Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 2 December 1874

What a day of humiliations and deep affronts! Exclamations and complaints make suffering commonplace. I shall not complain — I shall simply recount what happened to me today.
1° Markevitch came in the morning to tell my mother that Schablikine, just leaving her house, had told her that the entire expatriate colony — weary of Georges's continual scandals and above all outraged by his affair with Prodgers — led by Prodgers himself intends to petition the new prefect, Monsieur Decrais, to expel Monsieur Georges de Babanine from the Alpes-Maritimes département. 2° I do not know who told Maman that her son's conduct is such that she must expect one of these days to receive an official reprimand from the prefect on the matter.
She recounted all this at dinner, then dissolved into tears. I did not weep — but I felt such rage and shame that I turned quite pale.
Numb, eyes fixed, lips white, with an automaton's step, I left the dining room. My aunt caught up with me halfway; I asked her what Markevitch had said, and she told me that because of Georges and Paul and everything in general, and above all because of Patton's gossip, they want to ask the whole family to leave Nice — that Patton is behind it. However absurd the thing was, I believed it to such a degree that on reaching my room I thought I would die of shame and despair. Maman came and began reproaching my aunt for having told me this; then, as if to correct her, she assured me it was not true — but this made me angry, a rage I kept inward, sitting motionless with my chin in my hand. I was alone again, and when my aunt and Dina came in and tried to speak, I took them by the shoulders and gently pushed them out of the room saying: Go away, I cannot look at you — and locking the door I fell straight down on a mattress on the floor and began to weep. It was then that I had, for a moment, the thought of poisoning myself with one of the acids from my chemistry set.
On this point I am more sensitive than for the death of all I hold dear. They take more than my life from me when they take my social standing — and shame and affront are for me worse than any torture imaginable. If such a thing were to happen, it is very possible I would die without even doing anything about it. It is only — only!! — because we are not received in society that I suffer a continual martyrdom. And for this I vow to Patton an eternal hatred, for he is the cause: it is he who turns everyone against us as if we were thieves, assassins, dangerous people — and what else besides! What would become of me, my God, if this were true? My imagination cannot conceive it. When I was told, I turned cold and felt something like a rustling in my hair — no doubt it was standing on end. I climbed the stairs and lay down near the large dog, bewildered, feeling that if the house were on fire I would not stir. I lay in that position for nearly an hour; then I came to sit at the table and looked at myself in the looking-glass. I drew out my diary, opened it, dipped my pen in the ink — but the pen remained motionless and the page white; I could not move; I was turned to stone.
I asked for tea and drank a cup; then I asked my aunt to wash my hair, which she did. Calmer but still dazed, I wrote. It has been more than four hours now, and I am far from recovered. As to our expulsion from Nice — is it true? Why, indeed, would my aunt invent such a thing? [Crossed out: And besides] Yet it seems to me an absurd and impossible thing. What have we done? And do the scandals of Georges Babanine concern the Mesdames Bashkirtseff and Romanoff? One is not responsible for the conduct of a brother living separately and who is of age! And who knows — perhaps Patton has talked so much that it has become possible, since they say he is behind it.
My mother's reassurances seemed to me quite pitiful and trite — even while saying it was not true, she was telling my aunt that certain things are only for older people and should not be said to the young, [Crossed out: to] especially to Marie, on whom they cast a profound despair. Yes! It is true. My mother and aunt are sullen and crushed and are making efforts to appear natural. From them now I shall never learn the truth — it is finished. My aunt will be careful not to speak again after those reproaches, and my mother, by an infuriating concealment, will think she does better by keeping silent and leaving me in a doubt worse than anything dreadful in this world. I do not know what I ought to believe; I know that I am very unhappy — I was before, I am today — and this latest blow would be the roof of the building that rises stone by stone, every day. My God, why must I suffer? What have I done? And must I be sacrificed for the faults of others! When it is not even my mother — it is my uncle — it is so remote from me.
I have barely begun to live, and already I am spattered with others' mud.
God! Thou art just — Thou wilt not let me perish in so much darkness! Thou wilt save me from the abyss into which I am being dragged! Thou wilt cleanse me of the disgrace that is spread over me! But what have I done, my God! Must I suffer shame for others' sake! My God, Thou knowest that this shame is worse than death to me, and that I would give everything — everything in the world — to be able to occupy at this moment a proper social standing — a proper one only! I ask for nothing more.
Just Heaven, Almighty God, Jesus, and Mother of Christ! It is to You I turn — save me! I have only You! This time it is not happiness I pray for — it is that You should not let me perish miserably; it is that You should save me from this dreadful shame. Hear me, and if I have sinned — forgive me!
You are too great — the punishment of a wretch, a grain of sand like me, is unworthy of You. Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive me!

Notes

Albert Decrais, new prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes (1874–1876). Under French law, prefects had the authority to expel troublesome foreigners from their département. ↩