Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 3 March 1875

[Crossed out: For tomorrow they announce the Empress's visit on the occasion of the accession to the throne of our Sovereign and of the Liberation of the Serfs.]
Yet another day passed eating oranges, omelettes, and bread, and talking of Miloradovitch. Can my mother think so little of me that this marriage is so dear to her heart, that she desires it as my supreme glory and felicity?
Alexandre recounts that this young imbecile is famous for his stupidity — "as stupid as Miloradovitch" they say there. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But then he says the boy always wants to get married, and that quite recently his mother had great difficulty dissuading him from a young Bohemian woman^[Likely a Romani woman.] with whom he had become infatuated; and then again that if I were to go to Russia, nothing in the world would be easier to arrange than this marriage — the little fellow being willing to wed every skirt he encounters. A fine honor for me. He would take me just as he would take anyone else, and I would not even have the glory of being loved for what I am. Fie!
As Maman asked me why I did not consider this a suitable match — firstly because he is too young: I would teach him everything, I would make a man of him, so that ten years later — or even sooner — he would make my life wretched with all the lessons I had given him. Upon my word, that would be too stupid.
I end with what I should have begun with: this morning at eleven o'clock we go to mass at the palace, a mass for the anniversary of the Emperor's accession to the throne and of the Liberation of the Serfs (grey dress, good). Sacha, Nadinka, I and Dina. All the Russians living in San Remo were notified of this yesterday.
I confess that when the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the door, and the doorman in Imperial livery all covered in gold and Russian eagles opened the carriage door, I felt agitated and blushed. All these flunkeys saluted us and escorted us as though we were truly persons of importance — at the very entrance I was seized with a giddiness at finding myself thus, all at once and for no reason, at the palace of the Empress.
The church is arranged in a ground-floor room, and the priest from the Russian steamer is saying the mass, which had already begun when we entered. Her Majesty was in the adjoining room, at the door of the hall, and by leaning to the right I could see the chair on which she was resting, her white hand with long rosy fingers covered in rings; I leaned further still and saw her face — but as it happened she raised her eyes at that moment and fixed them on mine, so I dared look no more. Besides ourselves, there were a few ladies not belonging to the Court. The Empress's ladies waited behind her and I did not see them until she entered the hall to kiss the cross, to receive the prosphora^[Prosphora: leavened bread used in the Orthodox liturgy.] from the priest's hand and kiss it — as our sovereigns do by way of example. Behind her came the ladies-in-waiting, the generals and chamberlains, and Botkine unrecognizable in his uniform with his crosses and grand sashes. He has earned them, moreover — for from this sickly, pale woman he has made a strong, rosy, and still young one. She was without a hat, with nothing on her head but a sort of black lace bow, dressed in a plum silk skirt and over it a sky-blue garment with blue fringe and bows. Towards the middle of the service my head swam — no doubt from lack of food and the incense the priest was lavishing on the faithful — and I was obliged to go out onto the steps, where a chair was brought to me; seated there, I saw five or six landaus arrive full of naval officers in full dress uniform and tricorn hats, and I watched them enter as through a mist, I was feeling so faint.
Finally recovered, I went back in, and thanks be to God was able to stay quietly through to the end. After the service everyone came out and the corridor was invaded by all manner of persons in uniform, footmen, and private citizens like ourselves. Then the sailors were placed all along the staircase, one on each step, beside a pot of flowers. Then, without ceremony and quite tranquilly, like a simple mortal, Her Majesty came out in her turn, walking rather quickly — [One line cancelled] — we made our curtsy when she passed. Having mounted a few steps, she stopped a moment to say the time-honored words: Good day, my children! — pronouncing the r in the Romanov manner, but with a fairly marked German accent — to which the sailors replied without the slightest enthusiasm and quite weakly: We wish health to Your Imperial Highness! — in the way one always says this, which greatly resembles the cry of a turkey, for one cannot make out a word, but as one knows in advance what is being said, one contents oneself with this turkey-language.
A few steps higher, the same exchange of greetings.
After this we depart. The Empress and the Court seemed so accessible, so simple, that I cannot get over it. I was there like the first nobody of a woman that walked in, and this embarrassed me a little. It makes me think that my estimable father, the Marshal of the Nobility,^[Marshal of the Nobility: elected head of the provincial gentry in each Russian province.] is to be made a Gentleman of the Chamber,^[Gentleman of the Chamber: a Russian court rank granting access to the Imperial Court.] which gives us the right to go to Court. Oh, for that I am prepared to go to him and make our peace — which is not difficult, given that on the strength of a sort of promise from Maman he had a full-length portrait of himself painted, placed it in the hall, and invited all the local nobility to celebrate his wife's imminent return. Poor fool! He would have his wife like a piece of furniture, for he loves society, honors, pomp, magnificence — he is vain and proud, and in that I take after him.