The Story of the Terrible Madame Beatrice 1913 Passionate Love Modigliani - the eccentric intellectual Beatrice Hastings

Madam, push a little more, it’s almost done! - The midwife exclaimed, holding the baby’s head. - I can’t do it anymore! - Screamed beautiful woman with long peach hair and piercing, dark blue eyes. - Now I’ll die! - She continued, experiencing labor pains. - That's all! - The woman said and smiled. - What a beautiful boy! Very similar to you! - She added, wrapping the boy in soft cloth . But after looking at the young mother’s belly, she came to her senses and gave the firstborn into the arms of her assistant, and she began to continue helping the woman give birth. - It seems you will have triplets or twins. - The midwife smiled. - I can’t stand this! - Feeling that the second child began to push. - Take a deep breath! - The woman ordered. - Push! - She shouted and seeing the head of the second child, she began to encourage the young mother even more. - Well done! - She said, wrapping the second child in a diaper. Having given the child to another assistant, she turned to the girl. - Who is this? - The girl asked, looking at the midwife with a tired look. - Boy, darling. - The girl answered. - What is your name? - She asked, seeing that the third child had gone. - Beaaatrice! - She exclaimed and began to push again. - So, Beatrice, don’t forget to breathe. - The midwife reminded me. - Come on, a little more, you can already see the head! - She exclaimed. - I can’t! - Beatrice shouted, closing her eyes tightly and holding two white canvases with her hands, squeezing them tightly. - Well done! - The midwife exclaimed. - I gave birth to three children, not everyone can endure it. - She praised Beatrice. - Who was born? - She asked, gradually closing her eyes. - Who? - She repeated again. - The most beautiful girl I have ever seen in the world! - The midwife answered, wiping the girl from the blood. Having swaddled the baby, she placed the girl in the third crib, next to her older brothers. Noticing that Beatrice had fallen asleep from fatigue, she walked out the door and saw Karl Heinz, next to whom stood a woman with purple hair and bright green eyes. - How did everything go? - He asked, worried. - Everything is fine? - He asked again. - Yes, everything went well, there were no complications, but the young lady was very tired and therefore fell asleep. - The midwife said, wiping her hands with a towel. - I see that you will need my help later. - The woman smiled, looking at the small belly of the woman who stood next to Karl. - This is my second wife, - Cordelia. - He answered and smiled. - Who was born? - He asked, taking the midwife’s hands. - The young lady gave birth to triplets. - The woman answered. - Let's go, look at your firstborns. - She added and, together with Karl and Cordelia, entered the room, which smelled of alcohol and other medicines. - Which one is which? - Asked the young father of the children. “Mistress Beatrice gave birth to two boys,” she said and pointed to the first two beds, in which the little boys were snoring. - And one girl. - She added and pointed to the third crib in which a sweet girl lay and calmly looked at the man. - How beautiful she is. - Karl gasped in surprise. - My little girl. - He said, taking the girl out of the crib and hugging her. Having kissed the girl on the forehead, causing the latter to smile with her toothless mouth, he put her back in the crib. - We will choose a name together with Beatrice. - He smiled and left the room with Cordelia.

A few hours later

Beatrice, you've finally woken up! - Karl exclaimed and squeezed the hand of his first wife. - You remember that vampires should have names from infancy, because they already understand everything at that age. - He warned and smiled. - Yes I remember. - She smiled back. - What should we name our firstborn? - He asked and picking up the boy with the same piercing dark blue eyes as his mother’s, he brought him to Beatrice. “Maybe...” She thought, looking at her son. - Shu? - She asked. - Golden leader? Yes? - He smiled. - I think it will suit him. Do you like it, eh, Shu? - Karl asked, looking at his first son. In response, the baby just smiled. Placing Shu next to his mother, he went to his second son. - So, come into my arms. - Said Karl. The baby was calm, lay and simply looked at the faces of his parents. - I already know what we’ll call it. - He said confidently. - And how? - Beatrice asked, looking at her husband with interest. - Reiji, which means “Honest, Calm.” - He answered and handed his son into the arms of his wife, who in response kissed him on the forehead and laid him next to his brother. - And here is our beautiful girl. - Karl said and took the girl in his arms and sat down next to Beatrice. - You know, I was wondering, who does she look like? - Beatrice asked, carefully examining her daughter. - She doesn’t look like me or you... Then who? - She thought and looked at Karl. - She is very similar to my mother. - He said, looking at his daughter. - Here look. - It’s unclear from where, Karl took out a frame in which there was an incredibly beautiful photograph. It showed a girl with long light pink hair and deep blue eyes, this girl was wearing an incredibly beautiful dress with a large bow on the strap, which had beautiful purple stones. - What a beautiful woman! - Beatrice exclaimed and smiled. - She really looks like her. - Let's call her Shi, which means “Pearl.” - He suggested and looked at Beatrice. - She will be our beloved and only pearl. - Beatrice said and smiled, took two more sons and hugged her entire beloved family.

Two years have passed

Mommy! - Exclaimed a girl who looked to be about five years old with long pale pink hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was wearing a dark pink dress that reached to her knees. - What happened, my treasure? - The woman smiled and hugged her daughter. - Mommy, I don’t want to leave my brothers. “Whining,” the girl answered. - Well, what is this! - Beatrice exclaimed playfully. - Remember, you are Sakamaki Shi, my daughter! You should never cry. - She said proudly, looking at her daughter. - Okay, mommy. - The girl answered and stopped crying. - But I don’t want to leave. - The girl said insistently. - Shi, understand, you’re already a big girl, and even more so the only girl in the family, and you need to be protected from bad people, so your brothers and I will protect you, and you will live with your dad for several years, okay? - Beatrice told the story and, smiling, patted the girl on the head. - Yes. - The girl said and smiled joyfully. - Now, run to dad, he’s probably already been waiting for you. - Beatrice laughed. - Okay, mom. - The girl said and ran to the main entrance of the mansion. A pair of sad dark blue eyes followed her. - My baby is growing, she will grow up beautiful girl. - Beatrice whispered and smiled sadly. - Okay, we need to check on Shu, otherwise he’ll do something again. - She added and smiled, remembering her son’s pranks. Rising from her knees, Beatrice dusted off her dress and looking towards her leaving daughter, she smiled and walked towards the mansion, to her sons.

To be continued...

Here's what you can glean from the encyclopedic dictionary...
Beatrice Hastings (12 May 1879, London - 30 October 1943, Worthing, West Sussex) - English poet and literary critic, one of Amedeo Modigliani's muses, who lived with him in the same apartment in Montparnasse... and was the model for several of his paintings .

They met in June 1914. The talented and eccentric Englishwoman Beatrice, five years older than Amedeo, had already tried herself in the field of a circus performer, journalist, poetess, traveler, art critic, and there were many more attempts to “search for herself.” Anna Akhmatova would later write about her : "Another rope dancer..."
They immediately became inseparable. Modigliani came to live with her.


So, in order...
Beatrice Hastings (born Beatrice Hastings, real name Emily Alice Haigh) was born on May 12, 1879 in London.
She was married but divorced her husband, became interested in mysticism, published several rather bilious critical articles, and then began to write poetry herself. Much of her work before the outbreak of the First World War was published in British literary magazine New Age under various pseudonyms, she had a close relationship with the magazine's editor, R. Orage. She was a friend of Katherine Mansfield, whose work was first published in The New Age. After some time, she moved to Paris and became a famous character in the bohemian circles of Paris thanks to her friendship with Max Jacob (writer), who introduced them to Amedeo.
There were rumors that Beatrice was madly in love with Amedeo, trying to save him from drunkenness and poverty... It was also rumored that Beatrice drank much more than the artist himself...

One way or another, Beatrice at that time served as the artist’s main source of inspiration.
Modigliani's romance with Beatrice was a typical bohemian romance - with immoderate libations, endless conversations about art, scandals and fights, crazy love. Quarreling every day and even using their fists, they nevertheless lived for 2 years.

There were rumors that Modigliani once threw Beatrice out of the window.
Another time, he himself told his friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, that Beatrice beat him with a rag, and admitted that during the next brawl, Beatrice grabbed his genitals with her hands and teeth as if she wanted to tear them off.
Sometimes, when Amedeo was overcome by anxiety, anger, horror, Beatrice told him: “Modigliani, do not forget that you are a gentleman, your mother is a lady of high society.” These words acted on him like a spell, and he fell silent and calmed down.

In the Hastings archive, among the scattered records, the following was found:
“One day we had a whole battle, we chased each other around the house, up and down the stairs, and his weapon was a flower pot, and mine was a long broom.”
The description of this and other similar scenes usually ended with the words: “How happy I was then in this hut in Montmartre!..”
When he was furious, usually because she was paying attention to another man, he would drag her down the street by her hair

During the heyday of their love, he created some of the most significant works: portraits of Diego Rivera, Jean Cocteau, Leo Bakst, and, of course, portraits of Beatrice herself. It was during the war years and the affair with Beatrice that Modigliani managed to achieve some success.

In 1914, Paul Guillaume began buying the artist's works. In 1916, this “art dealer” was replaced by a native of Poland, Leopold Zborowski.
For the first time with her, Modigliani felt that “sensuality in painting is as necessary as a brush and paints; without it, portraits turn out sluggish and lifeless.”

A. Modigliani Portrait of Beatrice Hastings against the background of doors

She wrote about her attitude towards Modigliani’s work in the New Age magazine in 1915: “I have a stone head by Modigliani, which I would not be willing to part with for a hundred pounds, despite the current general financial crisis... This head with a calm smile embodies wisdom and madness, deep mercy and light sensitivity, numbness and voluptuousness, illusions and disappointment, locking it all in itself as an object of eternal reflection. This stone is read as clearly as Ecclesiastes, only its language is consoling, because no gloomy hopelessness in this bright smile of wise balance, alien to any threat."

Beatrice ran away from Modigliani in 1916. Since then they have not seen each other again.

English children's writer and Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866 in Kensington, London.
Beatrix Potter was sixteen years old when she first saw Lake District. Then, more than a hundred years ago, she fell in love with the beauty of its nature and decided to settle there someday. As an adult, she fulfilled her youthful dream and moved from London to Hill Top Farm. Beatrice drew detailed illustrations for her fairy tales, in which it is easy to recognize her native home with a garden.
The writer’s neighbors showed great interest in her work and were happy when they recognized their own houses in the pictures. They often saw Beatrice with a sketchbook, outdoors, in the countryside and in the nearby market town of Hawkshead. Local scenes formed the basis of fairy tales about little animals, and were performed so wonderfully that people still come from all over the world to see the places depicted in her books.
Beatrice loved animals very much and studied them all her life. When she was little, in her nursery there lived frogs, mice, a hedgehog, a newt, Isaac Newton, and even bat. Beatrice watched them and drew. And her drawings got better and better. By the time she began to depict her heroes dressed in dresses, frock coats and caftans, the animals in the pictures seemed to come to life. Beatrice had two pet rabbits, to whom she devoted many illustrations. She led one of them, Peter Rabbit, on a leash and took it with her everywhere, even on the train. She dressed him in a blue jacket and wrote her first fairy tale about him with her own illustrations - the most famous in the whole world.

Beatrix Potter's journey as a writer and artist began in 1902, when publisher Frederick Warne published The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Previously, several publishers refused the small book. Until 1910, Beatrice wrote, drew and published an average of two books a year. The fees gave her some independence, although she still lived with her parents. In 1905, Beatrice's publisher Norman Warne proposed to her. Beatrice agreed to marry, but Warne died of blood cancer a few weeks later. That same year she purchased Hill Top Farm in the village of Sorey. After Norman's death, she tried to spend as much time there as possible. Views of the farm and surrounding nature began to appear in the form of illustrations for her books. In 1913, at the age of forty-seven, Beatrice married the notary William Heelis and began to live permanently in the village of Sorey.
Beatrix Potter was one of the first to take up conservation in England. She gradually bought up the farms of her bankrupt neighbors, allowing them to continue farming. Beatrice bequeathed 4,000 acres of land and 15 farms National Park. She died on December 22, 1943 in Neer Sorey, Cumbria.
The first fairy tale translated into Russian was “Ukhti-Tukhti” - it was published in 1961 and then reprinted many times. In 2006, a feature film about her was released - "Miss Potter", where main role played by Renee Zellweger. In 2009, for the first time, her nine fairy tales in three books were published with original illustrations and translated into Russian.

Illustrations for the book: "The Tale of Benjamin Rabbit" | "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny"

And Beatrix Potter is forever associated with the Lake District. It was there in 1905, less than a year after the death of her beloved fiancé and publisher, that the devastated but determined writer bought Hill Top Farm.

Her admiration for these places is not surprising; even before Beatrice, the Lake District had become a legendary and invigorating place for many writers. In his poems, the Lake District was glorified by Wordsworth (by the way, his house-museum is located here), Coleridge and Southey. The trio of famous representatives of the Lake School were among the first English poets who turned their gaze from foreign landscapes to the primitive beauty of their homeland, appreciating the charm of simple life in the lap of nature.

The Lake District is one of the most popular holiday destinations among the British; every year they come here to admire the beauty, go on a yacht, dine at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and taste local ale.

On the territory of the region there is a famous national park The Lake District, home to England's highest mountain, Scaffell Pike.

From childhood, freethinking and a passion for natural sciences, unusual for a girl of that time, were distinctive features Beatrice Potter and influenced her further work.

After the scientific community rejected the research of an amateur, and more importantly a woman, Miss Potter decided to focus her attention on painting and literature.

In 1913, a marriage to a local lawyer (who was viewed with condemnation by the families of both parties) freed Beatrice from the yoke of her harsh Victorian parents, and she plunged headlong into the rural concerns she loved: haymaking, crop growing, and cattle breeding.

Her little children's books brought in considerable income, which made it possible to buy up the lands of bankrupt farmers in the neighborhood, giving them the opportunity to continue working on them. This is how her personal war was waged for the protection of her beloved Lake District.

She became one of the first members National Trust(National Trust), which was founded by her friend Canon Hardwick Rawnsley, who dedicated himself to protecting natural parks, lands and cultural monuments.

She bequeathed her farms and lands to this foundation, preserving much of the magnificent nature of the Lake District untouched for England.

It is to the care of the writer that England owes the survival of Herdwick sheep, living only in the Lake District, Cumbria, and North-West England.

According to the stories of contemporaries, Beatrix Potter, born in rich family at Kensington and received a strict Victorian education, she enjoyed the role of lady farmer. Hill Top, which she purchased with her own earnings from books, is located near one of the largest lakes in the Windermere region, and the writer’s house-museum is now open there.

It is no secret that the setting of the Hill Top farm, its garden, gates and vegetable garden became an inexhaustible source of inspiration and nature for the artist. If you refresh your memories before the trip, you can easily recognize the beds, fences and gates in the pictures of the famous storyteller, and if you take a book with you, you can look for differences.

However, the book can also be purchased in a shop next to the museum.

The small rooms of the writer’s house with furniture and dishes seem vaguely familiar to the reader. Thanks to the efforts of members of the National Trust and the Beatrix Potter Society, they were restored to the form in which they existed during her lifetime.

Kids will love her ten-year-old-sized cardboard cutouts of her characters. Adults will be able to immerse themselves in childhood memories, imagining that Peter Rabbit is about to jump out from around the corner.

Don't forget to visit also World of Beatrix Potter theme park on Lake Windermere, where your favorite characters - Peter Rabbit and Jemima the Duck - will come to life.

From Hill Top it is worth going to neighboring farms - Hawkshead, Nir Sori, U-Tree, where the beloved Potter Herdwick sheep continue to be bred. In addition to the fact that they provide excellent meat and wool, which is not afraid of any rain and snow, they also clear the hillsides of harmful weeds.

If you have time to spare, you can visit the writer's favorite places - the dilapidated Dryburgh Abbey, the church of her friend Canon Rawnsley and Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford Castle, which is 2.5 hours away from Hill Top.

The rich nature of northern Britain has always inspired Miss Potter. Beatrice could often be seen with her sketchbook near the lake of Coniston and Derwentwater with the small island in the middle described in the tale of Tommy the Tiptoe Squirrel.

It is known that one of her most famous characters, Peter Rabbit, was born in the small Scottish town of Dunkeld, in the house where the Potter family lived in 1893. From here Beatrice sent several drawings to the son of her former governess with the words: “My dear Noel, I don’t know what to write to you, but I’d better tell you a fairy tale about little rabbits called Flopsy, Mopsy, Whitetail and Peter Rabbit...”

In 2006, Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor starred in a touching biopic, which tells the story of the young storyteller's struggle for independence, as well as her romance with publisher Norman Warne, which ended tragically in 1905. The colorful world of the writer, brought to life in the picture in the form of jumping rabbits and ducks, strongly contrasts with the suffering that befell her.

On December 22, 1943, Beatrice passed away. At the request of the writer, the place where her ashes were scattered was not disclosed, and this secret died along with her friend and confidant. But it is known that she rested in those places that she loved so much - in the Lake District.

Hello. Today I want to tell you about an incredible woman named Beatrix Potter (Helen Beatrix Potter)- famous children's writer and artist.

She was born on July 28, 1866 in England.
She is known to everyone as a talented author of children's fairy tales and an artist - she illustrated all her books herself). The main characters of her stories were always animals, and this is not strange, becauseBeatrice loved animals very much and studied them all her life. When she was little, frogs, mice, a hedgehog, Isaac Newton's newt and even a bat lived in her nursery. Beatrice watched them and drew. And her drawings became better and better. By the time she began to depict her heroes dressed in dresses, frock coats and caftans, the animals in the pictures seemed to come to life. Beatrice had two pet rabbits, to whom she devoted many illustrations. One of them, Peter Pusch (Peter Rabbit), she was led on a leash and took with her everywhere, even on the train. She dressed him in a blue jacket and wrote her first fairy tale about him with her own illustrations - the most famous in the whole world.

Beatrix Potter's journey as a writer and artist began in 1902year when the publisher Frederick Warne published The Tale of Peter Rabbit " - The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Previously, several publishers refused the small book. Up to 1910Beatrice wrote, drew and published an average of two books a year.

The fees gave her some independence, although she still lived with her parents. IN 1905year, Beatrice's publisher Norman Warne proposed to her. Beatrice agreed to marry, but a few weeks later Warne died of blood cancer . That same year she purchased Hill Top Farm in the village of Sorey. After Norman's death, she tried to spend as much time there as possible. Views of the farm and surrounding nature began to appear in the form of illustrations for her books. IN 1913year, at the age of forty-seven, Beatrice married the notary William Heelis and began to live permanently in the village of Sorey.

In 2006, the film “Miss Potter” of the same name was released, where the role of Beatrice was played by actress Renee Zellweger. This is a very touching and heartfelt film about the life of Beatrice. About how difficult it is for a talented woman of her time to become independent and successful.