Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 7 November 1875

What a curious day this has been. Turkish carnival, bizarre assembly, a Choufleuri reception! I do not know how to name it. I lose myself in it — and I feel as though someone had plunged me head-first into a basin of dirty water.
Today M. de Antonoff inaugurates his house.
We do him the honour of accepting his humble invitation.
I wear a long plain white wool gown, long gloves, and a straw hat covered in white feathers. I find myself delicately lovely.
The cards encourage me while promising me dark things from the dark king.
At two o'clock several carriages stand before the little hotel no. 121 — as the Surprising One called it; Fiouloulou's is among them: we bring him with us, since he does not know Antonoff. Besides, Antonoff asked whom to invite, and my aunt dictated the names and he invited accordingly. Since he said it ten times: this fête is made in our honour.
One goes readily enough to a shop assistant's or a steward's when he inaugurates his house or christens his child — why not go to Antonoff's?
The Sapogenikoffs leave with Dina first; the Surprising One has arrived before them, so they find him strolling on the terrace.
"You are arriving alone?" he asks Dina, who enters first.
"No, Monsieur — I am with Mme Sapogenikoff."
"And Mlle Bashkirtseff is not coming?"
"No — she is coming behind us."
Olga made a grimace, and her nose inclined even further to one side.
I enter with superb condescension; Antonoff, Mme Daniloff, and the servants have received us in the courtyard.
In the small drawing room on the right are Audiffret, Saëtone, and Cresci.
Do not be surprised to see Cresci — you will see far more surprising things. The entire press — and the upholsterer Morel with Madame his upholsteress.
Bihovetz, Gautier, and a Dr Figuiera are among the guests. Truly, I do not know how to recount this odd day: from two to six o'clock no one does anything. We wander from room to room; we go into Monsieur's dressing room, open his wardrobes, pull out fur hats and try them on, sing, laugh. Saëtone and Gautier, seated on the sofa, sing airs from Alice de Nevers — we join in the chorus. Then we pass into the bedroom; there we sit down — at least Olga, Audiffret, I, Dina, and Marie. My feet are admired; Audiffret asks to be allowed to see them.
"As a matter of fact," I say, "since I have already shown them to M. Antonoff — look!"
And I showed my foot, and the compliments were redoubled. After a few minutes of general conversation I went away — I do not know why; I think because I feared he might leave, and because I feel embarrassed and agitated in his presence when he treats me with contempt. He too is embarrassed. Everyone wanders or avoids each other; we drag ourselves through the rooms like the shades of the sospesi — without pleasure and without tedium.
In the drawing room on the right was Audiffret with two others; I was speaking to Saëtone near the door, and a faint ray of sunlight illuminated my fresh face — and I felt myself watched from the drawing room on the right — let us call it the blue room. Everything is bourgeois without style, without taste, even without wealth. The furniture, the chandeliers, the lamps — everything.
Then we go into the garden, where there is a shooting range and various things for gymnastics. The young ladies swing on the swings while the gentlemen devote themselves to "bodily exercises." Heads downward, coats disordered and covered in dust, they look like schoolboys. Audiffret seemed entirely happy for the occasion it gave him to avoid rubbing shoulders with his peers, and performed all manner of feats — but in making a great leap he fell straight onto his behind in the reddish sand that lines the paths, and as everyone burst out laughing, instead of getting up he remained seated, bobbing his head like one of those Chinese nodding-dolls one sees on mantelpieces.
I watched all this from the doorstep.
Then we wander again; two or three times I see the Surprising One exchanging a few words with my mother and my aunt, but for the most part he wanders like the other wretches. The priest is there — that stupid personage paid me the following compliment.
"Oh! What a foot," says Antonoff, "what a foot! Oh — for your height it is marvellous! Oh! I have never seen the like! Show it to me, my fair demoiselle — I will give you a franc!"
"Here — look!"
"One could make a fortune in that manner," says my witty confessor, "unfortunately there are not many Antonoffs."
As we continued to wander, I found myself back in the drawing room and sat down on a cushion by the fireplace beside the door; Pépino was near me, and Audiffret was pressed against the door while Cresci asked him whether they were staying for dinner.
"I cannot," says Galula.
"Nor I," says the Surprising One; "I have only just had luncheon — at what hour does one dine?"
"At three, I believe," I say.
"You see!"
"But we too have only just lunched."
"Well then!"
"I have no idea how we shall manage — it is so absurd."
Then — then — ah, the devil take me if I can say what happened. Everything is confused in my mind; I feel altogether strange — yet I maintain an excellent face and allow myself to be courted by Pépino, who will not leave my side. Olga and her mother, who came with grandiose expectations, are in suspense and do not know what to do with themselves.
Good God! What would I have done without Pépino!
I know that there was a moment when I became furiously jealous — I felt myself weakening, becoming wretched — and yet I had to appear cheerful, to amuse myself, while being bored and suffering horribly.
I went into the blue room and looked at myself in the mirror to calm myself, to recover courage. I believe the Surprising One was near Giroflé at that moment! I know very well she is nothing to him — but he behaves toward her as I do toward Pépino: he wants at all costs to appear to be paying her court. Yourkoff and Pépino light the candles; the journalists wander.
I went up to a side table to look at the visiting cards, and saw those of a dentist, a piano teacher, and an upholsterer. Un sucre.
I sat down again on my cushion, and Pépino and I began to compose the little press account of the reception that the journalists would surely write. We said the most wickedly amusing things in whispers — so that to judge by our manner, one might have supposed we were discussing something quite other than criticism. Which was precisely what I wanted.
"So long as they don't put me next to the upholsteress," says Pépino.
"Oh well — then you will pretend to faint!" I reply.
"And the black servant — will he dine as well?"
"Perhaps!"
"Listen, Mademoiselle: last Sunday, many fine carriages were making their way by the new Villefranche road to the superb villa lately built by M. Antonoff..."
"By a M. de Antonoff."
"No — by the General de Antonoff."
"Very good!"
"I continue: General de Antonoff received with the courtesy habitual to him — which he acquired when he beheld so many ladies coming to purchase hats in his shop."
"Continue — very good."
"In the garden, a shooting range had been arranged for enthusiasts, and those who preferred bodily exercise to this game of skill were busy at the gymnastics apparatus. The young ladies fluttered on the swings like white nymphs, while M. d'Audiffret, head downward and hair on end, was displaying marvellous dexterity."
"By falling on his behind," I interject.
"Meanwhile," continued Pépino, "a sumptuously laid table was being set in the drawing room, as if by magic..."
"Among the noble foreigners —"
"Yes — one remarked M. Limousin (editor of the Journal des Décavés), Mme Daniloff with a..."
"With a superb chignon!"
"Our amiable director M. Cresci," continued Pépino.
But at this moment I saw Audiffret approach Olga and Saëtone, who were [struck: directly opposite us] near a console table facing our fireplace. Saëtone melted away immediately like a vaporous cloud.
"I shall try to be as entertaining as M. Saëtone," says Audiffret, seating himself beside the girl.
From that moment I let my escort talk, answered him mechanically, and while appearing absorbed in him, I observed my two young people. The man had his back to me; he was writing all manner of things on all manner of papers — on the console table itself — and seemed to be doing it all for the benefit of others; for I could see clearly that he was bored, and while appearing to be conversing with the young lady he fell silent, leaned over the console — in a word, wanted to appear occupied, and was not.
As for Olga — red as a crayfish — she was enchanted by this semblance, and did not know what to do with herself for happiness.
And as for me — knowing full well that there was nothing to it — I raged. Dinner was slow in coming; I took Bihovetz, Pépino, and the detestable, cunning, gossiping Galula off to play cards with me. Saëtone, the Surprising One, and Giroflé passed through our drawing room into the room of General de Antonoff.
We played kings; Limousin watched — so long as he does not describe this game in print.
Pépino won.
"Oh!" I cry. "I am not queen — I shall leave then!"
Look here, M. Gautier — the magic seems to me to be lasting rather too long, and dinner does not come.
I was delighted to rise; I passed into the next room, where I saw Giroflé between Saëtone and the Surprising One — just as I was once. Truly, the man is their king — and, like good courtiers, they act accordingly. Besides, I have no cause to complain — I was as surrounded by admirers as it is possible to be. But how I felt that, excepting the Surprising One, the others were all nothing! Without him one is surrounded and yet seems not to be. And his chamberlains know it; he is their king — where he is, there is gaiety.
He is the only man here; it is quite natural that one should be bored without him. The others are merely his &c.
He knows it — and they know it too; whence it follows that I deceive no one, and poor Pépino is not much use. Well — he does serve as a pose.
Oh! Without him!
Throughout the whole time I maintain a delicious complexion and conduct myself naturally and well. And it is a marvel — given my anxiety and my wounded pride.
I cannot bear people who are in a state of rapture and enchantment; Dina is often so, and then for no reason I lose my patience and say impertinent things to her.
Imagine then my impatience at the sight of Olga with cheeks the colour of Russian leather, and Nina floating — swimming in her maternal satisfaction and looking at her daughters with the eyes of a fond mother-in-law. I expected all of it — yet there was a moment when I felt myself weakening; I would have liked to weep, or to beat those Russian shopwomen — Russian shopmen.
At last — dinner!
Gautier offers me his arm; Olga is with the Surprising One. We arrange ourselves so as to keep among our own set and push the journalists to the far end — with the upholsterer and the upholsteress.
I occupy the head of the table; to my right, Pépino, Dina, Bihovetz, etc.; to my left, Saëtone, Marie, Galula, Olga, and Audiffret. Then came the others.
I laugh a great deal, for from time to time I felt the Surprising One's gaze fix on us as if to listen.
The priest eats like an animal, and Morel the upholsterer, before swallowing a large asparagus, holds it up like a candle and admires it.
[Two lines cancelled]
The most curious table I have ever seen. Twenty-three in all.
"The black servant is not dining," Pépino tells me.
While continuing my game I watched my two tormentors. And to my great satisfaction I saw Audiffret — constrained — almost bored. He kept turning to Galula as if for rescue, laughed, and looked up at the ceiling, like a monkey.
The only thing he has done naturally throughout the whole day is eat.
I feel clearly that I embarrass him as he embarrasses me.
Nina, as tender mother, is beside the Surprising One, and I find him a comical figure between those two women.
But I hear him laugh, I hear his voice, I see him lean toward Olga — and I am jealous: it seems to me barely an hour ago that he was mine. Each burst of laughter, each word that reaches me, is an insult.
I miss him; his voice goes straight to my heart — truly, at moments I miss him greatly. I catch myself laughing and speaking in exactly his voice, and it gives me a strange effect — though not an unpleasant one.
Dinner ends; the table is cleared, a cloth is spread over the carpet, and dancing is prepared.
Ah! But I forget the main thing: at each course, the male singers of the Opera, hidden behind a red damask tapestry, struck up a chorus — now from Ernani, now from Les Huguenots, and so on. That was still the best part of it — though it interrupted the eating.
[Bottom of page torn away]
I had just danced with Saëtone and was standing near the window on his arm.
Audiffret had just danced with my two Graces.
"Will you grant me a turn of the waltz, Mademoiselle?" he says, coming toward me.
"After Monsieur Saëtone," I answer, smiling.
"But I beg you, Mademoiselle!" cries Saëtone, making a movement to withdraw.
"No, no, Monsieur," I say, holding him back. And I could not have done otherwise, for the Surprising One was retreating backwards, hands folded on his chest in a sign of humility, and appeared delighted to be rid of me.
Now I regret not having danced with him — oh, with all my heart! But what would you have — I am not a woman of thirty devoted to all these things; I am new to these miseries, I am not accustomed to them, and often I go astray. And besides, one must allow for my inner wounded pride.
A few minutes later, the Surprising One slips away with Cresci.
What satisfaction to feel oneself the prettiest — the best made!
What happiness to be able, with justification, to despise the other women!
What joy to be able to say, with reason: I am like a queen here! To fear no rivalry. This evening — I speak of this evening, for elsewhere there are certainly women finer than I.
What sustained me was this feeling of incontestable superiority — of the impossibility of comparison between me and the other girls present. I truly do not know how I would have managed had I felt inferior to anyone.
I waited for the carriage with enormous impatience. Only we and the Sapogenikoffs remained, with Fiouloulou and Gautier.
At half past nine it comes — that longed-for carriage.
"At last I am in the carriage!" I cry, parodying: "At last I am in Rome!"
"Well?" says Dina, to set things going.
"Well!" I answer; "I was still in the mood to slap those women. Their rapturous air set me on edge. And that large mother — she did not walk, she swam — swam in happiness!"
"You ought to have been more agreeable with him," says Maman.
"Oh, yes indeed — I ought perhaps to have called him over and sat him beside me."
"Why not?"
"Why not! Because he would have sat down — and then in a second gone off again, leaving me like a fool in the most ridiculous of positions."
"That is true," says Dina; "he is capable of it."
"And besides," I continue, "it is just as well that I behaved as I did — do you think it is easy to appear amused when one is bored — when one is raging!"
"That is true," says Maman; "she conducted herself well."
"I should think so, Madame."
"But there was no cause to rage."
"Is that so? You cannot understand it — you are not women, I do not know what you are. I take everything to heart; small things make up life. I know very well that Olga is nothing in the matter — but he wants people to think otherwise, and that is what angers me!"
While Maman was preparing to sleep, I stretched out on a chaise longue, swearing, grumbling, and complaining.
I do nothing in secret and recount my affairs to everyone; my slightest adventures make a great noise, and the whole household talks of them. I love coming to Maman's when the council is assembled — having set the conversation on the course I want — and then listening to the debates.
They send me to bed — but I do not stir.
"Do not enrage me further! Do you not see that I am furious!"
"But," says Maman, "there will be a hundred more Audiffrets!"
"You understand nothing of it — you immediately imagine everywhere: Love. Good heavens — to speak of love — there is none! There is anger, there is wounded pride!"
When I think of those girls who came here — plain, badly dressed, foolish — I have polished them a little, tidied and arranged them — and now they think to measure themselves against me! I know very well it is folly, that everyone sees it — but it is their blind and stupid presumption that irritates me!
"You know, Maman," says Dina; "at table I was watching — and I assure you, Marie was like a queen!"
"I know it, by God!" I cried; "and therefore I am not jealous of anyone — what angers me is that stupid satisfaction — that rapturous, enchanted, solemn-with-satisfaction air — that triumphant, smug expression!"
"But my dear, what is there to be angry about? They are happy — leave them to their happiness. They are so comical like that."
My first care on returning to my room was to lock the door — and that of the dressing room too, for in that room there is a skylight opening onto the corridor, and under the skylight a chest of drawers one can climb onto to see into my room. Then I lay down on the floor. Perhaps my mind was not sufficiently troubled and grieved — but my posture, stretched out on the floor, hair disordered, clothes undone, my posture I say, was so much so that I began to weep; and as my head was thrown back, my tears flowed [struck: as far as the midpoint of my cheeks] from my eyes and then fell onto the carpet near my ears, forming right angles with the paths they had just traversed. It was very touching.
When I rose to sit before my mirror I found myself so pale that I was frightened. Pale as a corpse, eyes circled, lips white.
What ugliness!
I tried to pray about the matter — but I felt cold; I could not pray well.

Notes

A reference to Offenbach's operetta M. Choufleuri restera chez lui (1861), about a bourgeois who hosts a disastrously pretentious party to impress his social betters. ↩
The italicised de is Marie's sarcastic emphasis on Antonoff's pretension to the noble particle. ↩
Suave — in 1870s French: delicately attractive, pleasingly elegant; not the English "suave" (smooth, urbane). ↩
Sa tapissière — Marie's contemptuous coinage: the feminine of tapissier (upholsterer), reducing the wife to her husband's trade. Class snobbery as comedy. ↩
Cabinet de toilette — dressing room (not lavatory). A standard room in a bourgeois household of the period. ↩
I sospesi — the suspended ones; Dante's souls in Limbo, neither in joy nor in torment, drifting without purpose (Inferno, IV). ↩
Ne pas côtoyer ses semblables — to avoid rubbing shoulders with his peers; the gymnasium gave him an excuse for physical play rather than social performance. ↩
Poupées chinoises — Chinese nodding-dolls: mantelpiece ornaments with weighted heads that bob when touched. A brilliantly precise comic image. ↩
Cartes de visite — calling cards; the social rank of the callers reveals Antonoff's actual standing. ↩
Le Journal des Décavés — the Bankrupts' Journal; a satirical title invented by Pépino for whatever publication the journalist Limousin represents. ↩
Aux rois — a card game in which players are dealt royal titles. ↩
Chambellans — chamberlains, the courtiers of a monarch; Marie consistently extends the royal metaphor to describe Audiffret's social dominance. ↩
Cuir de Russie — Russian leather: a deep reddish-brown colour; Olga is flushed with excitement. ↩
Ernani — opera by Verdi (1844). ↩
Les Huguenots — grand opera by Meyerbeer (1836). ↩
Une femme de trente ans — a married woman of thirty; in the social code of the 1870s, she would have mastered the art of salon manoeuvring that the seventeen-year-old Marie lacks. ↩
Ces misères — these miseries; in French the word has both senses: wretchedness and the petty intrigues of love. ↩
A theatrical or operatic quotation; Marie parodies the conventional exclamation of a character finally achieving their destination. ↩
Marie lying on her back: tears flow sideways from her eyes toward her ears (horizontal), then fall downward onto the carpet (vertical), forming a right angle. She notes with precision that a crossed-out version had the tears reaching "the midpoint of the cheeks" — she refined the geometry. ↩
Marie wrote Samedi (Saturday); 7 November 1875 was actually a Sunday. ↩