Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 14 April 1876

I have seen Naples! It is indeed beautiful enough to die for!
We had been walking for four hours. Just as we were about to return, Altamura and Walitsky met us and told us we must go for a walk on foot along the Via di Roma, or Toledo. It is the Corso of Naples, and today carriages are not admitted.
Altamura was falling over himself with courtesies — I was equally agreeable.
— What is that building? I asked him, seeing a fine corner house with a balcony like that of the Jockey-Club in Paris.
— It is the Accademia — the club.
— Are you a member?
— No, Mademoiselle, because here they are all noblemen.
Altamura is not of the great club — good heavens! And I have been seen with him! I suddenly become tired, and it cost me great self-restraint not to abandon the banker's son on the spot.
On the balcony there were only three or four loungers, one of whom was sprawled entirely in a rocking chair — he must have been a Petruccio.
Near the Royal Palace, a charming encounter. Count Doenhoff — the one from Ostend — who is here with the Prince and Princess Charles of Prussia. We had the carriage stop and he came running up, leaping along.
[Written across the page: I took Antonelli for a young lion! He could have been one — but was not.]
I love to encounter people who knew me in short skirts, for I have greatly improved. You will recall that he used to court Maman.
Altamura escorts us home and sends us ices and cakes. I have never seen such eager attentiveness as his. Do not think he is in love. Maman was kind to him and he has conceived a genuine gratitude — that is all. Besides, he is desired for Dina. He is dark, he has a speech defect that is rather amusing, passably handsome on the whole, but bald at the back.
Doenhoff spent the evening with us. We talked of Julie Voyeikoff, Benkendorf. She leads a dizzying life in Berlin, behaves wildly, has no breeding, lacks tact and education, is prodigiously ugly — everyone mocks her.
Naples is just as beautiful as Paris — wide streets, fine houses. Naples is the finest city in the world, and I shall tell you why. As beautiful as Paris, it possesses in addition the sea, and divine mountains, and a climate beyond all imagining.
There is everything in Naples — everything except Rome... At present I prefer Rome, but it is a matter of habit. At first I detested the Eternal City.
I think he is already back. Rossi must have made enquiries at the Hôtel de la Ville, and the cards left with Visconti and de Falloux must have produced their effect. He is therefore free, or is about to be — if my distressing suppositions are unfounded, if he has not left of his own accord. What will he do? Come to Naples? Oh! No — that vile, cowardly creature.
One has no wish to go to bed in Naples — the sea howls, I listen to it and I am angry like it. He has made a fool of me. That is certain... I left instructions in Rome: the hotelier is to tell anyone who comes asking after us that we have left Rome, without adding anything. But if Count Antonelli were to come, he is to be told that I am in Naples. But it is useless to think of it. He has resigned himself — weak, infamous creature. My God, my God, I do not know what to think! For heaven's sake, deliver me from this uncertainty! I am going to read.
It is past one o'clock. Nothing occupies me in Naples — I cannot live like this.
Is it possible that he has deceived me? Is it possible to be so monstrously infamous? Or else — is it possible to be so cowardly weak!
I am waiting for him here — I wait because I desire it. God, how beautiful Naples would be if I had someone here! The lovely excursions by boat, on horseback, on foot in the evening!
Is it not wretched enough — always to encounter only the indifferent or the brutish!
I believed myself loved — I had some reason to believe myself loved... and look, good people!
I disdained, insulted, wounded Bruschetti. I do not repent of it — if it were to begin again I could not act otherwise. And what use to me is this detested love! A man is unhappy — that is all. Vanity, vanity!! I need to be loved and no one loves me!
I would like to love — and I have no one to love!
It is time to sleep, I think. I have finished a fantastic novel.
Nothing occupies me here — I await nothing. A deplorable situation.
I am truly a strong woman. Nothing affects me and before the world I am gay, flirtatious, extravagant — as usual.
I wept in Rome — the first two days; now I am merely very bored and anxious to know the truth.
This whole affair is very strange. He has disappeared as if by magic — if he had wanted to be rid of me he would not need to warn me; he would only have to go away simply.
Ah! When shall I learn the truth!
I am certain he did not want to be rid of me — I am certain of his sincerity... and yet, God! what uncertainty!

Notes

Marie subverts the famous saying «Voir Naples et mourir» (See Naples and die) from the previous entry — now she has seen it and can confirm: yes, beautiful enough to die for. The transformation from cliché to lived experience. ↩
The Accademia — Naples' exclusive noble club, equivalent to Paris's Jockey-Club or Nice's Cercle Masséna. Membership was restricted to the titled nobility. ↩
Altamura's father was a banker — not nobility — which suddenly renders the whole afternoon socially compromised in Marie's eyes. ↩
"Plobsters" — Marie's word, obscure; possibly an approximation of English "lobsters" used colloquially for idle, red-faced aristocrats, or a Neapolitan dialect word. ↩
"Petruccio" — diminutive of Pietro, used here as a type-name for idle young nobleman (per LAN note). ↩