Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 19 February 1875

[30th notebook begun Friday 19 February 1875, ended Friday 2 April 1875 — Promenade des Anglais 55 bis, at my villa]
To my great surprise I see Countess Merjeewsky in the Rue de France. Once at Maman's I hear talk of the sick count — he has sent for Walitsky. It goes without saying that everyone immediately fell to recounting how desperately the horrid little creature is in love with me. But this conversation gives rise to another, the most agreeable for me. I was saying how much I detest this man:
— What would you do, Moussia, if when you came out of the dressing room where you smoke Merjeewsky was at the door? asked Dina.
— What would I do? I cried — What would I do? Upon my word, I would do something dreadful — I would throw something at his head. — When people talk of this horror I become unbelievably worked up, and everyone laughs.
Sacha always asks what I would do if I fell in love with a poor man. This time again I explained my way of thinking:
— Is it possible you are so affected! he said.
— Yes, listen — if I find a man who pleases me and who is also suitable, and both a poor man and a rich man please me, I will take the rich one. One only lives once; I was born, I have studied, I study in order to live well, and it is impossible to live poorly on a whim. And besides, no one can please me — I have such an idea of myself, I place myself so high (this may be stupid, ridiculous, but there it is) that for me to love someone, that someone must be someone extraordinary, great in every respect, better than you — I think I count too many great qualities for any man to please me.
— But find a man of good standing, my aunt interrupted.
— Exactly, I said. *I cannot find a man of good standing. Certainly this does not please me in the least, but it is good that you admit I should choose a man. This occupies me all the more in that between these two men there is an enormous difference — as if it were possible!
— But has someone pleased you?*
[Crossed out: No, I said, hesitating.]
— Yes, my dear, said Maman.
— Oh no, why not tell the truth — to you, for example — but this does not embarrass me at all. When I was very little a man of that sort pleased me... Boreel, that is all.
— Who? asked Maman.
— Boreel, you remember.
— Oh, what a girl! cried Dina, when I had confessed.
— My dear, what was ridiculous to say then is quite simple to say today.
— No, said Maman, if someone pleased you then, this man of good standing, suitable, pleasant (the charm of these precious words poured inexpressible joy into my heart). Hamilton — I knew what name she was going to say.
— Yes, I stammered, yes.
(I was saying yes, for the praise — not for anything else!)
— You see, Maman, there is a man of good standing and comme il faut.
— Yes, she said, but he has changed — he has married, the wretch.
I wonder — he has changed.
How idiotic, and why say such nonsense?
— But if we put Hamilton at the door of the dressing room — if on one side there is Hamilton and on the other Merjeewsky. Then, I replied with a smile, my dear Dina, I would of course go to the door where Hamilton was standing.
— Ah, ah — and you would throw yourself at his head?
— Why, on the contrary.
— And yet Hamilton pleases you.
(They were repeating that name so that Sacha would properly understand the illustrious choice.)
— Why speak of Hamilton? I said, gliding over the name. He is a married man, I continued severely. Why?
— He is charming, Maman kept saying. Oh, for what she said I could fall to my knees, prostrate myself before her and kiss her feet!
— But you used to say he was vile, good for nothing, wicked.
— I was afraid you might be drawn to him.
— Ah, Maman, what foolishness — what would that have prevented?
— I know, I know, she said, proud and happy, approving me with gesture and word from the beginning of these idle, incomparable exchanges. Oh, I am ridiculous perhaps, but I suffocate while writing and my eyes fill with tears! For two seconds my face hidden in my hands, and I am restored and ready to continue.
Yes, why do you know it? I cried with more energy than I wished — that I am drawn now. Why? Can this possibly prevent me in anything, could it have had any influence on anything that has existed? You know very well, I continued, calmer, that nothing prevents me — that I have judged everything. So then, why say such foolishness?
Why speak of this man, why drive me mad, why torment me and make me happy — why all this, I ask! Misery of miseries!
My God, my God, if You would grant my pen for even one hour the supreme grace of being able to explain what I feel, I would bless You all my life. It is also my own fault — why doubt myself, why want through writing what I know so well by heart? Truly! When I emerge from my painful numbness to enter into a fever like today's, it is then alone that I live, that I am happy, very happy, too happy!
And when I think of all the baseness, all the pettiness that surrounds me, and I say that with him all that would vanish, I rage, I weep. For in him lies not only my greatest, my only, my eternal love (eternal? who knows?), but also my salvation, the fulfillment of all my desires, all my ambitions — everything, everything, everything. Whereas outside of him, nothing, nothing, and nothing! That is right — vexations, falsities, small sorrows, small humiliations and great ones too, everything that chafes, ages, tarnishes, makes one wicked, renders one sharp-tempered, annihilates a woman like me.
Great God, forgive, oh forgive, if I blaspheme — but in truth I feel so very wretched. My God, my God, forgive, forgive, forgive!
What I say to God, I feel only at this moment — writing, I understand that I am blaspheming, that I am discontented with my life which is good, that I lack nothing; that I could exhaust the Lord's patience, and I beg His forgiveness — oh, from the very bottom of my soul, the very bottom of my heart! But yesterday (I am writing the next day) — yesterday I was not repenting, I was raging, I was praying by rote, I was straining with all my strength to understand what Brunet was saying at the Latin lesson — I understood little, I was impatient, agitated. I ate little and fell asleep weeping.