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advertisement of chocolat Menier in order to emphasise his
abhorrence of the chocolate box.
Philip began now to paint in oils. He experienced a thrill
of delight when first he used that grateful medium. He went
out with Lawson in the morning with his little box and sat
by him painting a panel; it gave him so much satisfaction
that he did not realise he was doing no more than copy; he
was so much under his friend’s influence that he saw only
with his eyes. Lawson painted very low in tone, and they
both saw the emerald of the grass like dark velvet, while the
brilliance of the sky turned in their hands to a brooding ul-
tramarine. Through July they had one fine day after another;
it was very hot; and the heat, searing Philip’s heart, filled him
with languor; he could not work; his mind was eager with a
thousand thoughts. Often he spent the mornings by the side
of the canal in the shade of the poplars, reading a few lines
and then dreaming for half an hour. Sometimes he hired a
rickety bicycle and rode along the dusty road that led to the
forest, and then lay down in a clearing. His head was full of
romantic fancies. The ladies of Watteau, gay and insouciant,
seemed to wander with their cavaliers among the great trees,
whispering to one another careless, charming things, and
yet somehow oppressed by a nameless fear.
They were alone in the hotel but for a fat Frenchwoman of
middle age, a Rabelaisian figure with a broad, obscene laugh.
She spent the day by the river patiently fishing for fish she
never caught, and Philip sometimes went down and talked
to her. He found out that she had belonged to a profession
whose most notorious member for our generation was Mrs.

Of Human Bondage