Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE NEW AGE 63

Janko called in a little later and I asked him why he had given me such a poor description of Mr. Mitrinovic. He murmured something about ‘an ordinary man.’ “But,” I said, “you never saw an ordinary man with a smile like that, it is an angel.”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s just Slav childishness, we all have it.” I was shocked and behaved cruelly. “Anyhow,” I said, “you haven't.”

The next day—Monday—I felt too exhausted even to stand upright, and only later realised it was probably due to the intense mental effort I had made to understand what Mr. Mitrinovié had been saying the day before.

The following day—Tuesday—just as I was going to have lunch—he walked in, carrying a large punnet of raspberries—“I have come to lunch,” he said, “and I have brought you some raspberries.” As we ate, he continued Sunday’s talk, as if there had been no interruption. Again I tried, floundering, to understand this strange language. We had the raspberries and when his plate was empty, I said “Have some more raspberries.” He shook his head and I pressed a bit, “Just three. I will pick you out the nicest ones.” He smiled, so I went to his side and found three fine ones. Suddenly, his face puckered like that of a disappointed child—“Oh,” he said, or perhaps wailed, “that wasn’t the one I wanted!”

After that, he came fairly frequently to see me. It surprised me, for I really couldn’t respond properly to him. But, that a person such as he could exist was a perpetually increasing wonder for me. No matter what subject I spoke of, he, as it were, took me by the hand and led me along that path beyond the furthest horizon I could ever have dreamt of. . . .

He used, sometimes, to bring on Sunday afternoons, Petar Konjević, the Serbian composer. Together they would play and sing their Yugoslav songs and dances. For me it was like the opening of a door on to a new universe, full of nobility, colour, tenderness, strength. And when they stopped and went away I could almost hear the click of the latch as that door shut again.

Mitrinovié became a frequent visitor to the Studio in Fitzroy Street, making friends with many of the artists who would gather there: including Bernard Leach, the potter; the conductor Edward Clark and the designer Sophie Fedorovié who both worked with Diaghilev; Iris Tree, Matthew Smith and Augustus John.

A number of his acquaintances undoubtedly responded to him in much the same fashion as Willa Muir: viewing him as a remarkable and unusual man, a knowledgeable crank with an engaging line in “nonsense-mongery.” To do so would be to concentrate upon merely one aspect of his public self—he did like to provoke people, he did have a sense of the absurdand to ignore the many other facets. He took himself and his self-appointed