Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 15 August 1874

There are no -- or rather, I have not yet seen any Plobsters (white dress, black hat, the one from Brussels which I always wear now, never the others -- good).
I am reviving; I am well, thank God.
What happiness! And I am beginning to be just the tiniest bit pink. My heart beats with pleasure.
On the seawall, we take out a subscription and have lunch in that sort of greenhouse.
My aunt is a dignified, elegant woman -- just as I like. One cannot reproach her with any pettiness or grovelling -- nothing.
There is an enormous Plobster with a red beard, well dressed -- or undressed, as you will -- red-faced and with a stupid expression. This Plobster watches us and follows us everywhere; while we are lunching, he took a chair and sat opposite us at the edge of the seawall.
The ocean... but I am not going to describe the ocean, nor Ostende; everyone knows all that.
In the evening, after the Kursaal concert where they played "Je selle un cheval," a violin solo by Wieniawski, rather well executed by a local cad. I am delighted by it.
Since my aunt's arrival we do nothing but recall the charms of Spa.
Next year I shall come with a horse named Buffus and two dogs: Notlimah and Blackprince.
After the Kursaal concert we go to see the evening at the Cercle des Bains. One night they dance at the Cercle des Bains and the next at the Casino.
Society is a vulgar crowd, but there is a great quantity of it. One gets lost in the throng.
My aunt takes me away at ten o'clock, and on the front steps I see the amorous Beak.
Maman returns later with Dina and tells me that she has been introduced to the Plobster who stared at us so much at the theatre in Spa, when we were in the centre box. He is Count Doenhoff, head of the household of the Prince or Princess of Prussia. Then she was introduced to Count Noel de Leiser, a Pole naturalized English; Count Dounine-Barkovsky; and two young princes Kara-Georgevitch, aged twelve and thirteen. Not bad for a first time. What I should like, and what Maman wants and says, is for Doenhoff to introduce us to Marguerite's Plobsters -- she arrives the day after tomorrow.