Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 5 May 1875

I go to lunch at Nina's with the others, but the botvinia (even writing the word dirties my pen) and the onions and such horrors make me desert.
I go home and have lunch served to me. I was thirsty; in the cupboard there was a bottle of champagne — I bravely drink half of it and then go on to Laussel's.
I waited quite a long time for my turn, and this waiting numbed me so thoroughly that I could scarcely maintain a proper demeanour.
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[Crossed out: As Maman has]
Coming back from Laussel's, I kept complaining about the dreadful lunch.
"Truly," I said, "it is better to smell of wine and tobacco than of onions and such horrors — you know," I continued, "yesterday at lunch, you remember—" Maman insists at all costs on putting me off the English, and especially off this Duke of Hamilton.
"Oh! As for him," cries Collignon, "it is true!"
"What is true?"
"That he smells."
"How would you know?"
"My dear, in Cairo he was always with the donkey-drivers."
"Well, what does that prove?"
"Why, he always has a short little pipe in his mouth, and he drinks brandy — constantly. You understand that with all that one cannot smell good!"
"No doubt."
"And then he is a coarse person — really — to the point that a lady in Cairo, an Englishwoman, a little fast, said to him: Take your fat carcase out of the way.
"A lady said that!"
"Yes, he is a grotesque creature, I assure you."
"No matter, but— Well, I do not know why my mother imagines I am in love with him and tries every means to put me off him."
"Off the carcass?"
"Why yes — off the carcass."
"But this carcass is married..."
"I know it perfectly well, but it is precisely for that reason they want to turn me away from him — for truly I don't know what devil makes them believe I am in love with this man."
Now this one too telling me dreadful things about him.
I have not seen the pipe; as for drinking brandy, I have known it for a long while, and, thank God, I do not trouble myself with such trifles.
Besides, people always gossip about personages like the fat carcase — and all those who, placed below, are obliged to look up at him, invent and embellish everything in their own way.
One need only listen — and one will hear fine things about all those who rise a head above the crowd, who are like a focal point for every gaze, and for all the tongues avid to speak of people — eager to show that they know things, that they know the fashionable world, the eccentrics; eager too to invent, to prove they know the men who set everyone talking, as this Hamilton has set everyone talking. For, for better or for worse, he has been talked about — greatly.
This calls to mind the story of the horse at Maurice's. I had seen the horse, I found it beautiful and wanted it. In Nice, the deacon wrote me such dreadful things about it, and my aunt said so many bad things about it, and Maman, without having ever seen it, spoke so ill of it — that I grew furious, I doubted myself, I doubted everything; and now, even if my life depended on it, I could not say what that horse was like.
It is the same with Alcibiades.
No, I could not have been so mistaken — he seemed beautiful to me, he pleased me. I know well enough he is neither an engraving nor a barber's sign; but he is a man — and a man who pleases me as no one else will, whatever anyone may say.
Then as now, people said dreadful things about him, and I too liked to slander him myself — but then he had his presence to counter those vile accusations.
Ah, I remember! Who was it but Madame Maman who found him so adorable — and in a burst of tenderness said that I resembled him!
Oh, the wretches — and I the fool!
Besides, what is this man to me? Whether he is handsome or ugly, not one single hair more shall fall from my head on his account!
I loved him; for some time now I have forgotten him — it was time, after two years, two months, and twenty-two days. When I see him I shall know where I stand.
Love for him, if love it is, will impede me in nothing — I have said already that I am a very reasonable person. Too reasonable, perhaps.
In any case — time will tell.

Notes

Botvinia: a cold Russian soup made from kvass and beet greens. Marie finds it repellent. ↩
Fast: a period English term meaning bold, forward, of dubious propriety — said of a woman. In English in the original. ↩
Take your fat carcase out of the way: In English in the original. ↩
The fat carcase: In English in the original — Marie adopts the insult she has just heard, but ironically. ↩