Laughing Torso - Reminiscences of Nina Hamnett

One morning towards the end of the year 1889, a lady who lived in a terrace of houses on the top of a high rock surrounded by battlements descended into the kitchen to order the food for the day. She was in a few months’ time to have a child. She was suddenly seized with a strong feeling that she must come upstairs, cross the garden and look down on the seashore. The impulse became so strong that she went upstairs, crossed the garden and looked over the battlements. Standing on the shore far below was a man with dark hypnotic eyes. This man, whenever he saw her, stared at her in a way that frightened her; he had lived a long time in the East.