Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 9 January 1876

A week ago already I left Nice. Does anyone notice my absence? Does anyone ask where I am? Who will tell me?
I had a strange dream: I saw Audiffret, who came running to press his forehead against mine, and then each time he spoke to me he rested his cheek against mine. That is a sign he is courting someone else. In such cases one must always believe the opposite of one's dreams. If he mistreats you, set your mind at ease; if he caresses you, you are more than done for.
The devil take the rain. I only went out to hear the pupils of Fiacciotti the singing teacher. This Fiacciotti spent twenty years in Russia. He was director of the Opera in Kharkov when we used to go there every evening with Romanoff, who was engaged or nearly so. But none of that adds anything to his merit as a teacher.
It rains, it rains, it rains! I am bored, I am bored, I am bored! I am dying of seeing no one! If at least I were missing Audiffret — but no, it is a general ennui — my own ennui.
I console myself with one thing: perhaps my absence will effect some change in the mind of Émile the Reckless One — the Surprising One, I mean. And then (let us not be hypocritical) — then I shall turn on him like a serpent on whose tail someone has trodden. I could play the good-natured one, the forgiving one, the one who forgets — but no; I prefer to tell the truth, and besides, if I said anything else no one would believe me. All the more so because between M. d'Audiffret and myself there has been neither love, nor quarrel, nor sulking, nor abandonment, nor tenderness — all things that can be forgiven and even forgotten. There has been none of that. This is not an affair between a young man and a young woman. It is a gentleman who made the acquaintance of a family and behaved like a rude man — who treated that family like riffraff — who, to use his own favourite and rather vulgar expression, spat on them. Therefore it is easy to understand: there is neither forgiveness nor forgetting.
I am perhaps too hasty in speaking of forgiveness — there is none yet and there will never be any question of it. No matter: one may say everything and even write everything, when one writes for oneself.
I have not forgotten the invitation to the afternoon dance at the Cercle de la Méditerranée! Then how is it that, having not forgotten it, I can speak of Audiffret, call him the Surprising One and behave in this journal as if nothing had happened? I do more than that: I have talked about it with Maman and Dina and I laugh about it! That is cowardly of me. Why do I do it then? Ah! Here is the thing — I shall tell you. I do it I don't know why, because there is no one to reproach me for it, and at bottom, before myself, I am cowardly enough not to detest the memory of a humiliation. I am furious every time I think of it — every time I remember that day when I had the unfortunate idea of calling out to Audiffret and speaking to him. I certainly said enough to be understood, and he understood perfectly well. Let us put it plainly: I asked for an invitation; he refused it. That is the whole story in nine words.
And an invitation to what, for God's sake? To a club! You see — there are things that are revolting.
I was in a sad state of mind all day; at dinner, letters are brought to us along with a Nice newspaper, La Vie mondaine. My dress, my blue blouse, is described — only the journalists understood nothing about it and produced an absurd description.
[Written across the page: You may think we were looked upon unfavourably in Nice on account of our pranks with the Sapogenikoffs. Those pranks took place in summer, within the family, and no one paid any attention to them. I say this because, having described all my antics here, you might think we behaved badly. Alas! No. That was not the reason.]
A few days before our departure we had read in the same Vie mondaine that some journalists, a disreputable actress from the Théâtre Français, MM. Jansay and Audiffret had supped at the London House on Christmas Eve. "The night was spent laughing and tinkling away at the piano," the paper added. And in today's issue — that is, last Thursday's — one reads: "It has been incorrectly stated that M. d'Audiffret was among the persons who took part in the supper recently held at the London House. M. d'Audiffret was not present at the Christmas Eve supper..."
No doubt he himself went to have this sort of retraction printed. What a clown!
We re-read Mme de Mouzay's letters and little by little I cheer up and begin to hold forth at Dina and Maman, who exclaims at every other moment:
— Good God! It is Audiffret speaking! His very gestures, his very phrases — everything of him — truly I think he is in the room.
I know perfectly well that I speak like Audiffret, because I do so deliberately — it would truly be deplorable for a young girl to talk like the Surprising One spontaneously. What a pity there is something between us beyond mere coquetry.
What a bore to have to regard him as an enemy like the Howards! I should very much prefer it to have been nothing but a love affair. But no — there is a rudeness towards us, something more than rudeness. He spat on us. Say what I will, I cannot find anything else to say. There is no way then to...
Well then — if he comes towards me, what am I to do? Turn my back on him — or else — no, the "or else" is not applicable. I was going to say: or else be amiable, and when he courts me, spit on him and give him a kick. Decidedly the "or else" cannot serve, because he will not come near me at all in order to court me, but simply to speak to me because he knows me, because I have been travelling, because after all in summer saying two words as a matter of courtesy truly counts for nothing. I was going to say: let him come, let him make himself liked, and when I knew he loved me, drive him away without mercy. That is a fine plan, but one that cannot be used. For he may come and speak to me — very well — no, I am going to be charming in the hope of my revenge and the outcome, and the outcome will not come because he will not return again, and will go on spitting on me as in winter while approaching from time to time as if out of condescension.
Besides, I can do nothing other than turn my back on him politely, for after all this gentleman — or rather these gentlemen, Beauty-of-the-Day and Tournon — were guilty of the height of rudeness towards us, in the words of Mlle Collignon.
[In the margin: And in what respect the height of rudeness? Because they did not come to the farewell evening. There you have it.]
To let him come and preserve for the end a doubtful revenge — beautiful, magnificent in truth if it succeeds, but doubtful, very improbable — that will not do for me; it is too chancy. Whereas by receiving him from the very first moment as I ought to receive him, I make him rear up at once — I may even irritate him.
In the first case the risk is too great — and above all the fiasco would be far too harmful to me. And besides, with a man like the Surprising One one must not trifle: all summer long, for entertainment, he will seem to be coming back, even to be in love, and once winter arrives he will plant you there again and just at the moment when you think you have your reward, off he goes! And then again, he never lets himself be carried away — while chatting, while flirting, he never says anything that can be seized upon. Well then — I shall receive him as I must, neither more nor less. And for all of this, first he must have the idea of coming back to us. He knows very well how he has behaved and will not come back — or at least with such skill that I shall need to watch with all my eyes, for he is the most cunning fox I know.
They say he is ruining himself. Oh come now — does a man like him ruin himself? He always knows what he is doing and never lets himself be carried away. He is only young enough to make some extravagant wager or some folly to get people talking about him — but I assure you that at bottom, in the calm and coldness of his reasoning, he is a forty-five-year-old notary. This evening I busy myself with magic: I wrap the king of clubs in a black veil and put it under a cushion, saying: May your thoughts and your heart be as sad and as dark as this veil; may a cloud as black as it envelop your soul as this veil envelops this card. May you not have one moment's rest without me, and may I see you in dreams, and may you see me in dreams and be troubled to the depths of your heart.
Young girls do this in Russia. An old wives' tale — well, we shall see what the dream says.
It is past midnight. I am going to bed to pronounce the incantation. Phew!