Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 11 December 1875

The water in the fountain basin was still frozen at noon.
I searched vainly in the crowd for my handsome unknown.
De Gonzales has arrived. The Audiffret house is open, but one does not see him — he is no doubt busy expelling his stepmother from here.
This morning at Maman's they touched upon my torment.
"My God, Papa," said my mother, "why do you speak of that — it is the same as tormenting a wound with a red-hot iron!"
They had begun by speaking of marriage, and I said that I would marry at once and with anyone at all, provided only that things would change.
"But," said grandfather — according to his habit, without listening to what is being discussed, like a barrel organ slowly wound up — "every mother must endeavour to marry off her daughter as soon as possible."
"But that is not the point, grandfather!" I say.
"Every mother," he continued, "must..."
"But that is not what we are talking about!"
"...endeavour to marry off her daughter as soon as possible, for..."
"But please — do understand that that is not the question."
"For," he resumed, paying not the slightest attention, "imagine — you, for instance, a little bird — and you shall be surrounded by children."
"For pity's sake!" I cried, beside myself.
"Papa," said my mother, "it is not for that — it is to change her way of life."
"How so?"
"Yes — to live as everyone else does," she continued.
"But that depends on you."
"Oh! no," I say slowly. "I do not think so — if it depended on them, they would not make me suffer so horribly."
I give that as a small specimen of our daily conversations.
Pleasant, is it not?
There are three unknowns: the one who bowed, another I saw the next day and who is merely not bad, and the Beautiful One.
This evening we go to the Opera. I shall enjoy myself tolerably — but on returning I shall weep. That is what the cards say. Let us see if it will be true. Dinner has just been announced.
"Why do you not go to the afternoon dance at the Cercle?" Collignon asks me.
"Because I do not wish to have my chest and my backside described in the press, as Robenson's chest and backside were described."
Indeed, the Pointed American has been compared to the Venus de Milo. Poor Venus de Milo! Absurd journalist!
Oh the cards — they deserve to be thrown into the fire! Far from weeping, I passed a charming evening. They were giving La Cenerentola; I expected an empty house or nearly so — which is indeed what occurred. By a strange whim, I dressed in blue. A great gown of very pale blue silk, quite plain, with a large ruffle at the bottom of the skirt, the train square-cut. A close-fitting bodice, close-fitting sleeves reaching only to the elbow, the front cut in quite a particular way — neither round, nor square, nor oval; I do not know how to describe it. But the whole effect was ravishing, and I myself am very pretty.
Pepino looks at me from behind a column.
"There is the son!" says my aunt.
"There is Émile," says Dina.
I see a grey frock coat in box No. 1 — I blush, and begin to ogle a poor innocent girl who has nothing to do with anything.
My blushes had barely subsided when Pepino entered; my heart was still beating when I said good evening to him.
This pleasant young Nice man is very amusing; we flirt together the whole time; then Ricardo arrives; Pepino wants to escape, but I detain him agreeably. And at the beginning of the last act — after considerable maneuvering — M. Émile d'Audiffret does us the honour of entering our box.
I did not expect this favour from the illustrious cad — but I received him none the less with admirable simplicity.
Pepino escaped at once — but I had shown sufficiently that he was paying me court, and he could depart in peace.
"I was to call on you this evening, Madame," he said, "but I thought that leaving a card at nine o'clock in the evening was absurd — and I came to the theatre to see if you were not here, and here you are indeed. No, truly — I do not say it for effect: I speak the truth."
"I believe you, Monsieur — you are sincere," I say.
But let us return to the Surprising One, whose visit is a satisfaction for Ricardo — the poor man will have some news to recount: a small thing, but something.
Bibi is as handsome as ever, and his hypocritical lip still pleases me. There is something in his face that attracts. Does he have this effect on everyone, or on me alone?
He says he is coming from Florence. He lies — he has been to Rome to find a tenor.
Wicked Pepino made a great many very amusing cutting remarks about the management of the Opera.
Ricardo goes off "to leave Audiffret the field clear."
Audiffret had no need of that; he chats very pleasantly with us — but not at all as before. He seems like a person introduced only yesterday, whereas in the early days of our acquaintance he seemed like a friend of ten years.
I prefer his correct tone now.

Notes

La Cenerentola (Cinderella): opera by Rossini (1817). ↩
flirtons: in English in the original; the English word was fashionable in 1870s French society. ↩