Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 29 November 1874

My people had better escorts than one might suppose!! Monsieur le comte de Barrême, president of the club, and Monsieur Barbier, vice-president; Monsieur and Madame Howard, Count Merjeewsky, and Monsieur Tchernichoff, who arrived a few days ago. I am truly worried for my aunt — he is said to be dangerous.
I delayed going to church again; next Sunday I hope to attend the Russian church. It is raining, and at every street corner I seem to see the Duke of Hamilton. In this fine wet and cold weather I keep imagining I see his fresh face and his royal bearing.
The scandal at Georges's ended very miserably: that woman had him bound and thrown out of her lodgings — the lease is in her name. The wretched man arrived at our house from the police station to which they had taken him, in a state of terrible agitation. Despite all his horrors he loves that woman; despite all the misery she causes him, he adores her.
Let us leave that sad subject and go across to Rumpelmayer's — not the one on the Place Saint-Etienne, but the one at the Cercle de la Méditerranée. I went in with Maman. It is charmingly arranged; it lacks patrons, but once people get to know it they will come — I am sure; it is too pretty not to become fashionable.
Back home I prepared my Latin for Monday.
In the evening, the opera. I Puritani, which I am hearing for the first time. The opera is charming but the performance poor, except for the tenor.
A Sunday audience, and no Audiffret. In a box, Saëtone and the Marquis de Constantin — the latter hiding behind the former.
Moreno paid us a long visit.
I had on my white muslin dress with Valenciennes lace, my hair dressed very nicely, and a pretty complexion. I don't know whether it is nonsense or truth, but getting very cold and then smoking two or three cigarettes gives one a marvellous complexion. All the same I was bored — I see this evening that Audiffret amused me.
Old Emile was in the box with his daughters (Audiffret père).
On the way home in the carriage Maman told me I had made a conquest — it is a pity only, she said, that it is a married man.
— Who? I asked, for I truly had no idea.
— Constantin, she said. He did not stop looking at you the whole time. (Maman says vous to me as a term of tenderness — my aunt does too.)
— And then he came down to the stalls — I didn't know what had come over him, my aunt interrupted.
— Yes, and at the exit he stationed himself and followed with his eyes the whole time, never lowering them, Maman continued.
— Ah! I see, I cried. That is why you told me to move on, move on, when as we left I kept turning to see whether you were following! You were afraid he would devour me! Oh Maman, how frightened you are for me!
— That is all nonsense, Mother — it is your maternal heart imagining things.
— No, when I say I know, I am telling the truth — I am certain.
It is true that Maman has not been wrong in such matters yet; but I have great difficulty believing in my conquests, most especially this one. My God, that man does always look at me, it is true — but I never noticed anything, nor this evening either; and I think there is nothing in what Maman believes she sees. [Crossed out: And besides] Has she told me it is serious? No — so there would be nothing extraordinary in his finding me pretty and looking at me; that is what she calls a conquest, nothing more.
The mention of Audiffret always makes me smile. They call him simply Audi — nothing more.
I was asked whether I would marry him, and I replied that if I had not married by twenty-seven, and I were fading and losing hope of something better, I would marry him then — and only then. It is true.

Notes

Opera by Vincenzo Bellini (1835), I Puritani (The Puritans). ↩