For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings, and `it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning`. Picasso was there with `his high whinnying Spanish giggle`, as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - "The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me".