Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 9 April

What a strange spring! Cold and grey.
Before going home I stop at Nina's and bring the girls to dine with me. Dinner had begun calmly, but towards the middle the devil got involved by making me talk of Homer. Papa then told me I had no idea what the Iliad was. I went crimson with rage and told him it was he who had no idea, and asked him what of Homer survived besides the Iliad.
— Nothing — there is only the Iliad! (I nearly choked with triumph.)
— And the Odyssey? I say — and the Odyssey, what do you make of that?
— I don't know what you're talking about — there is no Odyssey.
— Not only the Odyssey, but there is also a mock-heroic poem — the Batrachomyomachia! [sic]
At this I began laughing so hard that Marie and Olga laughed too — we all laughed, and Grand-papa got angry, and we made our escape.
For two days he has been trying to persuade me that men are apes, that God does not exist, etc., etc. — all manner of absurdities not even worth discussing.
Indeed, if we were descended from apes, there would have had to be intermediate beings, for a she-ape does not suddenly give birth to a man — that change would have had to come about by degrees. Men, since the beginning of the world, have not changed — not in form, and not even in character.
How then does it come about that they stopped in their course of transformation and for so many centuries have remained the same?
I speak no longer of the beginning of the world — but the earliest epoch [Crossed out: the most distant] of which we have paintings and statues is remote enough that one should be able to detect some change.
Or let us grant the fable of the apes — what caused this transformation?
We are descended from apes, but at a certain point — having doubtless reached the required degree of perfection — we stopped. But required by whom, by what? Why did the apes become men? Who did that? — Nature!
Well — what is Nature, if not God?
And why does Nature leave apes as apes for so long? And why do hens not produce special beings, but always chicks, and cows calves?
Now, as proof one has these frightful men found not long ago, somewhere — in New Malaysia, I believe — who are almost apes. But that proves nothing — I am mistaken, it proves that I am right.
The father of this King Totambao was like him, and his son will be as ugly as he is, and his son's son likewise... It is not a race in transformation but a particular race made as it is by the influence of climate, degree of civilisation, isolation, and having no intercourse with other men.
Who gave speech to man? Ah — now there is a question! They claim that James III of Scotland had two children shut away with a mute woman, and that the sounds they articulated after two years resembled Hebrew. This is only a fable, naturally.
In my ignorance, I suppose that God gave speech to man. But they say a child who had never heard anyone speak would not know how to say anything.
This is getting too learned for me — besides, I believe I have let myself go a little too far.
I was bored and said so aloud, which made the children laugh and amused me.
What a creature I am — I wept reading about the death of Alexander the Great, and was so vexed at seeing this demigod die so young while so many upstarts outlived him, that I opened the window and whistled for five minutes. It is by whistling that I express my greatest vexations!
Then the same story for Napoleon at Saint Helena — I grieved less for Caesar. But for Nero and Alcibiades — tears, tears!
These children were talking of love — I laughed.
I cannot fall in love.
And why?
— Because I already am. Oh yes! — in love with Alcibiades and Nero. Truly, my children, I cannot understand how one can love the riffraff of today!
Find me something like Alcibiades — now that would be something! That is a man! But to love a nobody for his mug, as the Genevans say — that is degrading, I assure you!
— You are in love with Alcibiades? Nonsense — it is someone you are giving that name.
— Not at all — it is true — the great, the beautiful Alcibiades, on my word as Marie!
Why would you want me to lie for you, when I would not lie even for the Prince of Wales!
Before all this, without mentioning their names, I had recounted the business of Rémy, Berthe, the duke, etc.
By the way, the little Spaniard's name is Marquis Calderon, and as Olga was sighing over him, I said it would be his name, but slightly altered: Colorado Claro.
— Ha! Ha! said Marie — and what about me?
— You are Dubeque Aromatique! And you then?
— Oh! I am modest — I call myself Madame Alcibiades.
I recount all these foolishnesses because: our sweetest pleasures are in our memories; in rereading this I shall be amused, and may weep.
Baden remains my sweetest memory. I recount it as old soldiers recount the great battles in which they fought.
On this note, Madame Alcibiades retires.