When I met Marcel Duchamp for the first time, I had just turned twenty-four. No, but I was good at sport. There were two things that pleaded in my favour: I had had an unhappy love affair when I was an adolescent, and I was leading an idle existence with no idea what to do with myself. My father wanted to untie the knot in order to marry Jeanne Montjovetβwho was still Madame de Morsierβand my mother was in tears all the time, desperately trying to keep her family together and win back the husband she loved.
It was a ploy to win time, for she still hoped that this flash in the pan would fizzle out in due course. She had, however, laid down one condition: no divorce until I was married, which was tantamount to putting the thing off indefinitely, since there was no one in view and, better still, I had just given a couple of hopefuls their marching ordersβthey were impossible anyway. So the atmosphere at home was tense to say the least. Everyone was looking after number one and nobody paid any attention to me while the crisis was on.
What was I going to do? Get out, run away from home, find a place to live, somewhere I could breathe! But although I was desperate to live my own life, I knew deep down that I could never throw in my lot with the first young man to come my way, especially if he turned out to be a goody-two-shoes I could never see eye to eye with. It also has to be remembered that marriage, for a girl of my generation, was a difficult operation to get right, but the only possible option when one had not chosen the sort of education that leads to a good job and total independence.
The choice was limited too, most of the young men five or ten years older than us having been killed in the war. Those who came back unconsciously traumatised by the brutality of military action were like demigods to me; they were awe-inspiring, but a little terrifying too. It was one thing to have what it takes to be a hero on the front, quite another to carry the stench of violence and impress a horror of bloodshed upon the sentiments of a young maiden.
I was duly reverent, but I was hardly tempted to build my nest under such psychological conditions. Some of my friends succumbed, but not me. I had dreamt of something else. I had not yet come across the tall dark handsome stranger that every young girl hopes will come along. Just meeting eligible types was a problem in itself, but my friends and I would hear nothing of formal presentations arranged by family or well-wishers.
