Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 2 January 1876

Monday, 3 January 1876

"I leave Sunday at three," I said — or rather shouted — and Sunday at one in the afternoon everything is topsy-turvy: the trunks are still empty and the floor is covered in gowns and bits of fabric.
For my part, I put on grey and wait calmly.
Collignon and Dina work so well that everything is ready by the hour of departure. We were still at lunch when in comes
Fiouloulou — that dear little fellow did not know we were leaving today, he says.
And at half past two I get into a small cab with Collignon and we go to the bandstand, and I listen once more to the municipal musicians of Nice.
— There we are, I say to Collignon; if this piece is cheerful, our journey will be too — I am superstitious. And the piece was very cheerful — so much the better. I still see Galula bidding me farewell once more. I did not see the Surprising One, but it does not matter to me. On the Place Masséna we meet the landau, which signals us to follow, and we make our way to the station. Oh!...
There they come, one by one: Ricardo, the general, Giro and Paris, and two more Russian gentlemen Maman knows from Monte-Carlo. I run, I laugh, I chatter like a bird. How kind they all are! How charming — and how hard it is to leave them. I promise to write to Ricardo, to Bihovetz, to Olga, to Collignon — to Collignon who loves me and whom I love.
Maman, Dina, my aunt, Walitsky, the two Russians and I occupy an entire compartment, and the others form a group at the carriage door.
— You are affecting this cheerfulness, Ricardo tells me, but in your heart you are weeping — I am sure of it.
— Oh! nonsense — you think so? No.
When one leaves Nice behind, When one bids it farewell, It is no borrowed joy one finds — Nice casts no love-spell!
— Bravo! Bravo!
This quatrain was composed one evening when we were playing bouts rimés with Girofla.
— Give me some cigarettes, I said softly to my aunt.
— Yes, later.
I thought she would forget, but at Monaco she wrapped a quantity of them in paper and gave them to me — she who shouts at me when I ask for them at home. At Monaco we part ways, and these wretched cigarettes make me weep.
I miss poor dear Grand-papa, my aunt, Collignon, everyone. I am annoyed to be travelling with Maman — at Spa I was with her too, and besides I am accustomed to my aunt.
What torment! Imagine the full tedium of a journey to Italy without servants, without the language, with endless changes of carriage. Maman and Dina do not know Italian, and as for me I absolutely refuse to use my tongue and can barely be bothered to use my legs.
By dint of complaining that I am not with my aunt, by dint of saying at every moment:
— Who asked you to come with me! I did not want to go with you! I was supposed to leave with my aunt! Why are you coming with me?
I obtain a passive obedience and an eagerness to please impossible to imagine;
At night we find ourselves in a full carriage; I complain, I weep quietly and say the most hurtful things to Maman — brute that I am!
On top of all her other sorrows she has this one too: to see her own daughter despise her, say harsh things to her, and prefer her aunt to her! For shame!
For the twenty-four hours that this dreadful journey lasted, I sat in a corner with my face buried in my cloak like Caesar after the Tu quoque? — opening my mouth only for some contemptuous complaint. I strove to say everything in the world to prove that I do not love Maman, that she bores me. It happened all by itself, and I let my wicked tongue run.
At last, around three o'clock, Monday 3 January, through that sad plain called the Campagna of Rome, ruins began to appear — columns, aqueducts — and we pulled into the Rome station. I know nothing, I hear nothing; I am coming apart at the seams after my twenty-four hours without sleep.
We are taken to the Hôtel de Londres, Place d'Espagne, and we occupy on the ground floor two bedrooms and a yellow sitting room — fresh, clean. I am tired, sad. I know nothing, I know no one here! It is the most disagreeable thing. In the state I am in I would need someone to lean on — and Maman is weeping!
Oh, good God!
One must quickly, quickly find one's bearings, orient oneself. Nothing displeases me like change. New streets, unknown faces! And no Mediterranean, just the wretched Tiber!
I am utterly wretched whenever I arrive in a new city. I have a headache; it is cold. I wash, undress, and we dine, after which I shut myself in my room to gather up my scattered wits.
I have written to my aunt, to Giro, to Collignon.
Not a single soul I know!
To be in a hotel, in an unknown city! And my room! And my house! There, I was at home! "You wanted it — now get yourself out of it," as the ditty goes that I heard sung at the Café américain the other evening at the benefit for the flood victims of Toulouse.
I wanted it myself; I am not complaining of that — only it is quite natural to be a little ill at ease in the beginning.
Before falling asleep I read Orlando furioso by Ariosto, and then imagine scenes in Nice — after Rome, in the spring.
— I wager, Maman says to me, that you are thinking of doing as Markevitch did with Tormosoff. Tormosoff abandoned her for the American, barely acknowledged her, and then when he came back to her she treated him badly, drove him away and refused to know him any more.
Indeed, that is my dearest thought. But what good does it do? Is it not written that all my plans must fall through, all my wishes must come to nothing!
For six months I have done nothing but announce my departure, so that people have finally stopped believing in it.
Now I am gone, and I can say without fear of being wrong that they couldn't care less — neither the Surprising One nor the others.
No, tell me — is that not vexing?
Tomorrow Collignon will dispatch the monks' letter.
I am superstitious: the last piece of music I heard in Nice was cheerful — therefore my journey, or rather my stay in Rome, will also be cheerful.
Here I am at last. For a year I have been crying out for this Rome, this eternal city. I have not yet seen anything.

Notes

In Italian in the original: Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, Renaissance epic poem (1516). ↩