Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

I authorise an intelligent editor to delete the pages where I repeat the same lamentations about Antonelli, in the previous books and here. Leave a few pages to give an idea of them and delete the rest — in fact, no, leave everything; the reader will skip.

in the margin
I authorise an intelligent editor to delete the pages where I repeat the same lamentations about Antonelli, in the previous books and here. Leave a few pages to give an idea of them and delete the rest — in fact, no, leave everything; the reader will skip.
in the margin
I have struck out the repetitions, but if the editor of genius insists on keeping them, he will keep them.

Thursday, 13 April 1876 – continued

It was on the 13th of last month that Torlonia was introduced.
After all, I have nothing to complain of. Is it not Holy Thursday these days — are these not the days during which Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered? He, a God! Is it not just that I should suffer? More than just. I did not go to hear the Gospel in church — I wanted to amuse myself, when I ought to have been spending my time in prayer. As for church — it is not a sin; one goes only to be seen, to see, to criticise and be criticised. Agreed — but I should have prayed at home. I prayed every evening, but I prayed only to ask.
That is not what is required. I see clearly now why I am tormented — for my impiety, though only apparent. I made light of it and mocked fasting.
Well then — my fault, my fault, my fault.
One must be more religious — I did nothing but believe in God; that is not enough. It is true that when one follows all the rules of the Church, one’s love and belief in God scatter themselves imperceptibly across priests, images, and insignificant practices.
Take from the most ardent Catholic woman her confession, her church, its ceremonies, its priests, its images — and see what remains for her! Nothing! — for little by little she has made all these empty trappings her God, and the true God, for whom all this is meant, fades away.
To air my room full of cigarette smoke — those indispensable companions of sadness — I opened the window, and for the first time in three long months I saw a clear sky, and the sea through the dark trees, the sea lit by the moon. I am so enchanted that I run to write it down. God, how beautiful it is after the dark, narrow streets of Rome! It is one o’clock — not a soul on the quay. Such a calm, such a beautiful night! Ah — if he were there. If you take that for love!
One cannot sleep when the night is so beautiful.
Coward, weak, unworthy — unworthy of the last of my thoughts.

Notes

Marie notes the coincidence — Torlonia was introduced exactly one month before this entry (13 March), and here she is again on the 13th, in Naples, thinking of him. ↩
Holy Thursday (Jeudi Saint) — the Thursday of Holy Week, commemorating the Last Supper. Marie’s arrival in Naples coincides with the solemn days before Easter. Her Russian Orthodox background gives her a keener sense of this. ↩
Manger maigre — “eating lean”: the Catholic and Orthodox Lenten practice of abstaining from meat and rich foods on Fridays and throughout Lent. ↩
In Latin in the original: culpa mea, culpa mea, culpa mea — from the Confiteor, the opening prayer of the Latin Mass: «mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa» (“through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”). Marie reverses the word order, perhaps from imperfect memory or for rhythmic effect. ↩