Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 3 September 1873

Bensa comes to give his lesson. I had asked him to send me professors from the lycee; he applied to the deputy headmaster, who asked for a day. On seeing the programme, or the note I had given Bensa, he asked how old the young lady is who wishes to study all this and who could draw up such a programme. The idiot, Bensa said sixteen. Naturally I scolded him. I told him I am furious, enraged, and truly I am. Why say that I am sixteen? It is a lie. He excuses himself by saying that by my reasoning I am twenty, and that he thought it better to tell the deputy headmaster two more, because the man would not believe it otherwise, etc. I insisted that this very day, at dinner, at the lycee, he tell that man my true age. I insisted.
There is a terrible wind. Maman involves herself in the housekeeping and it drives me mad. I would like to see her elegant and pretty instead of looking like a charwoman -- an old dress, the filthy monkey with its cucumbers, etc. I detest it, I reproach her, and Maman takes the reproaches for scolding. I keep silent almost always to avoid scenes. But I cannot bear this housekeeping by Maman.
After dinner I go out with Dina, Paul, and Papa. At the Bon Marche I buy a toothbrush, a button-hook, a velvet brush, and a little comb. A pistol -- it amuses me, I am becoming quite a child. In the carriage I again implored Maman not to keep house, but in vain; she takes offence and launches into a long speech about how I detest her, how I think her unworthy, etc. etc. etc. -- as always, in short. My aunt, the Princess, and Walitsky are at Monaco. I am so bitten by mosquitoes in Nice -- what a nuisance! Tomorrow the Italian comes.