Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 9 September 1873

First German lesson. I did not like this language; only recently has it gained a charm for me, and I love it -- I study it with ardour.
After dinner I go out with the Princess in a two-seater (grey dress, very well) on several errands. Among other things I posted my letter to Mantel. God grant that this time I have success. Near the tobacco shop on Place Massena, Pitou jumps out of the carriage and the beasts of Nice surround him. I climb back in quickly, but so nimbly and gracefully that I am astonished at myself. From there, a turn on the promenade; it is still light. I had said, I no longer remember on what subject, "I adore --" whereupon the Beast tells me that I adore everything. Not everything, but a great many things, I replied; for example, I adore, I adore -- I was searching.
-- The Duke, says the Beast.
I smiled again, for I had thought it. In truth I love my lord. No matter how I think and compare, at the end of it all I can find nothing else but that I love him. If with him the affair should be blown up, I shall marry a rich fool who will not ask much, and I shall be fickle as the wind.
I said I should like to go to Poltava for a fortnight to throw dust in their eyes. But whom does this person wish to seduce -- Gritsia? What absurdity! And that was not in fact my thought; would I go for such a dirty business? "Why, my dear, he is a superb match, so rich."
-- What do I care? He is ugly.
-- How old is he?
-- Eighteen; he is too young, to go chasing after him as you did after your Liovouchka! No, thank you. And besides, he has not yet sown his wild oats (every time I must say something a little... I use "foolishness" -- it is simple and says it all; I could not very well say he has not yet lived; I said, done his foolishness, and was understood) -- and if he does so after the marriage, no, thank you. It is better to take one of thirty who has sown his oats than a greenhorn.
When I am twenty-five he must be forty, and so on; one must maintain the balance.
And truly a Russian boy like this Miloradovitch, a spoiled child who has not sown his oats, could not make me happy.
He would not understand that one can be the lover of one's own wife. But seven years after the marriage, he would go off amusing himself with actresses and French women. And I, abandoned -- by whom, no less? A Russian brat! No, it is too humiliating; I am saying absurd things. But with a little one like that, nothing is easier than keeping him on a leash. Am I some poor innocent who can be left at will? I really do humble myself too much. As if I have no resources to hold him -- and who, after all? A boy of twenty! Ha! Ha! We shall see. I shall be thirty and he thirty-four -- that is the most dangerous age, when one makes one's final choice. Well then, once I have managed to keep him at that point, he is insured for the rest of his life, like "la Paternelle."
But I am rambling. At La Victoire we eat ices. Pitou at first stayed on the box with Prater -- a curious sight. Gioia has two monkeys and her son is the third; he cannot be Hamilton's -- he is a little Jew. And who knows? Who would say Carlo is the Duke's brother?...
At home, Khalkionoff made Makaroff read the denunciation, played the whole comedy, and the poor devil rushed to Papa this morning to ask his advice, what to do. He is quite terrified, and especially because it says that Makaroff belongs to the family of the Mormons because Dina walks about without boots in dirty stockings.
It is charming how stupid he is.
Khalkionoff looks at me too much. I think he is not pleased; I never shake his hand. That is my principle: to give one's hand is a sign of friendship or sympathy. For him, neither one nor the other.
I made everyone laugh, laughed myself, ate an entire melon, and go to bed content.

Notes

In English in the original. ↩