Prokofieff: An Intimate Portrait

I was introduced to Serge Prokofieff in 1931. It was in Paris one evening when he came to conduct at the Salle Pleyel a festival of some of his symphonic works. In the diffused grey-green light of the foyer a tall man was standing, his arms crossed on his chest in what I later came to know as a characteristic attitude, with fingers gripping the elbows firmly. His face was in shadow as he had his back to the light. The shape of his head was oblong, solid and regular. His chest looked strong. I approached him from the side and as he turned towards me with liveliness I was struck by the extraordinary blue luminous clarity of a look that I shall never forget—one of those looks that a child gives you, that is so unusual and so moving in a grown man. In the years that followed I was to see this freshness, this transparent naïveté sometimes shadowed over, the pupils troubled like those of a boy who begins to ask himself what is beauty, or what is beyond it. But on this particular evening it was sparkling, because the concert had been an unqualified success. At the same time, for a fleeting moment, I noted in his face the reflection of that seriousness which is habitual when one is alone. It lasted for a tenth of a second; then an irresistible charm was born. Serge Prokofieff had begun to smile—that delightful smile which spreads across his mobile lips, a shade sensual, but scarcely deeper in colour than his fresh complexioned face.