Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 7 February 1873

Now I know why the Duke does not wish to see me. He is too occupied with Gioia. I had believed he would leave her, but that was only a dream. She knows him too well. He is too accustomed to her, and she has so many wiles to hold him, so many tricks!
And yet, just now, he looked at me and I blushed. Perhaps he sensed that I love him. How strange!
In the evening, at the Cercle de la Méditerranée, a soirée given by the Vicomtesse Vigier: La Sonnambula by Bellini. I had on a delightful pink dress, décolleté, and a high coiffure that suited me very well.
Vigier’s voice was magnificent — a little worn, a little shrill, but magnificent.
All of Nice was there, except Boreel.
But I was so happy to have seen the Duke that I did not even wish to see him for my own sake; rather, I wished he had seen me for his, for I was truly very pretty.

Notes

The Cercle de la Méditerranée, another of Nice’s exclusive clubs (Kernberger 2013, glossary). ↩
Bellini’s opera La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker, 1831). The Vicomtesse Vigier was the former soprano Sophie Cruvelli (1826–1907), who left the stage when she married the Vicomte Vigier (Kernberger 2013, glossary; Wikipedia, “Sophie Cruvelli”); Marie calls her “the famous Sophie Cruvelli” in July 1876. ↩