Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 19 January 1876

My aunt writes that Count Markoff has been to call on her. It pleases me to see that he continues to be civil — I was already afraid he might become like the others; he comes every winter and has always remained the same towards us.
You cannot imagine how much I value people like Mme de Mouzay, de Daillens, de Ballorе and her daughters, Barnola, Bihovetz, Galula, Pepino, Markoff. That, I believe, is the list of those who have not spat on us. These names, whatever they may be, are written in letters of gold in my heart — but the names of the others in letters of fire.
Immediately after my painting lesson we go to visit the Galerie Spada, where there are nothing but bad pictures which, for being old, are no less daubs. But the statue is curious to see — if it is indeed the statue of Pompey at whose feet the unfortunate and divine Caesar was assassinated by a mob of vile brutes. It is even asserted that the stain on the knee is a stain of Caesar's blood. From there we go to the church of Saint John Lateran, immense and magnificent. A few paltry details at the high altar, however, and not quite enough symmetry for the church to be perfect.
After seeing the palaces and churches of Rome one must either cut one's throat or renounce everything. How can a magnificent house please — I no longer speak of a pretty one — after all this grandeur? How to ornament one's house after the ornaments one sees here?
How to be satisfied with the finest carved wood ceiling after mosaic ceilings? All these columns I adore, all these statues — everything confounds me and makes me envy... whom? The king, the Pope, the world. I should like to be rich enough to buy all the masterpieces and lock them up in the finest palace in the world.
As for beautiful things I would discard them, keeping only the most beautiful; with severity I would not keep very many. Vain dreams!
In this church we met Baroness Ixhull, who came to Maman and spoke with her at length, apologising on account of her husband's illness for not having called yet. Maman went to her house last Sunday — that makes three days.
From there to the Pincio, then along the Corso — there is a crowd everywhere. I love this animation.
I dreamed that I was waltzing at Tchernakovka with Meyer, our old gardener. There was a ball at our house and I could see all the gentlemen of Nice.
My aunt writes that the Surprising One — though she does not call him that: by now everyone at our house, both in Nice and here, has given this poor boy a dreadful name; they call him britaya soroka, which means the Shaved Magpie, and for short they simply say soroka — my aunt writes, then, that Soroka was at the Opéra and spent the whole evening weeping — weeping in earnest. My aunt supposes his tears were caused by an expulsion from the Englishwoman's house.
My aunt is greatly amused by the letter to the Superior — she imagines the arrival of the two monks at the Tower, as do I. It must have been the most comical thing imaginable. When two monks were announced to him, he no doubt thought they were in disguise and ordered them to be detained; then he arrived himself, prepared to confound them — and instead found two genuine monks with arms folded across their chests and humble expressions.
What did he say to them? What did they reply?
I can picture the whole scene.
We were again at Monseigneur de Falloux's, who was very agreeable, promised to do everything possible, and spoke of his poor, of the unhappy times for the clergy so shamefully despoiled — whereupon Maman told him she would do everything she could, and I added a half-lament about the misfortune that had lately struck the Church — secretly delighted that someone had taken back a little of the fat from those lazy and lecherous monks — but Monseigneur was charmed by my remark.
There is news from Russia — nothing good. I can only pray to God and fear. I complain now — but what would it be if we were to lose our fortune! Dreadful! I pray to God and tremble. God will not abandon me.
I am bored in Rome — I wish I could wish to be in Nice. I would rather suffer there than anywhere else.
Nice is my dear country.
I see Rome, Paris, London, kings, courts — but there is nothing as charming as my dear city.
If I am ever rich and titled and happy, I shall not forget it — I shall spend several months there each year. Well, several months I could not, for everywhere except London the winter is the main season. But I would come to Nice every year, whether in winter or summer. And from time to time I shall spend an entire winter there.
I believe what makes me love Nice so greatly is the Castle. Perhaps.
I am jealous to the point of biting and strangling — jealous of the present and above all of the past, because there is no longer any way to change it.
If I were a man, at the age of ten I would choose a dozen little girls of five or six and lock them away on a mountain in a fortress with women to attend to their education; in ten years I would be twenty and these girls fifteen and sixteen — then I would choose from among them. It is strange to worry so about the past — well, I worry about it more than about the present; one can prevent the present, but the past? To take a woman who has been in love, who has looked at men, who has spoken to them!
I am a woman and must choose from among the debauchees of the world — which enrages me. For all these gentlemen... God — if I loved seriously I would not want the beloved man on account of his past; it would always seem to me that he remembers, that he compares me, that he thinks of the past, of those he has loved. And I should be as jealous of a memory, of a single thought, as of everything...
Ah! I do not know how to write well — but I know that I am jealous, jealous, jealous!
And of whom, for heaven's sake! Of a wretched Nice man, a miserable debauchee who does not give a damn about me!
Ah! I am degenerating.

Notes

"Spat on us" — Marie's recurring image for social rejection and cold-shouldering; those who have treated the family with contempt during the legal troubles. ↩
The Galleria Spada: a palazzo in Rome housing a small but celebrated art collection, famous chiefly for Borromini's forced-perspective colonnade. ↩
"Croûtes" — literally "crusts," the contemptuous French term for bad paintings; Marie's artistic judgement is characteristically severe. ↩
San Giovanni in Laterano (Saint John Lateran): the cathedral of Rome, the Pope's episcopal seat, the oldest and highest-ranking of the four major basilicas of Rome. ↩
Tchernakovka: the Bashkirtseff family estate in Ukraine; a childhood home that appears frequently in Marie's nostalgic and dream sequences. ↩
Britaya soroka (Russian): "the shaved magpie" — Audiffret's Russian nickname, alluding to his clean-shaven face and chattering sociability. Already established in TranslationMemory as "the Shaved Magpie" / "la Pie rasée." ↩
The clergy "so shamefully despoiled" — a reference to the Italian Risorgimento: in 1870, the new Italian state had seized the Papal States, leaving the Pope as the "prisoner of the Vatican." Falloux would naturally lament this. ↩
"Frocards" — a contemptuous term for monks (from froc, the monk's habit); Marie's private anticlerical opinion, carefully concealed from the Monseigneur. ↩
"The Castle" (le château): the hill above Nice known as the Colline du Château — but here almost certainly a coded reference to the home or view associated with Audiffret, whom Marie watches obsessively from her window. ↩