Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday 27, Saturday 28 August 1875

H[is] G[race] t[he] D[uke] o[f] Hamilton]
Book 40
from Friday 27 August 1875 to Wednesday 1 September 1875 — Grand Hotel, no. 146-147, Paris.
Where do you think I am today? At Schlangenbad, at the Hotel Planz — that is what you would answer.
Not at all. Neither at Schlangenbad, nor at the Hotel Planz, nor even in Germany. That's quite something! Well?
I am in Paris, at the Grand Hotel — and if you had been more attentive you could have seen as much on the cover of this notebook.
Plevasko is in Paris, my aunt hurries to him, summons Stiopa; delighted at the opportunity, I pack my things in the space of two hours and leave with him. We are seen off as far as Bingen.
Prater was yelping and tearing himself away from those who held him. He is a singular dog. At Schwalbach he was the admiration of everyone.
I am a wicked girl — I leave Maman telling her I am delighted to go. It hurts her. She does not know how much I love her and judges by appearances. And in appearance I am not very tender.
The thought of seeing my aunt again occupies me — poor aunt, who is so bored without us, without me.
Poor Maman that I abandon! My God, what can one do — I cannot cut myself in two!
It was on Friday at eleven o'clock that I left the Schlangenbad of my heart — the only place in the world that I do not miss. How dreadfully bored I was in the railway carriage! One cannot imagine it.
And on Saturday at five o'clock I arrive at the Grand Hotel. At the French border I breathed for the first time since leaving France.
It was with vexation and sadness that I looked upon the territory stolen from the French by those damned pigs.
There are people who extol German cleanliness. Oh! Where have they seen this cleanliness!
The children are dirty, the animals mixed in with the people, the streets filthy, the hovels dirty!
Only once did I go to Waldmühle to get some milk — a charming German woman served it to me with arms smeared with manure. It could not have been more appetizing!
I should like the Emperor of Russia to fall madly in love with me — then I would push him to make war on the Prussians and would yield only after a splendid victory.
It is a quarter past nine.
I wrote to Maman the following.
Arrived at five in the morning at the Grand Hotel no. 146-147 — it is only eight o'clock and I am already writing to you. That proves my eagerness.
My aunt will doubtless arrive this evening. Stiopa will go to the station…
For a fortnight I had not breathed at all — I breathed for the first time on entering France, that blessed country, after the dear land of sausages from which I have just emerged.
I am in wonderful health. I embrace you all, Diadia too if you see him. Goodbye.
Marie.
Take care of yourself, Maman, and come back soon.
I begin by being bored and impatient before my aunt's arrival!
I forget a great many things.
At the Batourines' I learned a charming piece of news. News for me — ancient history for everyone else.
I had said that Carlo was dead, or near enough — it seems this is old news, as old as the world itself.
Carlo is alive — Carlo is married!
He broke his leg, he fled, they brought him back and married him off. Those are Batourine's words — he was about to say more but, remembering he was speaking to a young girl, fell silent!
Carlo fleeing Paskevitch. What a fortunate woman. Now she will go to England — he will take her to Court. And who is she? Her grandfather, an obscure officer, married and had a son; this son grew rich, according to everyone, by counterfeiting money.
He is found out; a commission is dispatched from Petersburg to search his house. He and his associates give a million roubles to delay the police's arrival by one day. During that day all the machinery is buried and the spot covered over with turf.
When they came, they found nothing.
That is the source of their wealth. The daughter married Paskevitch, secretary to an embassy.
And now she is the sister-in-law of the Duke of Hamilton, allied to the greatest families of England.
If at least she were beautiful!
Short, stout, grey eyes, ash-coloured hair, a wide mouth with uneven lips, a pale face!
They say in Russia: "Neither witty, nor rich, nor handsome" — translated: one need not be born beautiful, rich, or witty, but one must be born lucky!
What is wrong with me, to keep forgetting her maiden name — how vexing!
There! At last I have it! Mademoiselle Soukhanoff. Soukhanova. Not one finger above Bashkirtseva!
Let us not despair — I am sixteen, sixteen, only sixteen. How much time I have before me!
I do not despair — on the contrary I am all fire and flame, everything seems rose-coloured to me. I await my aunt with an indescribable impatience.
I want to go out, to run, to go everywhere. I am happy!
It is only half past ten!
She will not arrive until this evening — perhaps tomorrow!
But I am tired — I have slept barely five hours, four only, and poorly. I have not the courage to sleep in the daytime.
Alexandre writes that the lawsuit is going well. The inquiry is over. The experts will examine Romanoff's signatures — those Samoyeds dare to doubt their authenticity, they dare to allege forgery, the sacrilegious wretches! I myself witnessed how Romanoff signed everything.
Everything will depend on their decision. Either the signatures will be recognized as valid — and then I shall leap to the heavens with joy — or the contrary. Then there will be a trial for fraud. But God will not allow such an infamy to take place; He knows that none of us has committed such a horror, He knows that it was Romanoff himself who signed!
Adam was not even in Russia. My aunt has invented the whole thing.
No lawyer is needed — one will only be required in the abominable event that these devouring wolves, these scoundrels, should have bought the experts.
I have confused myself — there will be experts for the signatures, and there will also be others: these latter will be doctors to judge, from the late Romanoff's acts and various testimonies, whether Romanoff was or was not afflicted with insanity.
That will be difficult to decide, Romanoff having been dead for five years. They will decide as they please, these weathervanes.
Everything depends on the decision of these people. This is where I must kneel down and pray to God as I have never prayed. It is a matter of life and death.
Triumph, wealth, and an unblemished name — or trial, shame, ruin!
God knows whether we are guilty — God will decide.
If they were to say he was mad, we are guilty of exploitation, of deceit, of a host of horrors.
I have never described what my uncle was like — I have never told this story.
Thadée Romanoff, of an excellent family, had lived to the age of forty-seven without any attachment, without love of any kind. The parasites were accustomed to his money, and his sister to the idea of inheriting his fortune.
After drinking and carousing for a fortnight in Kharkiv he returned to Akhtyrka, where he was marshal of the nobility, in a state that is easy to imagine.
A rumour spread that he had gone mad — it was not true, but once the rumour was abroad his smallest gestures became suspect.
He beat his servant for theft — the man cried out that it was raving madness; they bound the poor fellow and subjected him to every kind of violence.
A little before this time he had made our acquaintance. He went again to Kharkiv to complain to the governor, to the prefect, of the indignant treatment he had received. The prefect dismissed the ispravnik [district police chief] from Akhtyrka, at Romanoff's request.
At that time we all came to Kharkiv. There was a great desire to marry the wealthy gentleman to my aunt.
Let this fact be noted. He never ceased for a moment to be marshal of the nobility, and only resigned after marrying, before leaving Russia.
It was in Odessa that the marriage took place — the good fellow was persuaded to marry my aunt, with whom he was not in love. But he had become attached to all of us and loved her as a sister. While at Akhtyrka everyone had made his life miserable, we alone had received him with kindness.
The good fellow never had any wit, but he often made very just remarks, and even with humour, as they say in English.
He was very handsome, but his immense stoutness ruined that beauty.
He was simple-minded, I said, and sometimes rambled, but he was not insane and knew perfectly well what he was doing in bequeathing his fortune to his wife. What could be more natural? Should he have bequeathed it to his sister, whom he detested and had never wished to see?
He is punished after his death in the same way he sinned. Did he not bring a lawsuit against his sister-in-law for the very same reason that his sister now brings one against my aunt? His brother having left everything to his wife, he tried to prove that the brother was mad.
We came to Nice all together, having spent a month in Vienna, a month in Baden, and the remainder of the time until October — having left Russia on 6 May — in Geneva.
At Nice he began to feel better — he had suffered from rheumatism in his legs — but became so enormously fat that it could not last much longer. Indeed on 14 February 1871 he died of an acute I know not what in the lungs. I once knew the name of the disease — ten doctors had told me, for there were ten doctors at his side; they had summoned every one they could find.
I was twelve at the time, and would not have stayed for anything in the world in a house where there was a dead body. I took Maman and Dina to the hotel — we were lodging at Promenade des Anglais no. 17, in what is now the apartment of the notorious Prodgers.
My aunt kept vigil over her husband's body and was as prostrated as a woman can be — a woman who had never been in love with her husband.
The moment he was dead, the intrigues began in Russia.
That is the story.
After that winter in Nice we went to Geneva, then to Baden-Baden. It was there that I began to go into society, that I "had" Remy, that I met Berthe, that I saw the Duke, Carlo, Paskevitch, and so on and so forth.
Then back to Nice — a quiet winter for me. I forget to mention that during the winter of 1870–71 we were part of the Society for the Aid of the Wounded: it was my greatest amusement to go to the station to receive the wounded, to serve them, even to nurse them. Every Sunday we went to the hospital in the little Lycée. We were all decorated with the bronze cross.
Let us come to the winter of 1871–72. I fell in love with Boreel — I was thirteen; on 12 January 1872, I was stared at as no one had ever been, on account of my little feet shod with supreme elegance and my ravishing little-girl costumes.
I saw the Duke again with a joy I could not understand. We were entering the garden of the Villa d'Acqua Viva with Collignon when he passed.
— Hamilton! I cried. Mademoiselle Collignon! But look — it is Hamilton from Baden!
He heard his name and saw my flushed, elated face and my small person almost standing up in the carriage — he turned round and looked at me again.
I was madly preoccupied with Boreel and came home quite miserable on days when I had not seen him. I believed him to be Baron Finot, with racehorses, and I decided that I must have him.
In the spring I learned who he really was and grew cool — I began to analyse him. When I see people too often I cannot judge them properly.
It is like a painting — one must look at it, then rest, then look again; only then does one understand its faults and become able to correct them.
I no longer saw Boreel — the first few days I was as miserable as possible, but then, thinking of him constantly, I concluded that he was of medium height, stout, fair-complexioned, rosy, blond, fresh, handsome. That he had kind, dog-like eyes. That he was elegant, that he had the finest horses (that I had noticed long before).
He was Audiffret's closest friend — who at the time was a young pup with a vulgar, self-satisfied air; he was barely twenty. Boreel was twenty-four or twenty-five. But let us return to Boreel.
No — first let us say that in the spring, before going to Baden, I was in Italy where I admired beautiful paintings and sculptures, and that before coming to Nice we spent two months in Paris.
Let us recapitulate: 1870–71: Nice, Italy, Geneva, Baden, Paris, and Nice again.
In Munich I saw the picture galleries, which I still admire in memory.
Let us return to my heroes. Often I would see Girofla on Boreel's balcony, his hair dishevelled as if he had just woken. They played at the clubs together, and I believe Boreel was the little Niçois's master in many things.
So I was saying how I found Boreel — but I also found that he often had an indecisive air, that he walked badly, and in a word lacked grace and distinction.
The summer of 1872 I spent in Nice. One fine evening I was trying to find some redeeming quality in Boreel and at the same time asking myself whom I might choose, since this one would no longer do — that evening, then, full of these thoughts, my mental searchings carried me on until ten o'clock, when I began my prayers; and having come to the place where I prayed for Finot, I implored God to tell me whom I should put in his place:
— The Duke of Hamilton, something said to me — I dare not believe it was God. The Duke of Hamilton, I cried, still inwardly.
Well then — yes, that one; at least I know who he is. He is adorable, and I beseech you, my God, to see to it that I love him and that he loves me. I have only four years to wait. From that evening all my thoughts were for him. In the autumn I began to write my diary.
Winter came, and on Friday 13 December 1872 I saw the Duke of Hamilton and fell so deeply in love that it has lasted to this day.
As for Boreel, he became so pale beside the other that within a few days I had forgotten him entirely. Each time I saw Hamilton I was in such a state of exaltation that it is impossible to convey. Those were the 13th, the 14th, the 16th, the 18th, the 20th, the 25th, the 5th. This avalanche of happiness made me nearly mad, and even now, writing of it, I am moved and unsettled.
But from 5 January 1873 until the 19th he does not appear — I am miserable and dejected and begin to look at Boreel again, yet I could not forgive him his ugly gait and his common air. I wished to pursue him as I now pursue Audiffret — to have him and then dismiss him. I wanted all of that, and I was only fourteen.
I was born at the beginning of the year, so that my age can be counted by Januaries. On 12 January 1859 I was born.
Naturally Boreel paid no attention to me — I was no longer a child and not yet a young lady; I was at the most disadvantageous moment of all. He did not look at me, and I was furious.
At last summer came — we went to Vienna, to the Exhibition. At that period my diary [a few words cancelled] suffices — it is clear enough and comprehensible.
So, amen!
After luncheon I go to read Le Sport in the hotel salon.
Opposite me sits a Brazilian who looks exactly like Moreno — for an instant I thought it was he, but no, this one is young. He looks at me with that gentle, too-gentle air of the Brazilian-Parisians, so that several times I pinch my lips to avoid smiling. He strikes me as interesting — since he stares so much.
Besides, everyone at the hotel stares at me a great deal in my white wool dress with white braid. I have a dreadful fear that they will take me for Stiopa's wife.
We go out — I buy a parrot for Machenka. Maman has given me two hundred and twenty-five roubles.
The noise of Paris, this hotel as vast as a city, with everyone always walking, talking, reading, smoking, looking — it all makes my head spin.
I love Paris and my heart beats faster. I want to live more quickly, to be more quickly.
— I have never seen such a fever for life, Danis said upon hearing me. It is true — I fear that this desire to live at full steam may be the omen of a short existence. Who knows? Come, now I am becoming melancholic. No — I will not have melancholy. I am pretty at home, with an immense veil of silk gauze knotted as a Marie-Antoinette fichu.
Stiopa has gone to the station to wait for my aunt — let us hope she comes.
I have the fever here — I want to see everything and everyone.
Going to buy the parrot I passed (by carriage, always) through the rue de la Ferronnerie, made forever memorable by the abomination of Ravaillac. I love old Paris.
I shall settle in Paris — I shall live half in Paris, half in London, and travel for three months.
I am waiting! What if she does not come? Sola sum.
If only I could at least go downstairs — there is always company below.
Ah! In the corridor this morning I met the Vicomte Vigier.
While waiting for my aunt's arrival I have taken a room overlooking the large courtyard, and it is rather dark.
Tomorrow I shall not be able to go to the Bois — we shall be bored. But Monday! Ah — if only the weather is fine.
On Monday I shall begin to organise things for the winter. My outfits are all planned — nothing remains but to order them. Let us hope Caroline is there.
Twice I thought I saw Boreel. It is tiresome not to have opera glasses — with the naked eye I cannot see the people in the courtyard clearly. It is raining — I can tell by the wet carriages coming in. It is wretched to have weak eyesight; we are only on the second floor and I cannot distinguish people's features properly.
It is six o'clock in the evening.
I spend my time writing — it is amusing when one is in the mood. But what a torture to write when one is on edge. In general, the more that happens to me in a day, the less I write.
Ah! When will this aunt arrive! And if she does not come at all this evening — that is when I shall be utterly undone.
It is not the delay itself — but because I love for a thing to happen when I expect it, whatever it may be. It was exactly the same thing I meant to say about Girofla, concerning my departure from Nice on Saturday instead of Thursday. But as I predicted, he repaid it, that rogue.
At last — here she is! We dine, the three of us, in our rooms, and she recounts the events in Nice. The same as in her letters: the man in question did not call on her, but she saw him at the concert. Fiouloulou came to tell my aunt about his interview with his employer, everything that was said — even that I had asked him where one buys the prettiest parasols. One can see plainly that these rogues are more occupied with me than I with them — which is more than splendid. They recount to each other the smallest things.
My aunt recounts that when she began to speak and laugh about the arrival of Miss Robenson, he stopped her, saying:
— Oh, Madame, leave that — it is an old and sacred thing.
— A sacred thing — with Robenson! Come now!
Well, do you know — for that phrase one could almost love him. It is so perfectly said; I expected nothing of the sort from him, and I am moved and seized with a certain respect.
I am ready to weep with jealousy. Sacred — I could strangle the woman who knew how to draw such a word from a Girofla.
Do you understand me? Do you understand all that this phrase contains: it is an old and sacred thing — and said softly. And the more frivolous, dissolute, worthless the man, the more powerful it is, and the more worthy of respect.
I turn against him in a great rage, say dreadful things about him, call him a dog, and mock him.
My aunt says further that she has learned he truly possesses his particule — that he is the grandson of some d'Audiffret or other, and so on and so forth.
But it is all the same to me — or rather, no: it is not all the same to me at all.
No — I am vexed. That sacred will not let me sleep in peace. And it was said for someone other than me!
Truly I have a character too easily tormented. I feel such malice towards the man — I would gladly do him harm! I should like Robenson to die so as to be the first to bring him the news and watch him turn pale!
Why has he not married her, if he loves her so much? The young lady would most certainly not refuse. Let him love no one, and I remain unmoved — but let him love, and I become furious and spring like a tigress.
What a character, good God!
Admit that it is vexing. Well — vexing or not, reasonable or not, what does it matter. That sacred exasperates me to the highest degree.
And let everyone go to the devil.
Never has Dory, playing "Azucena," said with more hatred and more passion than I: mi vendicar!
Of what, one does not know — of the insult done to my imagination, of a moment of disturbance, of a second of discontent, of no matter what; but in a word I desire with an impossible-to-express rage to take revenge. My face lights up and my fists clench and my eyes become transparent and green.