November 1938 to early 1940, part 7

[continuing from previous page, Mancoba is with Christian Poulsen and someone described as Roser] Germany & Paul says he does not like Jews though is French – I am surprised [,] I call him a Nazi [.] he says no [,] Luxembourgeois is happy & speak of the Jewish evil in Luxembourg [.] Paul explains too simply why he does not like Jews – Roser is furious – We go away together to his rooms – play the radio & meet his two friends [.] they ask me to a restaurant [,] Greek [,] & afterwards coffee – We return & talk [.] very fine fellows [,] I like them – We try to get to the meeting on Racials at Sorbonne – [illegible] I go to sleep –

// School – morning – afternoon I go to Bank & after I go to look at modern paintings at Simons Galleries [probably Galerie Simon] – I think it better than Braque – although I still think it is an escape from reality – The lady there very courteous “certainement” [French: certainly] she says when I ask to see the pictures.  

I go to take Metro at Opera then I go to see again Rossi. 

He has a friend & they talk Italian [,] I don’t understand – Rossi very hospitable [,] shows me his casts & then he produces the English book [.] he wants to learn English & I French – I am amazed at the contrast a man who can make such wonderful work in art to be so stupid in learning English – we do prepositions [,] very difficult – He arranges we should go to eat together at Montparnasse on Friday – I go back to Select

// At school meet Roser & work together [.] He is promoted to superior class – In afternoon I go to see Xtian [sic: Christian Poulsen] - He asks me about his marks [,] I don’t tell him he got 12 – I take tea with the Danes & Putzer laughs [illegible] the time – I go to school in afternoon & make [illegible] [.] Paul arrives & thinks I have been wicked to [illegible] him by 10 marks for he also had [illegible] the same design [.] The Egyptian lies too [,] had the same design [.] I work on & we go away together with Roser – At his rooms I meet his two friends I like [.] the lunch back home more [illegible].  He tells me he is socialist so I in

[page or pages may be missing?]

Algeria – Constantia – we play the Radio and go to Capulade for Super [sic: supper] – we go out & at door we get out with blind woman with dop hunchback courteous – We promenade to Rue [illegible] & the prefecture of the fellow goes [illegible] (he has lost his wallet) – We return & take coffee – Then back to rooms – Hunchback tells us of the colonial administration in France – Algeria 3 districts (departments) – with 3, 4, 3 deputies.  France unlike Britain [,] had soldiers & police of the Population of Colonies (except India) – He is shocked with conditions in South Africa [.] No work, no deputies – on Martinique he lets be a black deputy - 

[chart in margin]

We talk of the Italian demand of Corsica [,] Tunis [sic: Tunisia] – He is agitated & thinks outrageous [illegible] may as well demand Paris.

He tells of the Exams Engineering [,] 15 out of 200 to pass – I am surprised other [illegible words] – He makes a queer gesture with his foot to show kicky – I feel very sorry for him [,] he shows his diagrams of the radio which I cannot understand – We talk of [illegible] Ghandi [sic: Mahatma Gandi], Tolstoy [Leo Tolstoy], etc – I go to sleep 

[/P] School [insertion:] – a fellow’s ‘father’ is dead – queer feeling & then afternoon drawing at Grand Chaumiere – Roser arrives – woman has round back – Man is beautiful – an old fellow in front keeps coughing in queer way & the model tries to control herself from laughing – We buy paints afterwards & [illegible] & canvas [,] I want to paint – I go [,] to Select supper then Confessions of Rousseau – So warm & well-done.  

[insertion in margin:] I buy paint & brushes

// Saturday School and lunch with Roser his friends at Capulade [.] The hunchback is going to write exams in the afternoon [.] He is restless & I am sorry for him – We go to take coffee afterwards & I promise to call but woman is nasty so I return to hotel eat there & go to Xtian [sic: Christian Poulsen] & go together to Montparnasse – I go to see Gary Cooper in Mr Deeds Goes to Town [reference: “Mr Deeds goes to Town” Columbia pictures, first released 1936] – I could not quite understand why the film was made as it is a direct attack of the capitalist system.  Of course it could have the effect opposite ie the capitalist also think for the poor – but this is too daring –

Afterwards meet Xtian [sic: Christian Poulsen] at Dome [sic: Le Dôme restaurant] [.] I tell him I liked the film and that I had to travel 6000 miles to see it as I could not see it in Johannesburg – Paltzer has been dining with friends but I am not impressed when I see them as when Xtian told me about the [illegible] [.] The woman is [illegible] plain and wears a stupid lace-like affair on her breast – The Swedish girl also is here and she has a brown “hat” with a dead bird on it [,] horrible taste [.] We start talking and the man asks me about South Africa – He tells me he knows the terrible state of affairs in that country (There is a fight, a fellow become too drunk is chucked out by garcon [sic: garçon; French: male server] a little scene) 

We go to Bal Negre it’s very cold – Xtian tells me he will be going away to Italy for a spell & that he is happy it’s not London as living too expensive there – Xtian is too inexperienced too simple – I tell him I should like to speak to the ladies but I cannot speak Danish or Swedish – He blurts it out to them I am embarrassed – We pass the Sphinx bordel & (bordel for women) [sic: bordello]

Bal Negre we pay 7 fr [sic: francs] 2 fr for coat & hat – find a little place & sit down [.] Xtian & I drink grog [,] women coffee – the Sight is very strange & incomprehensible to me – white women & coal black negroes dancing to the strains of a very strange music [,] much tom tom effect – Beautiful uniform if French Army & Navy – Pultzer & I do not dance [.] After – There such abandon and suggestiveness in the gestures of the dancers & nobody minds [.] Pultzer meets a friend & they drink upstairs later he comes to fetch me & ascend & he introduces me to a German Prince & a African princess with her daughter - & some beautiful man – we drink wine together

[in margin sketches of piano, two people dancing, banjo and other object] 

& talk – The girl is very fine & well educated [,] she is professor at a girls school in Paris – teaches English & German  - She knows a great deal of South Africa – She wants to go & see it, but not to stay as she feels it’s brutal the way colonies have been run both by the French & the English – She is happy when I tell her she speaks very good English – Her mother is a very gracious air – She lives now apart from her husband & consorts with the German Prince – In their company is a young fellow in glasses [,] he is at the bureau of Airplane factory & I remark war is terrible – we laugh – He speaks very intelligently on Surrealism & relations with Freudianism – [illegible] of leading Surrealists today – He asks me to meet him at a Cafe in Rue St Germain – Pultzer is frigid & soon asks permission to go down again.  dance goes on and a demonstration of Martiniquan dances by 3 couples strange mixture [,] an oldish negro with his French wife [,] the tall negress with long arms and a young negro – and two malatto [sic: mulatto] girls – the music is queer and it reminds me of Mabokwe & Marabi in Africa S [reference to forms of jazz performed in South Africa, source: Michael Titlestad, Jazz discourse and black South African modernity, with special reference to ‘Matshikese’, published in “American Ethnologist, vol.32, no.2 (May 2005), pp.210-221].  [illegible] contortive dark eyes & we go many types of negroes as we pass through the door – we go to Le Dome & have coffee [,] we go home

Sunday – I go to Xtian [sic: Christian Poulsen] again & go to eat at the Russian restaurant [reference the Russian Tea room] [.] Pultzer tells of his adventures in [illegible] before the war [illegible] – He & a companion travelled in Spain & at a little town got drunk & mixed with communists & Anarchists – Marched to the elective station singing International [,] managed to drag himself away & slept in a gutter – Strange contrast himself afterwards mixing up with the elite in England – 

I restrained two girls looking for pleasure [,] beautiful [,] next to us – the drawings in the ball strange –