Like his name he was both dapper and ungainly. His clothes came from Lanvin but were unpressed; his hands were scrubbed, but the fingernails were bitten to the bone. His physiognomy showed a cross between weasel and trumpet, and featured a large nose through which he wittily spoke. His sunswept apartment on the Luxembourg was elegantly toned in orange plush, but the floors squeaked annoyingly. His social predilections were for duchesses and policemen, though he was born and lived as a wealthy bourgeois. His villa in Noizay was austere and immaculate, but surrounded by densely careless arbors. There he wrote the greatest vocal music of our century, all of it technically impeccable—and truly vulgar. He was deeply devout and uncontrollably sensual.