FAT WOMAN SLEEPING IN A WOOD

Mrs B. Lying on her side on the ground. This picture brings back to me a far-off picnic, just before the war, when I drove with Mrs B. and her daughter, in a small red car, to a wood. We were all painters of a sort, but we did not paint, we sat and gorged and then collapsed in heaps amongst the huge dock leaves and the worm-castles. I began to pull myself together by drawing June; but, although she was an English blonde, I succeeded in making her look mulatto. In spite of this, my pen drawing was not good. I lost interest. So I turned and saw Mrs B. lying there, an impressive long wall of flesh. Her ample arm was almost beautiful. I wondered if she were really asleep or only pretending. I began with the skyline, the rich hills and dales of her thigh, her waist, her shoulder and the curving descent of her leg. Everything must be swelling and rich, I thought, and I will make her head tiny, partly to make her limbs seem Junoesque and partly because I have not left room on the paper! But it is her body, not her face, that is interesting.

June came up and laughed at the lovely bosoms and stomach that I had given her mother. But she is rich, rich and ripe and about to drop; I thought.