Even the artists' clubs had not all closed their doors, though
so many young painters were mixing blood with mud and watching
impressionistic pictures of ruined villages through the smoke of shells.
Through cigarette smoke I gazed at the oddest crowd in one of these
clubs off the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Slavs with matted hair,
American girls in Futurist frocks, Italians like figures out of pre-
Raphaelite frescoes, men with monkey faces and monkey manners,
men with the faces of mediaeval saints a little debauched by devilish
temptations, filled the long bare room, spoke in strange tongues to
each other, and made love passionately in the universal language
and in dark corners provided with ragged divans. A dwarf creature
perched on a piano stool teased the keys of an untuned piano and
drew forth adorable melody, skipping the broken notes with great
agility. ... It was the same old Paris, even in time of war.
14
The artists of neutral countries who still kept to their lodgings in the
Quartier Latin and fanned the little flame of inspiration which kept
them warm though fuel is dear, could not get any publicity for their
works. There was no autumn or spring salon in the Palais des Beaux-
Arts, where every year till war came one might watch the progress of
French art according to the latest impulse of the time stirring the
emotions of men and women who claim the fullest liberties even for
their foolishness.
Pages:
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426