Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 9 June 1875

Straight to the sea baths with my aunt. There we find numerous company and the man in white, who blushes deeply. He bows from a distance, then comes to bow up close and blushes; then draws his chair nearer to our bench and blushes again. It is charming. Since I expressed my opinion on small straw hats, he has worn one no more — a service I have rendered him.
Yesterday and this morning I was alarmed when told that Girofla had left. Mlle Collignon, who is on the second floor and passes every moment before the landing window from which one can see the château (it was from this window that she followed us with her binoculars on the day of the English girls) — Mlle Collignon, I say, reports having seen lights there all evening, whereas there never are any — given that the man in white is always out.
At noon today the thing like a white flag appeared again. Toward four it was gone, then again — Dina called me and the three of us, Dina, Collignon, and I, set to peering at the doll or the flag (impossible to say what it is — sometimes white, sometimes grey, sometimes as dark as the château itself; I think it rotates). As we were absorbed in this investigation, Walitsky arrived coatless and waistcoatless, turned about, made faces, and finally swung round toward us and bowed like a musketeer — so that if Girofla was doing what we were doing, he saw the window filled by Walitsky's broad back and all that followed from it.
Walitsky gone, we resume our watch — and at the window we make out a grey shape and a dark head. Of course! It is our man. And he saw... so much the worse for him. It is interesting having that château there — a most entertaining target.
Let me go back a little, as our Niçois say, to the sea baths.
I am pleased with myself, and my aunt is delighted with me. All of Nice was there and heard what I said. I spoke in an even voice, a little low but well. On being asked what I had been doing:
— I have been studying, Monsieur.
— Latin, as always?
— Yes, Latin — do you know, you were right the other day: it is lupum and not lupus. I knew it already, and besides I am much further along — I was obliged to go back a long way to find that teneo lupum auribus.
— You wanted to verify whether I was speaking truthfully...
— Are you still studying Latin?
— Thank God, no — it has been a long time since I did any.
— That is not right. I shall always study it, and if you meet me in ten years I shall speak it as fluently as French.
— In ten years!
— What year will that be?
— 1885.
— Well then! I give you a rendezvous in 1885, in Paris, on the day of the Grand Prix.
I have set this down to show that people heard that I know Latin. In truth, nothing enchants me so much as erudition, and provided someone speaks to me of Homer, Cicero, Virgil, and so forth, I am content and radiant — especially when people hear me speaking in such a manner. And they did hear me.
— How is Girofla? And my friend Dominique? — He calls Fritz by that name.
— They are very well. But do you know what Girofla did? He did not come home with us but stayed at Mme Sapogenikoff's — though he returned in the morning.
— Ah! He came back?
— Yes.
— Have you seen Fiouloulou?
— Oh, please don't say that — I shall laugh too much.
And indeed I laugh. These names Girofla and Fioulou spoken by Audiffret at the sea baths, overheard by the entire company who have no idea what they mean — they make me laugh.
— No, continues the man in white, but Fioulou said it very well in the moonlight — what luck to be able to say Fiouloulou to the stars!
Then we speak of the outing to the Loup, and Audiffret asks my aunt if we might do it again but on the other side.
I spoke well; I was pleasing, calm, comme il faut. I am satisfied, and my aunt delighted.
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Audiffret asks if I am leaving soon.
— Her uncle arrives in four days, my aunt answers.
— Impossible!
— Yes.
— But no, you cannot leave — and why go to Russia? Et cetera, et cetera.
He always says this when I speak of leaving, and appears genuinely vexed by it.
The Durands, seeing me with this man who was their suitor and who now sends them only mocking smiles, converge from every direction, surround me, monopolize me, say every flattering thing imaginable (I say much the same to them in return), and talk to me of dresses, Worth, Laferrière.
Meanwhile Bihovetz approaches my aunt and Lucarini comes to speak to her.
Lucie gets up, passes in front of Audiffret, knocks my hat askew and runs off, spinning like a top across the deck, then comes back and chats with me. On my right I have Lucie, on my left Marie, in front of me the little Durand, and a little further on... in a word, I am up to my neck in this extravagant but likeable family.
My aunt is the first to rise and we go out.
Girofla, who had moved away during the avalanche, comes out as well. This avalanche reminds me of Berthe Boyd, who the moment Rémy was near me would rush over and carry me off.
I persuade my aunt to walk to the café, and within a minute the man in white catches up with us — flushed again. But Saëtone carries him off midway.
At home my aunt recounts everything in her way — that Girofla said he has been thinking since Monday of the song I sang, Dormi pure, of the words of the song. I thought I heard the words of Down our Mother Volga — but that would make no sense.
I did not quite understand it and have written nothing of it here — but no doubt my aunt recounts it in the best way. Perhaps she is right.
I believe such things so reluctantly. But Collignon accepts his being in love with me, which inclines me somewhat to believe it.
That Collignon fears for my heart — she has spoken to Maman, saying the young man is a Lovelace, that one must take care... and a thousand similar pieces of nonsense.
I know I please the young man. My aunt tells me so and gives me to understand it at every moment — and then, toward evening, when we are all together:
— You think you please him! He never thinks of you — it is all nonsense.
This outburst makes everyone laugh.
And I declare solemnly that if he is not yet entirely in love with me I consent to stay another fortnight.
— And why? Would you marry him? says Collignon.
— No, but because — et cetera — because I swore an oath in the manner of Abraham, placing my hand under my thigh, to make him crawl on all fours from our villa to the sea baths.
Coquette with a hard heart! she cries. God will punish you — one day you will love madly, and people will mock you.
Of course — I am already in love, so I cannot love madly again.
It's true — I do not fear it; thanks to the Duke of Hamilton I am insured against fire, as if by la Paternelle.
Thank you! Everything that comes from you is good.

Notes

"teneo lupum auribus" — Latin: "I hold a wolf by the ears" — a proverb meaning one is in a dilemma: too dangerous to hold on, too dangerous to let go. ↩
The Grand Prix de Paris — the great horse race at Longchamp, the most prestigious event of the Parisian social season. ↩
In English in the original. ↩
Lovelace: the libertine villain of Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa (1748), whose name became a byword for a seductive, unscrupulous womanizer. ↩
An allusion to the ancient oath-taking gesture in Genesis 24:2–9, where Abraham's servant swears by placing his hand under his master's thigh. ↩
La Paternelle — a well-known French insurance company of the period. Marie means her passion for the Duke protects her from catching fire with anyone else. ↩