Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 4 November 1875

Cold, dark, rainy day! Dark and scowling face, sad humour, troubled thoughts!
A hundred times I say it! Were it not for the expressions on my family's faces, it would be nothing! But they look at me, they think about me... Well! And why? Because the man did not come to the box.
If there is not yet cause to make faces, there soon will be. The cards tell me so — and unfortunately they always tell me the truth.
Always the Queen of Hearts with the King of Clubs, and all around them the blackest cards!
The only way is to flee to Paris, to the devil! — it matters not where, so long as I go. If I stay I shall have vexations without end! O my God, be good to me — let me leave!
Today is Saint-Charles Day — the feast of His Serene Highness Prince Charles III of Monaco — and our mothers go to see the illuminations.
I am deathly sad; my Graces meet us — they had wanted to go with our mothers and are disappointed.
We go up to beg Nina to come to Monaco, then to the theatre; she refuses! It is all the same to me — I want nothing. The girls take me to Mme de Daillens, but she is ill and cannot come either. Then I rouse myself, go up again to Nina's, and take her by storm.
Never has anyone unlocked my tongue as now; while Nina, Olga, and Dina kept us waiting, Marie led me onto such ground! Bigre!
Pépino has a mouth that gives one "little criminal thoughts" — and one can love Pépino and Girofla "for a brief time," only for "much more than a mere flirtation" — and she believes that between Girofla and Olga there is only: "Ah! The devil — I will not say what she said!" In a word, that there is no love, but:
The man is young... the woman is beautiful...
These are only the flowers — I dare not say the fruits.
Un sucre, my dears!
I listened and said little, so as not to compromise myself. She would marry Antonoff — on condition of having "little husbands on the side."
"Maman says to me, marry him — you see, I never loved your father, and yet I lived happily! Yes — but I replied to her:"
"Well! Maman, you say happy — but you do not say that you had a Coco under your skirt." That is what Marie said to me.
This frank conversation leads me to the truth: in me there is no love for Audiffret, there is only... only... "The man is young, the woman is beautiful." It is embarrassing to say, but it must be said, since it is the plain truth. If I were a man and he a woman, I would indulge this whim — and I am certain that after a very short time I would have had enough of it. But I am a woman — an unmarried girl!
And being unable to do as a man would, I give this whim a name that ill suits it — I call it love. One does what one can.
They are giving Alice de Nevers. All the rascals come to see us — Hector too, with Sommier; Sommier, who "regrets not having found anyone at home yesterday," who "presents his compliments to Madame my Mother," and who "departs tomorrow."
Sommier: very respectable. Paillasse, as Lucie Durand calls him.
As for Audiffret, he fidgets at the door, eats our cakes, and hums to himself. He looks altogether ruffled. Pépino is pretty and amiable — and despite myself I make eyes at him.
I conduct myself with my Torment simply and well — I am even surprised by it. I am well-behaved and pleasant; I am pleased with myself. At the exit, all the simpletons are there — all except the Surprising One.
Maman and my aunt come home at the same time as us, and the usual questions are asked.
"The devil take them all!" says Maman. "They come for the Sapogenikoffs — when the Sapogenikoffs are not with us, no one comes."
"There is my eternal torment! Come, Mother — since the Sapogenikoffs please them. That is why I detest your jokes. The slightest false move by Audiffret and you are all bristling and displeased!"
"Well — he is behaving either like a man who has no interest at all, or one who is enormously interested."
"He has no interest at all," cries my aunt; "before, yes — and it showed — but that has cracked and is finished!"
"Good Lord, Madame! All those people are entirely indifferent to me — my only torment is you, you who build castles that come crashing down on me! Is it my fault! For heaven's sake — you make my life bitter with your detestable commentary!"
"And the man did not come — and why, and how! And all your little excuses between you — your little salves for wounded pride! Your little jealousies! It is detestable! You do nothing but make me indecisive and stupid. You know very well that a hundred times they have come without the Sapogenikoffs — that when the Sapogenikoffs were in their box and we in ours, it was to our box they came!"
Oh, how all these miseries bore me! I am going to end by hating this wretched Girofla, who causes them!
"But it is true," says Maman, to calm me; "it is true — let us leave it — I am wrong, I am wrong."
In truth they are going to make me furious — driven to pursue that man — just to prove to them that he does not treat me with contempt!
I was pleased not to love him — pleased to have found how I love him! And they make me furious — jealous. I will never admit that he prefers little Olga to me.
Good Lord, if only I could get it into my head that there is nothing between Girofla and me. That he is like Sommier, like Pépino, and so on. But I cannot! The cards say no, everything says no — and I persist. Donkey-head, go on!
I shall never manage to think as I ought. Audiffret is a scoundrel amusing himself.
And yet I tell myself he must love me! The devil knows why.
I do not know what it is this evening — I stop at every moment, searching for what to write, and yet I am calm, and yet I ought not to be. What Maman said has every appearance of being true. They only come for the Sapogenikoffs. Let us work ourselves up — let us excite ourselves, that will make us write — come! No, it is no use.

Notes

La Saint-Charles — the feast day of Prince Charles III of Monaco (1818–1889, reigned 1856–1889), the prince who built Monte Carlo's casino and transformed the principality. His name day, 4 November, was celebrated with public illuminations. ↩
Petites pensées criminelles — "little criminal thoughts": a euphemism for lustful or improper desires. ↩
Un sucre — Bibi's (Audiffret's) expression for something perfect, exquisite; here Marie applies it ironically to the conversation. See entry of 26 October. ↩
Des petits maris à côté — a euphemism for lovers or extramarital affairs. ↩
Un Coco sous ta jupe — a crude euphemism for a secret lover. ↩
Cette pure conversation — ironically: "this pure conversation." In context pure means frank, unvarnished — the conversation was anything but chaste. ↩
Demoiselle — an unmarried young woman; the social status that prevents Marie from acting on desire as a man would. ↩
Paillasse — the clown figure of the commedia dell'arte; a buffoon. ↩
Mon Tourment — my Torment: one of Marie's many epithets for Audiffret throughout carnet 048. ↩
Tête d'âne, va! — donkey-head! Marie's exclamation of self-reproach for her own obstinacy. ↩
Canaille — scoundrel, rogue; a term implying someone below proper society in morals if not in rank. ↩