I spoke fluent French after my year in Paris. Yasmin spoke just enough of it to get along. She had had a French governess sometime or other during her childhood and that had been a help.
We found the house without any trouble. It was a medium-sized white wooden building standing on its own in a pleasant garden. It was not, I knew, the great man’s main residence. That was down south in Cagnes-sur-Mer, but he probably found it cooler up here in the summer months.
“Good luck,” I said to Yasmin. “I’ll be waiting about a hundred yards down the road.”
She got out of the car and went toward the gates. I watched her going. She wore flat-heeled shoes and a creamy-coloured linen dress, no hat. Cool and demure, she passed through the gates and moved on up the drive swinging her arms as she went. There was a lilt in her walk, a little shadow attending her, and she looked more like a young postulant going in to see the mother superior than someone who was about to cause a saucy explosion within the mind and body of one of the great painters of the world.
It was a warm sunshiny evening. Sitting there in the open motor car I dozed off and did not wake up until two hours later when I found Yasmin getting into the seat beside me.
“What happened?” I said. “Tell me quick! Was everything all right? Did you see him? Have you got the stuff?”
She had a small brown-paper parcel in one hand, her purse in the other. She opened the purse and took out the signed notepaper and the all-important rubbery thing. She handed them to me without speaking. She had a funny look on her face, a mixture of ecstasy and awe, and when I spoke to her she didn’t appear to hear me. Miles away she seemed, miles and miles away.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “Why the great silence?” She gazed straight ahead through the windscreen, not hearing me. Her eyes were very bright, her face serene, beatific almost, with a queer radiance.
“Christ, Yasmin,” I said. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a vision.”
“Just get going,” she said, “and leave me alone.”
We drove back to the hotel without talking and went to our separate rooms. I made an immediate microscopic examination of the semen. The sperm were alive but the count was low, very low. I was able to make no more than ten straws. But they were ten sound straws with a count of about twenty million sperm in each. By God, I thought, these are going to cost somebody a lot of money in years to come. They’ll be as rare as the First Folio of Shakespeare. I ordered champagne and a plate of foie-gras and toast, and I sent a message to Yasmin’s room telling her I hoped she would come in and join me.
She arrived half an hour later and she had with her the little brown-paper parcel. I poured her a glass of champagne and put a slice of foie-gras on toast for her. She accepted the champagne, ignored the foie-gras, and remained silent.
“Come on,” I said, “what’s bothering you?”
She emptied her glass in one long swallow and held it out for more. I refilled the glass. She drank half of it, then put it down. “For God’s sake, Yasmin!” I cried. “What happened?”
She looked at me very straight and said simply, “He smote me.”
“You mean he hit you? Good God, I am sorry! You mean he actually struck you?”
“Don’t be an ass, Oswald.”
“What do you mean then?”
“I mean I was smitten by him. He’s the first man who’s ever bowled me completely over.”
“Oh, I see what you mean! Good heavens!”
“He is a wonder, that man,” she said. “He is a genius.”
“Of course he’s a genius. That’s why we chose him.”
“Yes, but he’s a beautiful genius. He is so beautiful, Oswald, and so gentle and wonderful. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“He smote you all right.”
“He certainly did.”
“So what’s your problem?” I said. “Are you feeling guilty about it?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t feel in the least guilty. I’m just overwhelmed.”
“You’re going to be a hell of a lot more overwhelmed before we’ve finished,” I said. “He’s not the only genius you’re going to call on.”
“I know that.”
“You’re not running out, are you?”
“Certainly not. Give me some more drink.”
I filled her glass for the third time in as many minutes. She sat sipping it. Then she said, “Listen, Oswald . .
“I’m listening.”
“We’ve been pretty jokey about this whole thing up to now, haven’t we? It’s all been a bit of a lark, right?”
“Rubbish! I take it very seriously.”
“What about Alfonso?”
“You were the one who joked about him,” I said.
“I know that,” she said. “But he deserved it. He’s a joker.”
“I can’t quite see what you’re getting at,” I said. “Renoir was different,” she said. “That’s what I’m getting at. He’s a giant. His work is going to live through the ages.”
“So will his sperm.”
“Stop it and hear me out,” she said. “What I’m saying is this. Some people are jokers. Some are not. Alfonso is a joker. All the kings are jokers. We have a few other jokers on our list, too.”
“Who?”
“Henry Ford’s a joker,” she said. “I think that fellow Freud in Vienna is a joker. And the wireless boy, Marconi. He’s a joker.”
“What’s the point of all this?”
“The point is,” Yasmin said, “I don’t in the least mind being jokey about jokers. I don’t mind treating them a little rough either if I have to. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to start sticking hatpins into men like Renoir and Conrad and Stravinsky. Not after what I saw today.”
“What did you see today?”
“I told you, I saw a really great and wonderful old man.”
“And he smote you.”
“You’re damn right he did.”
“Let me ask you this, did he have a good time?”
“Amazing,” she said. “He had an amazing time.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you about the jokers. But the non-jokers are private.”
“Was he in a wheel-chair?”
“Yes. And now he has to strap the paint-brush to his wrist because he can’t hold it in his fingers.”
“Because of arthritis?”
“Yes.”
“And you gave him the Blister Beetle?”
“Of course.”
“It wasn’t too much for him?”
“No,” she said. “When you’re that age you have to have it.”
“And he gave you a picture,” I said, pointing to the brown-paper parcel.
She unwrapped it now and held it up for me to see. It was a small unframed canvas of a young rosy-cheeked girl with long golden hair and blue eyes, a wondrous little picture, a magic thing, a marvel to look at. A warm glow came out of it and filled the entire room. “I didn’t ask him for it,” Yasmin said. “He made me take it. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes,” I said. “It is beautiful.”
16
THE EFFECT that Renoir had upon Yasmin during that dramatic visit to Essoyes did not, thank heavens, take all the fun out of our future operations. I myself have always found it difficult to treat anything too seriously and I believe the world would be a better place if everyone followed my example. I am completely without ambition. My motto—”It is better to incur a mild rebuke than to perform an onerous task”—should be well known to you by now. All I want out of life is to enjoy myself. But before one can achieve this happy end one must obviously get hold of a lot of money. Money is essential to a sybarite. It is the key of the kingdom. To which the carping reader will almost certainly reply, “You say you are without ambition, but do you not realize that the desire for wealth is in itself one of the most obnoxious ambitions of them all?” This is not necessarily true. It is the manner in which one acquires wealth that determines whether or not it is obnoxious. I myself am scrupulous about the methods I employ. I refuse to have anything to do with moneymaking unless the process obeys two golden rules. First, it must amuse me tremendously. Second, it must give a great deal of pleasure to those from whom I extract the loot. This is a simple philosophy and I recommend it wholeheartedly to all business tycoons, casino operators, chancellors of the Exchequer, and budget directors everywhere.