Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 12 April 1876

All night I saw him in my dreams. He was assuring me that he really had been at the convent.
Everything is in disorder in the apartment. They are packing — we leave this evening for Naples. I detest leaving!
When shall I ever have the happiness of living at home always in the same city, always seeing the same society, and making journeys from time to time to refresh myself!
"It is in Rome that I would wish to live, to love, and to die."
No, listen — I would wish to live wherever I am comfortable, to love everywhere, and to die nowhere.
And yet I am quite fond of Italian life — Roman life, I mean to say; there remains there still a faint tinge of ancient magnificence. One often forms a false idea of Italy and the Italians — one imagines them poor, self-interested, in full decline. It is quite the opposite: rarely in other countries does one find families so rich, houses kept with such luxury. I speak, of course, of the aristocracy. Rome without the Pope was entirely a city apart, sovereign of the world in its way. Then each Roman prince was like a little king — he had his court and his clients, as in Antiquity. It is to this regime that the greatness of families owes itself. Certainly within two generations there will be neither greatness nor wealth, for Rome is now subject to the royal laws, and Rome will become like Naples, Milan, and the other Italian cities. The great fortunes broken up, the galleries and museums acquired by the government, and the princes of Rome transformed into a heap of small people covered in great names like old theatrical cloaks to cover their misery — and when these great names, so respected before, are dragged through the mud, when the king thinks himself great alone, having trampled all his nobility underfoot, he will see very quickly what a country is where there is nothing between the people and their king. Look at France — and you will soon see Russia. The Emperor has humiliated his nobility — the madman who was demolishing his own rampart! But look at England. One is free. One is happy. There is so much misery in England, you will say. But there is misery everywhere — yet in general the English people are the happiest. I speak not of its commercial prosperity but only of its domestic life.
The nobles are subordinate (?) to the King, the bourgeois to the nobles, and the peasants to the bourgeois. For everywhere and in everything one must have a chief. Let him who wants a republic in his country begin by making one in his household!
But what am I saying — enough of dissertations on subjects of which I have but a feeble idea and an entirely personal opinion.
What will Pietro say when he returns to Rome and no longer finds me there?
He will howl. So much the worse. It is not my fault. Well then — I leave a little moved, as always, but not grieved; I do not know what gives me this calm. It is no doubt the presentiment that he will find me again. He loves me — I have nothing to fear. He has a stake in the matter and will act in his own interest; I therefore need not worry. I am not worried; on the contrary, I am full of confidence. I would be too miserable if I were not.
There is no need to do anything — let us remember pages 10, 11 and 12 of the 53rd volume of my glorious journal. I cannot understand that one could love me and do everything in the world to find me again — yet it is natural that one should seek me out if one loves me.
It always seems to me that it is only I who worry, only I who torment myself, only I who desire to see again.
One always doubts such things — it is in the nature of the human heart. But let us raise ourselves on the tiptoe of intelligence and we shall see in the manner one must see.
Let us be calm. No one calms me — so I calm myself as the best of friends would.
How many times have I promised to do nothing for anyone's sake! And I stayed in Rome for Pietro. Foolish enough. Do you think that if he loves me he will not come and find me! So I leave without scruples, without regrets — I act openly. It is he who broke his word.
At last! I went for a walk on the Pincio and the Corso. I sat for the photographer Alexandri, in a street dress, hat and parasol. I encountered the people from the Barcaccia — my enemy Belmonte, Pandola, Cesaro. And Torlonia twice. The dear creature passes the first time, noticed by Maman alone. As usual, I see only the back of the one I wish to see.
But Maman having stayed at the hotel, I went into a shop on the Corso with Dina, and I met him face to face. He smiled in greeting. A divine drunkard's smile — no, I speak truly, he smiles like an angel; what a pity to be almost always drunk.

Notes

A quotation of what appears to be a popular phrase or song about Rome, rendered in quotation marks by Marie as a known expression. ↩
Marie refers to an earlier volume of her own diary where she apparently reasoned through the same problem of trusting in Pietro's love. The "53rd volume" indicates the extraordinary scope and self-consciousness of her journaling project. ↩
The Barcaccia — the boat-shaped fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna, a fashionable meeting point for the Roman social world. ↩