmin said. “He just buttoned up his trousers and said, ‘Thank you, mademoiselle. That was very refreshing. Now I must get back to my work.’ And he turned away, Oswald! He just turned away and started painting again!”