Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday 13 March 1876

The weather is bad, I have a sore throat, and yet we go to the Villa Doria Pamphilj. There are the Swedomsky brothers, Rossi, the cardinalino, the Bruschetti brothers, Pandola, and others.
The moment we enter through the gate, Pietro comes toward me, and on the way — among the cypresses, in the wind and rain of leaves and drops — he entertains me with a fine subject.
Do you know which?
It is Torlonia — whom he presented to me, at the villa.
I was delighted! I said a few banal words.
Among the regular visitors to the villa there is a superb animal by the name of Chocolat — a large bay horse, lively, enthusiastic, a real child. To arrive at the scene of our introduction, here is how it came about.
Passing through the Campidoglio the day before yesterday after our walk, I know not how it happened that I found myself with Pietro at the Campidoglio at the foot of the steps. There a horse was being mounted.
Two urchins of ten or so had set their dogs fighting, and Romans of a fine age watched them. Pietro too was watching with attention.
Pietro told me afterwards that the old woman who was there began to laugh at his foolishness — him watching it all with such attention.
And then the horse being mounted was called Fortuné. And Pietro burst out laughing too. Fortuné and Chocolat — what delicious names!
"Ah! Yes, very well."
"Shall I introduce Torlonia to you?"
"Very well — where are the horses?"
"Over there. Shall I introduce Torlonia to you?"
"Very well, very well, yes — where is he?"
"There?"
We had all arrived before the gate. Torlonia stepped down from his carriage and came toward us — we inside the gate, he outside.
"Permit me, Madame, to present the Duke Torlonia."
There we are!
And our group, augmented by the duke, turns back toward the palace. Torlonia gives his arm to Maman to climb the stairs, and Pietro hovers about me. We find the door locked; as for going up on the terrace, we have no desire to do so.
We go down and settle ourselves under the sort of colonnade that stands there. The floor is porcelain, and above our heads a few busts. I believe Petruccio has told Torlonia all my foolish sayings, for he has the air of being quite au courant with everything. He knows how much Prater eats and what Fortuné, nicknamed Chocolat, says.
It seems that when we abandoned him at the Campidoglio, Count Bruschi (not to be confused with the dreadful Bruschetti) found him weeping with all his might and not knowing where to go. Bruschi spoke to him in French, Italian, English, but Chocolat understood no language and wept floods of tears. Well done, Chocolat — you would not betray us! Bruschi motioned him to climb onto the box of his carriage, and scarcely had they reached the Piazza Venezia when Chocolat leaped down from the box and began to run without a word, overjoyed to have recognised the Corso.
It served no purpose, no doubt, and Chocolat's devotion deceived no one — but I am excessively flattered by the little fellow's conduct: the intention is everything.
Next we go to see the famous horses up close.
At the first ball at the Apollo, Torlonia, known at the time as "the agreeable blond," approached our box and spoke to me.
"Leave me alone," I told him. "Go speak to that mask" — and I pointed to Maman.
"Oh!" he said, "of that one I take no account."
We laughed about it among ourselves, and told Pietro, who went at once to recount it to Torlonia.
"Oh! Of that one I take no account!" says Maman, today.
"But you, Mademoiselle — you did not go to the masked ball?" he asked me.
"No, Monsieur, but Maman went."
"That is it — just as I thought."
He is quite right to say so, for they had a most carefully conducted little conversation with Dina at that ball.
Torlonia understands Russian — his mother, born Ruspoli, remarried in a second marriage the Count Kiseleff, Russia's minister to Florence. She is now a widow. He has been to St Petersburg. Torlonia is a small, plump, blond, elegant, agreeable man — proof of his nickname — a fresh little mouth, a blond beard, grey eyes. Not at all Italian in appearance, but very French, and speaking that language as his own.
He offers to harness his horses in a little panier for driving, and we make an appointment for Thursday at eleven.
Pietro turns about and urges us to go on horseback.
"I have seen Plowden," he says. "Plowden is ill."
"Very well — we shall see."
We go to the Pincio and there again see Pietro and Clemente in the avenue not far from the obelisk.
"I want Torlonia!"
There is Torlonia — it is too wonderful, upon my honour as an honest woman. I feel myself somewhat discontented, one knows not why. And Maman increases this discontent by saying that for Torlonia it is an excellent piece of business, that to sell such horses for four thousand francs at the end of the season is a piece of luck, etc. She loves only Pietro.
"Torlonia is too full of his own importance," she says.
"And who would not be?"
Torlonia is not a child, a fool — he is a man, and despite his short stature, quite imposing; perhaps that is because I am as yet certain of nothing — no matter, he is imposing.
All the same I am pleased — provided only that Torlonia does not take the purchase of the horses too seriously and confine himself to a mere commercial transaction. Yes — that is the fear.
What a difference! Torlonia at the Apollo — Torlonia here.
On returning I find a book with Plowden's card — the book is a novel by Whyte Melville I believe, entitled The White Rose bound in white vellum with my monogram in gold.
Plowden — how very kind of you!
I also find a letter from Ricardo. He sends me his portrait in costume from the Sabatier ball.
"I should like," he writes, "to send you that of the rossignoù che vaia as Hamlet — ravishing, and in my opinion the best-dressed."
Poor Ricardo — he thinks the rossignoù che vola still occupies my thoughts. He does not know what bold ideas fill my head.
"Come back to us," he writes further, after many very kind things, "and do not let yourselves be too much seduced by the charms of the sons of Romulus."
Can you imagine Bruschetti's behaviour! He conducts his affairs through Léonie! Yesterday he came to ask her for a reply to his letter. Was ever anything so foolish! As after the horseback ride with Antonelli, I feel the need to stretch out on my bed and build castles in Spain with the duke, Pietro, etc.
And they want me to return to Nice.
Forgive them, O Lord, for they know not what they do!

Notes

Panier — a light two-wheeled carriage of basket-like construction, favoured for fast driving. ↩
The White Rose — In English in the original. A novel by George John Whyte-Melville (1821–1878), Scottish novelist popular with the English aristocracy and equestrian circles. ↩
rossignoù che vaia — Italian (with Marie's Niçois orthography): "the nightingale that flies," her nickname for Audiffret, the young man she pursued in Nice. ↩
Biblical quotation: Luke 23:34 — Christ's words on the cross. Used by Marie with characteristic irony. ↩