Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 19 August 1873

Luncheon at the hotel (green dress, not bad). We went out on foot. Wandering the boulevards; at Jouvin's I ordered a dozen and a half pairs of gloves. I dress myself — they give me two thousand five hundred francs a year. I have received one thousand. After Jouvin's we took a cab and went to Laferriere. I ordered a dark brown outfit, woolen cloth trimmed with ribbed silk: three hundred francs. I am astonished at how cheap it is. I was expecting four hundred at least. From there to the rue de la Paix. All of a sudden my aunt says:
"There are the Boyds."
"Where?"
"In that shop."
"And Berthe too?"
"No, the two older ones."
I went into the shop on the pretext of asking the price of a piece of work — it was indeed them. But Blanche has changed her hair; she is almost as dark as my aunt, and a smell of powder and worse emanates from them. I continue on my way. When one is in Paris, one does not know where to spend the time. I only know that imperceptibly we found ourselves on the verge of six o'clock. We went straight to Ledoyen's on the Champs-Elysees; there were many people. Paris is not Nice — it is useless to describe it; everyone knows what it is, what one sees there. It is enough to say that I went down the Champs-Elysees.
The men are very handsome, English or French, so well mingled that one can scarcely tell them apart. I see an iron-grey hat. Dina says: "Carlo Hamilton," at the very moment I was saying that a grey hat in Paris is too provincial.
Then she repeats that this is the first time; I had not understood:
"Really? No!"
"But yes — don't jump out of the carriage!" she says, making a gesture to stop me.
My aunt watches these outbursts with indignation. [Crossed out: She does not look at me.] She avoids looking at me and puts on a serious expression. I did not see him — I saw the hat, without knowing whose it was.
One doubts everything — well then, this evening I permitted myself to doubt: do I truly love the Duke of Hamilton? Here are my reflections: I do not love him; it is imagination. I have thought of him so much that I imagine things that do not exist. I could marry another, love another, embrace another.
I imagine myself the wife of another — he speaks to me, he touches me... Oh! No, no, no, never in my life. I should die of terror! All men disgust me except him. In the street, at the theatre, in the drawing room, I can endure them — more than that, without them I am bored; men are necessary. But as for loving one of them, or even imagining that a man might kiss my hand with love — that drives me beside myself. I do not explain myself well; I never know how to explain myself; but I understand myself. By the way, very often I try to discover what I have at the very bottom of myself, well hidden — the truth, at last: myself, my soul — for everything I feel, everything I say, everything I think, is only on the surface. Well, I do not know, but it seems to me there is nothing; [Crossed out: that is to say that] either too much or nothing. As, for instance, when I see the Duke, I cannot tell whether I hate him or adore him. Sometimes I even grow furious; I want to enter my own soul, and I cannot. When I have a difficult problem to solve, I begin; I think; it seems to me I am getting there; but the moment I want to gather it all up, to verify and to understand, everything is lost — everything vanishes, and I understand nothing, and at that very moment my thought flies so far, so far, that I am astonished and understand nothing. All that I say is not yet my core. I have none. I live only on the outside. To stay or to go, to have or not to have, is the same to me; my sorrows, my joys, my pleasures, my pains do not exist.
I am nothing! If I imagine the death of my mother, or the love of Hamilton, only then do I enter into myself. And even the latter — no; it seems to me so incredible, so impossible, so supernatural, that I think of it only from the outside, only in the clouds, only where I understand nothing. That is what drives me mad! In truth I should go mad in my innermost self. It puts me in a dreadful state. Enough — I shall never finish. In the evening (it was then that we saw Lord Hamilton) at the Theatre des Folies Dramatiques: La Fille de Madame Angot, the craze of the Parisians. I am furious that I cannot sing the tunes — I memorized them all!
This Paris! I cannot believe I am here. So this is the famous city from which all books come, of which everyone speaks. All books are about Paris, about its salons, its theatres, its drinking houses even, and about its most... It is here — the perfection of everything.
There is nothing above Paris! One wants furniture perfected to the point of divinity. Paris! The fashions — Paris! The salons — Paris! The men — Paris! The women — Paris! The vices — Paris! Virtue... I know nothing about that... let us say Paris!
In short, the world is Paris; Paris is the world! At last I have found what I desired without knowing what it was: to live is Paris; Paris is to live. I was tormenting myself, for I did not know what I wanted. Now I am at peace; I am no longer uncertain; I see before me; I see what I want.
"To move from Nice to Paris, rent an apartment, furnish it, have one's own carriage and horses as in Nice, and enter society through the Russian embassy."
There! There is what I want! Ah, and more! To become... no, later. How happy one is when one knows what one wants. And then I shall be able to know the Duke of Hamilton. That is the principal thing.
But here is an idea that tears me apart, that kills me, that tortures me — that — oh! there are no expressions strong enough! It is that I am ugly! Oh, it is dreadful. I do not know where this misfortune comes from; I have grown so ugly that I cannot believe my own mirror. But the Holy Virgin will have pity on me!!! I address myself to Her; She will not abandon me!