Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 28 September 1875

I look along the Rue de France and also higher up — up there on the hillside — I see the shutters open and a white figure appear at the window. That is my man!
Without affectation I offer some casual explanation to Léonie, who is working near the window, and take my leave.
The stupid boy has said many times that he always keeps his opera glasses at the window. The shutter being suspiciously closed, and then the apparition of a white form at the window — none of it should reassure me in the least. So I quit the window, at the risk of displeasing myself.
This time I believe it is truly over. We did not meet the man for nothing — we were buying gloves; once the gloves were bought we went to the Promenade and:
— There is Gioia, says my aunt, with Girofla.
Instead of looking away I stare, for I could not believe such a thing — I could scarcely trust my own eyes!
Girofla — d'Audiffret, I mean — out of his carriage and conversing with that woman!
She is as tall as he is. And how wretched he looked beside her.
From that moment we — the three Graces — abandon ourselves to the most exaggerated grief. I improvise verses, we sing them all in the carriage, but there is no one about, and we laugh like blessed souls, genuinely and from the heart. I am a little agitated, but not as much as I would have supposed — besides, one cannot yet judge; only tomorrow shall I know what I think. I certainly will not be pleased, for I am laughing too much.
We get out and walk. On a bench the culprit sits between Saëtone and another man. I look at him; he makes a movement to rise; I make some motion of the head — not a greeting, but something — and we proceed thus as far as the public garden, near which we collect Bihovetz, and pass before the abominable creature once more, this time without my looking at her at all.
One ought to behave as usual — yes, but he was not behaving as usual, and in the end nothing is as usual this evening!
My aunt is stupefied, Giroflé is grieved, and I am astonished — and, and, and I no longer know what I am. We shall see tomorrow.
I return home singing. My Graces come after dinner to the drawing room, which we light up; we throw open all the windows. We play, sing, shout.
Having exhausted all the painful and heart-rending terms we can muster, Olga and I stretch out on the sofa — Marie, to whom all this is quite indifferent, takes herself off. We lie there with our heads at opposite ends of the piece of furniture, our legs extended, each avoiding the other's feet. And from time to time, now she, now I, fling some remark at the event of the day.
Am I always to have this female before me! I am very glad to have found her ugly before all this — otherwise people would say it was from jealousy.
No, that is not the point. What then? I do not know — I have much to say. Come! I shall write as I think. First, let us speak of my double existence.
Reality and dream — the waking dream, almost as real as reality itself. Often I compose a story that lasts for entire weeks: and, look here, the day before yesterday Girofla shot himself through the head for love of me, and I swore to marry him if he recovered — and he is recovering; that is where I stand over there, whereas here I am at the Gioia.
— Ah! says Olga, pointing to the upholstery of the sofa — their sofa is like this, isn't it?
— What are you saying, you madwoman! Their sofa.
— Yes, you know — the big sofa in the drawing room.
— Yes. Oh! if only one could disturb them! Look, my dear, you were brutes to have told the story of the English ladies — now people will have suspicions. Whereas if you had said nothing I would have dressed myself as the old man this very moment and gone to her house to tell him — Girofla — that the château is on fire!
— Why, that's true! Oh yes, what a pity!
— I should say so! He is at this moment in his Greek cap and dressing gown, I continued, laughing — you remember, just like in Le Procès Veauradieux, that lawyer at Césarine's. My God, how splendid it would be to disturb them!
Listen, truly, men are brutes, imbeciles. Men are the most contemptible things on earth. They go to these women, knowing that everything is bought and sold! They know they are deceived, that they are not loved — and yet they expose themselves to the most ridiculous situations, just as in Veauradieux. No, I cannot understand how, having seen such a play, a man is not ashamed to play so base, so vile a role!
— That is how it is, my dear — instead of loving a pretty, honest girl who loves him and taking her for a wife, to have her all to himself...
— Young girls like ourselves, for instance, is that not so? I say, laughing — well, my dear, one does not always have one's wife all to oneself, and Girofla...
— Do you think he will be deceived?
— Obviously!
— I wonder if he will marry.
— Oh! no — he will rot, on the Promenade!
— Oh! ho! ho! He will rot.
— Yes, indeed!
And this verb pleases us so much and makes us laugh so hard that I slide to the floor and Olga, throwing her head back, can no longer even cry out.
— We shall write him that, I say, climbing back onto the sofa.
— Yes, yes — a simple sheet with these words: You will rot!
— That is it — no, we shall write: Wretch! You will rot!
— And that word has the privilege of making us burst out each time.
— No, I took up again, we shall say something else.
— Very well.
And further reflections on the duplicity of men: I deliver a speech expounding my philosophy.
Truly, I do not understand that other half of the human race.
Ah! how vexing it is not to know how to write what one thinks!!!!!!!! Look here — I need not wait until tomorrow: I find myself horribly vexed, wounded, surprised, grieved, enraged!
— Ah! my dear, sighed Giroflé — the Greek cap and the dressing gown — and drinking his tea under the bed! [a deliriously funny scene from Le Procès Veauradieux.]
— Yes.
— I would give anything for the same things to happen to him as in the play!
— And I too!
I was about to say I would give my finest diamond — but that would have shown too much warmth.
— And I too, I took up again — I too would give so much, so much! But you know, all this vexes me greatly — I shall no longer be able to take any interest in this woman; they will say it is for his sake, and she, she, that sorry jade, will think the same. I had wanted to ask her for her portrait.
— What!
— Why, quite simply: Madame, I find you beautiful — give me your portrait. That is all. And now I cannot!
— She would kiss you on the forehead, and you would never wash it off again, to preserve the kiss.
— Oh come now — say rather that I would scrape the skin off! To have those withered lips touch me! Fie! You know, I used to take considerable interest in her when she was a private carriage — but since she has become a common cab, it is over.
— Yes, a cab-horse jade.
— Ah! I sighed.
— Ah! replied Olga.
— All this is ugly.
— Yes, very ugly.
— Well!
How wretched men are with these women — they inspire in me a profound pity.
How unjust the world is — what twisted notions society holds!
A man does everything and marries afterward, and everyone finds it perfectly natural. But let a woman dare — not even do everything, but a mere trifle — and she is stoned! Why is it so?
Because, they will tell me, you are a child and you understand nothing — for a man it is... whereas for a woman it is... quite different, in the end. I understand that perfectly well — there are children; but often there are none, there is only... and yet the outcry is always the same.
The man is selfish — he scatters himself in all directions, then takes a whole woman and expects her to be satisfied with his remnants, to love his worn-out carcass, his soured temper, his exhausted face!
Is it possible to stoop so low as to forget one's dignity — to become a hideous male creature.
For I believe a man harbors no illusion — he knows he is buying. I do not blame the pleasures of the flesh, but at least let one act decently — as one does when eating because one is hungry. But no — [Crossed out: the m—] one treats these females as if they were women, one speaks to them, one calls on them, and they deceive him, mock him — this pitiful man! I should like to know whether such people do delude themselves.
How is it that they will not tolerate a lover for their wife, yet speak quite naturally of the lovers of such creatures! That means they understand the difference.
— His wife will deceive him, says Olga suddenly, interrupting my reflections. I had stopped talking and it bored her.
— Yes, and: Little Galula Tells him: Girofla, You are a cuckold, I am convinced of it.
— Bah! Bah! says Girofla, Papa was one well before me!
Yes, dear girl, Galula will indeed tell him so.
— And his wife will be? You?
— No — you, dear Giroflé; you will be very sweet together. And once more silence, and once more I think.
Marie returns, and after fresh cries and immense bursts of laughter we decide that we shall write to him: Wretch! If you abuse the dressing gown and the Greek cap You will rot!
They leave and I shut myself in my room.

Notes

Le Procès Veauradieux (The Veauradieux Trial) was an enormously popular farce by Alfred Hennequin and Alfred Delacour, which premiered in June 1875 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris and ran for 175 performances. The central comic premise — a respectable lawyer named Fauvinart is caught by the police at his mistress Césarine's house while wearing a bonnet grec (dressing cap) and robe de chambre (dressing gown), drinking tea under the bed — became a cultural catchphrase. Marie and her friends apply this imagery to Audiffret's secret visits to Gioia's house. ↩