Chapter 50 III Montparnasse, the open city (1)-1

Kiki?People regard her as the Queen of Montparnasse.It's a title she deserves. Andre Salmon The icy sun hung high over Paris after the armistice.People who joined the army and went to the front were demobilized, and tourists came.The first tourists to arrive were Americans who had come to fight in Europe with the expeditionary force.During the war, they discovered France.After the armistice, they took off their military uniforms, put on civilian clothes, and came to France as tourists. Small bars old and new in Montparnasse are thriving.Banas Bar is an example, it can even be compared with Luo Tongde.

Papa Libion ​​watched all this sullenly.It wasn't the competition between the bars that bothered him, but what the post-war authorities did.Several times they fined him and shut him down several times: first because soldiers who deserted (or called themselves deserters) drank in his bar; Because of this, he was accused of having links with the Russian Revolution; now because of too many customers who smoked, because Libion ​​bought what seemed to be smuggled yellow cigarettes and gave his poorest customers a few puffs.Some people objected to his approach.Libion ​​threatened to sell the cigarettes, and he did.So, everything is over.

Papa Libion ​​found a strange person, he had seen her with Soutine.He recognized her because she was wearing a man's top hat, a battered shawl patched over her shoulders, and shoes that were too big for her.This is a young girl: no more than 18 years old, with fair skin, short black hair, beautiful looks, smart and lively, from her every move and speech, it can be seen that she is straightforward and even unscrupulous.This time, however, when Kisling turned to ask Papa Libion ​​loudly, "Who is this new whore?", she was surprisingly silent. She just took out a match from her pocket, struck it, blew out the flame, and carefully daubed her left eyebrow with black ash.

"Hey, who the hell is this whore?" The young girl remained silent, waiting for Kisling to pour her head and face with the new insult that had been carefully brewed in her head.As she expected, the Poles cursed her with words like "hot piss," "whore," "old syphilis," and other joke words, causing the whole bar to laugh.It was an incredible time, and after such a swearing, the painter Kisling hired the girl to be his painting model for three months. This girl named Alice Pan, aliased as "Kiki" and "Mombana Skiki", thus became the queen of Montparnasse, the lucky star of painters and the legendary face, There is fame all over the world.She has worked as a painting model for the following famous painters: Kisling, Fujita, Man Ray, Peekrog, Soutine, Derain and many others.Protected by all the painters of Rue de Vauvin, she became the ambassador of the post-war Montparnasse district.With her bohemian enthusiasm, the smoke of war spread from Europe to America.

Until that period, Kiki's luck was very bad.Her life sometimes climbed to the pinnacle of happiness, and sometimes fell into the abyss of poverty.She was born in the Phnom Penh department in the Burgundy region of France.Her father, who was in the lumber and coal business, had long since left home and was nowhere to be seen.She was forced to live on the streets at an early age. Kiki's overarching tragedy is that she is an illegitimate child, a fact that also affects her mother.At that time, the customs of country people forced her to leave her hometown and go to Paris.She took a job as a nurse at the Bordeaux Maternity Hospital in Paris, but the work in the maternity hospital was too difficult for single women with illegitimate children who were pregnant again.

Therefore, little Alice was sent to her grandmother's house to live with a large group of cousins ​​who were like her illegitimate children.My grandfather was a road maintenance worker, earning 1.5 francs a day; my grandmother worked in a local rich family.Mother also sent her some money as best she could.The teachers at the school don't like penniless kids.So Kiki stayed in the back of the classroom all morning, and was punished to stand against the wall in the afternoon.In the evening, when there were no beans in the cauldron at home, she and her cousin went to the nuns of Cornett Abbey to beg.

At the request of her mother, 12-year-old Kiki left her grandmother's house and went to Paris.Her mother sees her for a month every year, so the little girl has a closer relationship with her grandmother.Grandmother not only raised her, but also loved her very much.On the train, she guarded the journey food brought to her by her grandmother—garlic sausage and red wine, and kept crying, but everyone in the carriage looked at her with joy... In Paris, the little girl saw for the first time carriages and clean, straight avenues. "Mom, tell me, it's so bright in there, did someone put a lighted cigar on it?"

Her mother was in a bad mood, but that made her laugh.She left the Board Rock Maternity Hospital and went to work as a typesetter in a printing factory.She hopes that her daughter can inherit her career and send her daughter to a town school.Kiki was disgusted with learning: "I left school for good at 13. I only learned to read and count...that's all!" [From Kiki's Memoirs, published in 1929]. The little girl entered a printing factory as an apprentice bookbinder, earning 50 centimes a week.Later, she participated in World War I in her own way: into a military shoe factory.Before these military shoes are sent to the front line, Kiki sterilizes them, oils them, softens them and modifies them with a hammer.She turned from an apprentice in a shoe factory to a welder, and later entered a factory that made airships, airplanes and hand grenades.But no matter where he went, he lived in poverty and darkness: he ate lentils and popular vegetable soup as hard as stones, and wore 40-size men's shoes picked up from the garbage dump on his feet.

At the age of 14 and a half, she was employed by a female baker on Saint-Charles Street in the 15th district of Paris, and lived in her house before she could take a bath.Get up at five o'clock every day, serve the workers who go to work to eat; leave at seven o'clock to deliver bread to the lazy people who are still sleeping; come back at nine o'clock to do housework, purchase, cook, and serve the bakery boys.This boy who has just turned 15 already has the temperament that a man of that age should have. "Are you infatuated with him?" "not yet." However, when little Alice saw men and women hugging and kissing each other in the square from the small window in the bedroom, her heart was also disturbed: "I feel weird! Then I rolled on the bed . . . Then I got scared." [From Kiki's Memoirs, published in 1929].

Gradually, she was no longer afraid... The little girl decided to get rid of her timidity, and bravely pulled the young man beside him to the store, and sent them to heaven with passionate kisses and caresses.When their relationship continued to develop, it didn't feel so good.Still have to wait... She wasn't old enough to wear makeup yet, but Kiki started doing it.One day, the proprietress noticed that she was smearing her face with colorful make-up, so she yelled, "You little whore!" These words are superfluous and useless.But her behavior made the proprietress very tired.After being scolded, the little thing ran away.

She ran to a painter's studio and posed for him nude.For the first time, everything went very well.The second time, it ended hastily because of being reprimanded.The neighbors told Alice's mother that her daughter was hanging out with an almost old man in the name of some kind of aesthetic art, which she knew nothing about.The mother came to the door to confirm that it was true, and she became furious, shouting and cursing: "Whore!... Shameless little whore!" The mother and daughter fell out and their relationship ended.The mother returned to her future husband, a typesetter younger than herself.The daughter settled down in the house of a female opera singer and became a servant, doing all kinds of work.Opera artists have no tolerance for frequent unauthorized travel by their servants.After being kicked out by her master once, Kiki took refuge in her friend Eva's house.Eva also had only one tiny room.The bed was big, but not big enough for three people.Because Eva, in order to be able to get two francs and a sausage, from time to time let an older Corsican worker come to her to sleep.That person is naturally free to control the bed and its owner.Eva said to her friend, "Matt, that's fine, you can learn." Kiki sat there, watching what was going on there, and she waited for the orgasm to pass.It was lukewarm to her.She's also happy because she can eat the leftover sausage from those two.But she doesn't know if she's still completely normal.Eva asked: "why?" "I'm still a virgin!" "14 years old?" "It's pretty much the same thing I've been through." "This is horrible! Come with me and we'll see how this problem can be solved." The two girls waited for a long time on the Avenue Strasbourg.Eva promised to find an older person for her friend, she said: "For the first time, it's better to be the same age, it doesn't hurt too much..." Kiki daydreams.The older ones, she knew them.Once or twice she took one to a little shack behind the Gare Montparnasse where she lived.For two francs, they could look at her breasts; for five francs, they could touch her breasts.But there was never more action, and it never went down.Kiki is not a bitch, she just needs money to eat. On the first day in Strasbourg Street, Eva found a man in his fifties who was barely acceptable.She introduces him to Kiki.He thought it was good, so he agreed, in exchange for giving her cheese and sausage.Eva walks away.Kiki followed the happy man to his house.This is a clown entertainer.He showed her his beautiful costumes and gave her a pork chop and good wine.Then he went to wash up, put her on his pajamas, picked her up and put her on the bed.Kiki really kind of loved him, and she let him cuddle, listening to the clown entertainer's lullaby on the pipa, and after some small uncomfortable sensations, she fell asleep. Summary of the second day: She reached the sixth heaven, but Miss suffered no loss. She meets an artist named Robert.He gave her a piece of chocolate and took her home.He undressed himself first, gaping at the front of the socks, and Kiki couldn't stop laughing. "I never knew that socks show fingers just like gloves!" Robert got angry: "It's fashionable." They try to come, but it doesn't work well anyway.On Robert's whim, he pulled two women from the Dome's and said, "You watch what other people do, and it will teach you a lesson." Kiki watched it once, twice, three times.She followed the class very seriously, but she couldn't do it anyway.Eventually Robert lost patience and drove her out into the street. She discovered Luo Tongde and the poets and painters there.Like the rest of Papa Libion's boarders, she washed in the lavatory there and learned to put what little money she had in the slot machine in the hope of earning a loaf of bread. She got much more than she hoped for: Soutine.He took her into his home, heated half of his studio to keep her warm, and introduced her to other artists.These artists inspire girls into man-made paradises. Finally, a Polish painter, Maurice Mondichi, showed himself as a saving angel.This is exactly who Kiki has been waiting for for a long time.He named the girl Kiki, the Greek pronunciation of Alice. Mondiki is the first man in Kiki's life.She acts as a model for his paintings.She later also modeled for Kisling and Fujita, both of whom would later become her best friends. For the first time she went to the Japanese house in Rue de Rambe.She came into his house barefoot, wearing a coat and a red dress. The painter said: "Please take off your coat." She took off her coat and was wearing nothing underneath: the red dress was the illusion of a small piece of red cloth she had pinned to the hem of the coat.Fujita looked at his model, stepped forward, looked at her skin, and asked: "No hairs?" "As you paint and paint, it grows." Kiki reached out and picked up a pencil that was casually placed on the table, drew some hairs on his body, and asked the artist: "Do you like it?" "How funny!" Kiki pushed the artist away from the easel, and she stood in his place, ordering, "Please hold still!" The model picked up some pencils, held them in her mouth, and drew a portrait of the artist Fujita who was supposed to draw her on the drawing board.When the painting was finished, she said: "Please pay me to be your model." Fujita, who was stunned by her audacity, paid her in a daze.Kiki picked up the painting she made, said: "Sir, goodbye." and went out. She went straight to the Dom's Tavern.An American collector who was there bought this portrait of Fujita. The next day, the Japanese artist met Kiki at the Luo Tongde Tavern and said to her, "You must go back to my studio and let me draw you." "Okay!" Kiki replied without hesitation. Fujita created a large portrait "Naked Wo Jiji" (Fig. 56).Never before has Fujita created such a magnificent portrait.He sent the painting to the Fall Art Fair.All the newspapers and magazines were talking about the portrait, and the artist was congratulated by government ministers for it.The portrait was sold for an unexpected price of 8,000 francs.The painter invited his models to celebrate this momentous event.At the dining table, the painter gave Kiki some tickets.Kiki immediately left the table.A few hours later, she reappeared in Fujita's studio on Delambe Street.She had on a new hat, a new dress, a new coat, and a new pair of shoes sparkled on her feet.Fujita shouted happily: "I must paint a portrait of you dressed like this!" "No! I'm dating another guy," Kiki replied. "Is it a painter?" "Kiesling." At that time, there were three Kiki in Montparnasse: Van Donggen Kiki, Kisling Kiki (Figure 57) and Kiki Kiki. Fujita had no choice but to be defeated by Kisling. The specter of death haunting Montparnasse This is a child from an alien, and it is unrealistic for him to pursue a real life. Leopold Sporowski Kisling waited for Kiki unwaveringly.He made an appointment at nine o'clock and always arrived on time at nine o'clock.As for her, she was always at least 40 minutes late.They often quarrel about it, and it has become a habit.Mrs. Salomon, who is particularly soft-eared, often criticizes them for this.It has become fashionable for Kiki and Kisling to swear at each other when they quarrel, and they do so with great skill, reinventing the language of swearing. However, their love is also very warm.When Mrs. Kiki was unhappy, Mr. Kiki tried every means to make her laugh, sing and dance for her, and pulled her to sing and dance with him.Two people compete who can shout louder than whose voice is louder.When neighbors came to protest, they immediately stopped making noise.Sporowski or a spectator often came to see them, to feast his eyes. Modigliani also came to visit them from time to time.He returned to Paris from Nice in May 1919, and three weeks later Jeanne joined him. In November 1918, Jeanne gave birth to a girl.A nanny would have been needed because, according to Bryce Sandras's first wife, neither the parents nor the grandmother were capable of caring for the child. When Jeanne went to Paris to meet her daughter's father again, she became pregnant again. On July 7, 1919, Modigliani signed a document promising to marry her as soon as possible—that is, as soon as the necessary documents meeting the marriage requirements were received.The note was countersigned by three others: Jeanne, Sporowski and Lunia Djkovska.Many years later, Lugna confessed to Modigliani's daughter that he often took care of her at Sporowski's house on Joseph-Bala Street. Modigliani often knocked on the door of Sporowski's house drunkenly in the middle of the night, wanting to know something about his daughter.Lunia ordered him from the window to be quiet, and he immediately fell silent.But he didn't leave right away, but sat on the steps in front of the door for a long time before standing up and reluctantly leaving. [Excerpt from "Ordinary Modigliani" by Jeanne Modigliani] Modigliani often drank, drank too much every time, and kept coughing.He discovered the poems published in his magazine by the founder of literature, Isidore Ducasse, also known as the Count of Lautreamont.Modigliani first studied with André Breton on a bench in the Avenue Observatory, and later went to the National Library to copy. He received models in his studio on Great Thatched House Street, drew a stroke, and drank rum.He walked listlessly up and down the soot-black road.Only when he went to the tavern did he appear refreshed.He made portraits of others, exchanged drinks, ate a sandwich, coughed a while, and took a sip of wine.Distribute the little money left over to the poorer and the poorer.However, he himself often followed a group of friends in the street, in the square of the church in Alezia, stumbling, staggering, and fell asleep there, even in the rain, Also fell asleep in the rain. He looked for Sporowski and wanted to borrow some money from him.He forgot that Sporowski was not in Paris at all, and had already gone to London to hold an exhibition for a client and friend of his.He crossed the Seine and climbed the Montmartre hill.After embracing Utriro and Susan Valadon and singing a section for them, she went down the mountain and returned to the left bank of the Seine, and hurriedly wrote a letter to her mother for help on a stamped postcard from her mother. He fell ill.But he never let anyone know that he was suffering from tuberculosis, not even Jeanne Abdelner.Because Jeanne was thin and weak, he had to keep absolutely silent about her in order to protect her.For months, Sporowski had been persuading him to go to a tuberculosis sanatorium in Switzerland, and each time Amdo replied with the same words: "Please put away your lessons!" However, he may have known that death was about to come to him.He drank wildly all day long, just to relieve his pain, to numb himself, to use alcohol to relieve his sorrows, and to forget the torment of poverty.It has been a year since the war outside ended, but he has dug a trench in his inner world, setting aside a place for his final charge. One night in January 1920, Amdo Modigliani left Luotongde with his friends.It was raining heavily.He walked towards Isova's cemetery and persisted for two hours in the severe cold and rainstorm.He coughed so much that he didn't even have the energy to drink. He leaned against the wall and staggered to the big thatched house street.He struggled to climb the very steep stairs leading to the studio, and collapsed on the bed beside Jeanna when he entered the door.He vomited blood. The Italian-Chilean painter Ortiz de Zarat, who lived in the same building as him, left Paris for a week. When he came back, he found that not only did he have no news of Modigliani, but also that Sporros, who was also ill, Neither Key nor anyone else has heard from him.So, on January 22, he came to knock on the door of Modigliani's house, and knocked twice or three times in a row, but there was no movement or sound in the house.The Chilean waited a few more minutes, stepped back, and slammed the door open with determination. Amdo Modigliani was on the bed, lying in Jeanne's arms, panting slowly, softly calling "Italy...Italy".The indoor stove had already been extinguished, and the sardine boxes scattered on the ground were covered with a thin layer of ice, and the wine bottles were all empty.A deathly silence reigned throughout the room. Ortiz de Zarate strode downstairs and called for a doctor.Doctors ordered the patient to be taken immediately to the Mission Hospital in Jacob Street. Two days later, at 20:45 on January 24, 1920, tuberculous meningitis ruthlessly claimed Modigliani's life.Word immediately spread throughout Montmartre and Montparnasse.Friends came from all directions, and poets, painters, businessmen and many models built a human wall in front of the hospital.No one dared, or rather, did not want to believe that Modigliani was dead. Everyone was stunned and frightened by Modigliani's death. Kisling is in the hospital mortuary, leaning over his friend's face, with the help of the Swiss painter Conral Morricone, making a mask for the dead man with his hands, which have been painted white with plaster.When the mask was taken, it was broken and part of the muscles were taken off.They hurried to get Lipsitz to help.Lipsitz put the face mold pieces together so that he could later fill them with copper liquid and make sculpture molds. Early the next morning, among the crowd on the sidewalk, there was a figure in filial piety.She was thin and pale, holding her pregnant belly with both hands, staggering, moving her bulky body with difficulty.This is Modigliani's wife, Jeanne Ebdelner.She didn't spend the night in the big thatched cottage street, but spent the night in the hotel.After she left, a sharp knife was found under her pillow. They led her through corridor after corridor to the coffin.At her request, everyone avoided, and she stayed alone by the coffin for a long time.Finally she cut off a strand of hair, placed it on the belly of her children's father, and departed.Everyone persuaded her to go back to the room prepared for her by the health center, but she refused everyone's advice and went straight back to her parents' home on Amyout Street.At three o'clock in the morning, she got up, went to the living room, opened the window, raised her legs over the railing, and jumped from the sixth floor. Her dismembered body was found by a worker the next morning.The workers carried the body upstairs, not knowing whether it was her father or mother who opened the door.The person who opened the door refused to accept the daughter's body, and asked the worker to send it to the deceased's home at 8 Rue des Great Thatched Cottages. No one knew why they were so heartless.But people can fully imagine the indescribable astonishment and fear that both sides showed when they looked at each other. The workman went downstairs, put the body on his wheelbarrow, and wheeled it through the Rue Raymond, the Rue Claude Bernard, the Rue Fiantina, the Rue Valdegrass, the Avenue Montparnasse, and finally Arrived at No. 8, Great Thatched Cottage Street.But the female janitor refused him entry and asked to show a certificate from the police station.The worker pushed Jeanne, who was lying on a wheelbarrow, to the police station on Rue de Rambes, got the certificate, re-crossed the Avenue Montparnasse, and came to the Rue du Grand Thatched Cottage. Friends arrived one after another after hearing the news: Jeanne Leche, Salmon, Kisling, Calco.They spread Russian blankets on the dead, a gift from Mary Vasilyev.The friends of Montmartre and Montparnasse are here.The next day, people walked away from Jeanne to attend Modigliani's funeral.Kisling notified the family of the deceased and paid the full cost of the funeral.Emmanuel, Amdo Modigliani's younger brother, wrote: "My brother's funeral was very well organized and he was treated like a prince." When a huge and dense funeral procession silently sent Amdo Modigliani to the end, everyone was thinking about the daughter of the deceased, the orphan who lost his parents at the same time—Jeanna Modigliani Jr. .Everyone who attended the funeral, whether they were painters, poets, or models, contributed their share.In addition to buying flowers for the deceased, the rest is reserved to subsidize the future life of the child at the grandfather's house.When the funeral vehicles, flowers and wreaths pass through the streets and intersections, the police also respectfully salute the dead.Businessmen began to use their brains to find business opportunities, looking for people who owned Modigliani's works among the funeral crowd.One of them approached Francis Calco and offered him to buy all the works of the deceased that he owned.Huge wealth finally knocked on the door of the painter, however, it is regrettable that this is the door of a grave. Modigliani is buried at Lachaise Cemetery, while Jeanne Ebdelner will be buried at Bagnes. In the early morning of the next day, in order to avoid disturbing the people around, the clock had just struck eight o'clock, and a poor and shabby hearse was parked in front of the gate of No. 8, Dathatched Cottage Street, with a narrow coffin on it. .The hearse, accompanied by family members, had moved away quickly and quietly before word spread. Word spread quickly.There are two taxis and a private car parked at the corner of the big thatched house: Salmon, Leopold Sporowski, and Kisling, with their wives and flowers, came to pay for their friend Modilly. Ani's wife asked Na to see him off. Ten years later, the Modigliani family obtained the consent of Jeanne's parents and her family, and moved Jeanne to the Lachaise Cemetery to be buried with Amdo.Because, at this time, Amdo is no longer an unknown person, no longer a cursed Jewish artist. At that time, another dear deceased, the text artist Guillaume Apollinaire, had also been buried in the Lachaise Cemetery. Montmartre lost one, Montparnasse lost another... Their deaths not only mean the end of the war, but also the end of an era, a generation, and a history.