Читать книгу Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences онлайн

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“They are not designs,” said Epstein, a little petulantly, I thought.

“Then what are they?” I asked. “What do you call them?”

“I am not aware that I call them anything.”

“But what do they mean?”

He smiled curiously and (we were sitting in the Café Royal) lit a cigarette.

“Ah! That is for you to find out. Surely you don’t expect an artist to explain himself?”

Of course he was perfectly right, and I was more than foolish to ask him these questions. But I flogged at it.

“Now, your busts! Especially that wonderful head of Augustus John’s son!—beautiful, marvellous! But those extraordinary red drawings.”

“I cannot explain them,” said he, “but I would ssss1 certainly like you to understand them, for it seems to me that you are not unintelligent.”

He gave me a quick, sly look, and we began to talk of John. I am afraid that Epstein must have qualified his opinion of my intelligence, for he asserted, in contradiction to what I was saying, that John was on the wrong tack, and we failed to come to any agreement about this most wonderful of living painters.