Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 20 February 1876

I get up with a violent headache — but truly, a headache is a pleasure once a year; a headache has its charm, from time to time.
So I do not complain; we go to the Villa Borghese, where there are crowds; I cannot simply say the princess was there — I must say the adorable, or the charming, or the gracious princess was there. Always simple, always gay, always agreeable.
Happy Italy, to have such a future queen. The French prefer a Gambetta or some creature of an even worse species. I see my escorts from the Capitol. Both Dorias look at me — no doubt they recognised me at the ball, for in general they have an air of ignoring me, especially the elder. From there to the Pincio: the same crowd, and just as we pass in front of the band, I see Cesaro and Antonelli on foot.
I blushed but did not stir, exactly as if I had never seen them. I was afraid of seeming to recognise them — and as we came down from the Pincio we met them again in a cab, and Antonelli turned round so abruptly that Maman — to whom I had never managed to point him out and who did not know his face — said: There is Antonelli.
The man we took for Antonelli the other day on the Corso was not Antonelli — he would have looked at me if it had been. Well then — here is the Corso in gala, a laughable gala at that: almost no elegant carriages, not a single grand livery. It was pitiful!
The priests are pleased. They have laboured, God knows, sufficiently at the non-success of the carnival; every monsignor has a crowd of agents who contribute to the dampening of all gaiety.
All this is to prove to the poor people how everything has degenerated and fallen away since the revolution of 1870. They have formed a regular cabal, these future saints.
But who do I see! A man from Nice — Mayer, fat Mayer! Poor Nice — one fewer escort.
This evening there is a grand illumination of the staircase and the church on the Piazza di Spagna; we glance at it in passing and go to hear Ruy Blas again.
The pretty princess is in her stage box — a box just like the one we had at the Théâtre Français in Nice.
Another man from Nice — this one I know only as Petit-Paul.
And no Antonelli. Bigre!
I keep to the back of the box, where the opera-glasses from the hunting box and from the court box seek me out — especially that of a fair-haired prince, most agreeable, with a persistence that is truly amusing. I am bored.
The door opens to admit Rossi, and behind Rossi, Antonelli in full dress and very serious. I did not expect it — nor did you, I believe. Well then — here we are. We had barely exchanged a few words when the Greek minister arrived and placed himself between Antonelli and me; but Rossi soon departed, and a little later the Greek as well, and the priest's son remained alone.
This evening he seemed tall to me. At first I felt rather at a loss on seeing this man after the Capitol. He was serious and well-behaved, looking me straight in the eyes — probably the better to assure himself that the silver-trimmed hood had indeed covered my head — and I avoided his Italian eyes, oily and furious. He has teeth like Audiffret, and his mouth opens, like that of the handsome Niçois, to laugh. He has long, bony, slightly red hands, which he rarely covers with gloves. After ten minutes he fell to chatting as if we had known him for two months. He was telling how he had lost sixty thousand francs at Monaco, how his maman had paid, how the cardinal had been furious — and then he added, raising his eyes to the ceiling like a cardinal in a painting, that he detested society and loved the quiet life.
— I have just come from a ball, but I stayed only five minutes; they had begged me so; but I detest society and adore the theatre.
Apropos of people knocked down by the horses yesterday, he tells how, to play a trick on the mayor, they organized a collection at the Cercle for the injured.
— Do you gamble at the Cercle? asked Maman.
— No, madame, I stay and talk, or I take tea with cream, seated in a comfortable armchair, and I dream.
— You might do that at home, she said, smiling.
— Ah! No — my father does not approve of taking tea with cream at one in the morning; and besides, the armchairs at the Cercle are particularly comfortable — and I dream, he added, raising his eyes to the ceiling and licking his lips — a grimace I imitate to perfection.
Antonelli presents a curious mixture of vivacity and languor — at one moment he has the air of a schoolboy, at the next, of a man.
They spoke of music.
— I was a very fine violinist, he said.
— Why the past tense?
— Because I cannot any longer now — look, and he showed his hand, ornamented with a scar right in the middle, so that the third finger appears dislocated.
— A wound! In a duel, I suppose? I asked, for I could see by his manner that it was so.
— Oh! No — catching flies, he said, in a way that left me in no further doubt as to the origin of the scar.
[Written across the page: He had never duelled.]
Not a word, not a glance that might suggest he had recognised me at the ball.
Only he did not know what to do with his legs and his hands — he rubbed his knees, he pulled at his foot, he struck remarkable attitudes; I thought he would never finish. Maman asked him the name of one of the gentlemen from his box, and he named them all: eight princes, dukes, and counts.
It was only at the beginning of the ballet that he left — to visit a lady, he said. And at once I was very slightly vexed. But he soon returned to his box to turn his back on the ballet and ogle me as much as possible.

Notes

The capture of Rome by the Italian army in September 1870, which ended papal temporal power — a catastrophe for the Church hierarchy. ↩