Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 5 January 1876

It was yesterday that the soul auction of Brother Émile took place.
Since morning we have been searching for apartments, but here is what I write to the general:
— Well then, here I am in Rome. "Oh, how astonishing! Oh, how surprising!" There is a Russian cold here — the water is freezing in the fountains — but the cold would be nothing if it were only the cold. Since this morning we have been searching for lodgings and have seen only one. I had not the courage to go up when they pointed out to me some black, gaping, filthy, frightening hole.
[Two lines cancelled.]
In vain I look for some house bearing any resemblance to the houses of France — I find nothing but hovels or cracked columns.
It is no doubt beautiful, but you will agree with me that a good comfortable apartment is infinitely more agreeable, even if less artistic. I think we shall end up lodging in the Baths of Caracalla or in the Colosseum.
The foreigners will take me for the shade of some Christian martyr devoured by some ferocious tiger before some carnivorous emperor!
As for furniture, we shall make do with fragments of statues or bones — sublime remnants of a past that is henceforth impossible!
After I have settled in the Colosseum or the Forum I shall give you more details about the Eternal City.
In the meantime I await a letter from you, dear General, which I know in advance will be most charming and most agreeable.
Orsu, au revoir. Marie Bashkirtseff.
That is the truth! Not a single habitable apartment! Where are we! Where are we? Can this dreadful city call itself a capital? We are not in Europe! Not one decent house to let! I am discouraged, exasperated!
But I shall not move before May.
O Rome! I think we shall take a larger apartment in the hotel and stay there. On the Place d'Espagne at least one can breathe.
Can this really be Rome! What a dreadful mixture of beautiful antiquities and modern vileness!
It is the eve of our Christmas. We were at the church in the embassy palace. I prayed to God. Did He hear me?
I am so frightened, so discouraged. At Nice I was at least at home — but here! Who knows what awaits us! Let us have faith in God — if not in Rome, where?
I have seen the façade of St Peter's. It is superb — it ravished my heart, especially the left colonnade, because no building rises above it and its columns against the sky as their background produce the most striking effect. One might think oneself in ancient Greece.
The Castel Sant'Angelo and its bridge too, in my view.
It is great, it is sublime.
And the Colosseum!
" Arches on arches! As it were that Rome Collecting the chief trophies of her line Would build up all her triumphs in on dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moobeams shine As twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the ligth which streams here to illume. This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation..."
What have I to say after Byron?
I have to say that last night I dreamed of Audiffret, and pleasantly. I have sent several more letters to be posted from Nice.
I am ugly and tired. I shall have to arrange everything tomorrow — everything must be arranged. I am in suspense, anxious.
God! Set my mind at rest. I have all of this to arrange here in Rome.
The first thing to do is to take an apartment and unpack the trunks, and then make use of the letters.

Notes

In Italian in the original: Orsu — well then, come now. ↩
Russian Orthodox Christmas falls on January 6/7 by the Julian calendar. ↩
In English in the original. From Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV. Spelling errors (moobeams, ligth, on dome) as Marie copied them. ↩