Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 15 May 1876

In a moment I go to Katorbinsky's studio — he came yesterday and we arranged to work today, tomorrow and the day after, to finish the woman with the orange background. But I am in a very bad humour. I reproach myself for my unworthy conduct and am at my wits' end imagining how the Metchersky girl and the others in general go about it… Well, my dear — you did very well and everything was going very well as long as the man was not being evasive and did not have a herd of priests and monks at his heels. Very well then! I see where the fault lies. Here it is. On my return from Naples and on his release from the convent, I should not have gone out into the corridor — and everything would have muddled along well enough, for before the convent I always replied: No, I do not love you — I laughed and promised nothing at all. It is really a kind of consolation to understand where one stands. That then is my mistake. Very well — but it in no way justifies him, and does nothing to improve my state, and consequently my humour.
Work does one good. I painted until five o'clock, telling Luisetta stories about a saint I was astonished she did not know: San Zucchini. The name has something magical about it, for the girl began to laugh and to repeat it endlessly. At six we go to drive along the Corso, for there is no question of going to the Pincio — it is pouring. On the Corso, Antonelli is encountered several times, and after a few minutes' hesitation I have the carriage stopped and ask whether he wishes to come to dinner.
"But how am I to let my mother know?" he asked, undecided.
"If you do not know how to manage it, do not come," I say, barely containing the contempt — or rather the pity — he inspired in me.
"Certainly not," he says, "I shall write as I did the other time."
And we take him along.
"Have you seen the three-legged woman?" Antonelli asks.
"No."
"Let us go and see her."
"Let us."
She is truly the most extraordinary phenomenon — this woman, or rather two women from the waist down and a single bust and head. She is entirely covered with a slipcover, like a piece of furniture. A doctor friend of Antonelli's has seen her completely unclothed.
He would very much like to find my foot again, but I will not allow it, for I am not stupefied today as I was yesterday.
This evening we are to go to a soirée given by the Roman musical society, under the presidency of Prince Altieri (clerical, as everyone knows), in the great hall of the Palazzo Doria on the Piazza Navona. They are performing Handel's Messiah, under the direction of the celebrated Mustapha, director of the Sistine Chapel choir.
Dinner ends at eight and my aunt goes to dress, leaving me to keep Antonelli company as he takes a cup of coffee.
As soon as we were alone and seated on the sofa — I at the right end and he at the left — he began to look at me and say nothing, to begin with.
On this subject I recall what he once told me. He began kissing the hands of a certain lady; "Why do you do that?" she said, "it is so stupid." "I know it perfectly well," he replied, "but that is how one begins."
Then he tried — in vain — to take my hand, and began to complain and to say that I have become more beautiful than before and that he loves me more than ever.
"Besides," he says, "with me it is a matter of habit — I am now accustomed to seeing you and I shall be miserable when you leave."
"Listen, Monsieur," I say, half laughing, "I cannot prevent you from thinking it, but I can forbid you to say it to me, and I do forbid it."
"But what harm is there in it?" he began.
"There is a great deal of harm — enough!"
At that moment the sound of a loaded tray was heard in the hall, and we found ourselves once more — he at the South Pole and I at the North Pole of the sofa — laughing at the manoeuvre.
"I love you so much," he says when the servant has gone out.
"Let us speak no more of it, I beg you — I should have told you so long ago."
"And why? When I tell you that I love you…"
"What a love! I am leaving and it is all the same to you!"
"Oh, no — but only, what can I do! How do you expect me to go against my family again — my father, my brothers!"
"What are you saying, Monsieur, and how is it going against your family?"
"I am going to tell you. Have you read Goethe?"
"Yes."
"Well then, you remember…"
At this moment my aunt had the stupidity to come in, pressing me to go and dress.
"Very well," I say, "will you stay and see my ensemble?"
"With pleasure."
Half an hour later I appeared with a train so long that there was a general cry of surprise, and Potechine, who had arrived during my absence, threw his hands to heaven.
My white summer pelisse greatly resembles a priest's vestment, and before putting it on I drape it over Antonelli and sing him passages from the requiem, at which he is furious. And at nine we depart, my aunt and I.
Even the antechamber is full, and we find ourselves rather awkward, quite alone; but the stewards hurry forward and place us very well in the second row. It is even too close, for the choir is composed of a hundred and fifty voices and accompanied by an immense orchestra.
The entire audience is clerical, and these great ladies are dressed so unbecomingly in their multicoloured rags that it is pitiful.
As for the choir, it is arranged on a kind of amphitheatre balcony, and the women present a pleasing mixture of white, pink and blue.
It is very curious music, composed in 1714. After two hours, at the end of the first part, when I was quite overwhelmed, Simonetti arrived and placed himself near us.
The entire audience is clerical, as I have said — consequently these are all unfamiliar faces to me.
On leaving, I gather on my way out — as usual — a profusion of [com'è carina!]. Simonetti puts us in the carriage, and that is that.
I am calmer this evening — I am almost entirely calm, even. Thank God, and owing to a kiss on the right hand. Before he only brushed it, but this evening he pressed his lips quite as I like and held them so long fastened to that wicked right hand that I withdrew it by force, shuddering from head to foot — like Audiffret's uncle at the moment the monks came to his house to inquire about Emile's soul.
Poor Pietro* — I accuse him of nothing; he is an unfortunate young man, and if I had the patience to write all that he has told me of his family and their way of life, you would not believe me.
Every Sunday the rector of the convent of San Giovanni e Paolo comes; his hand is kissed and he preaches for two hours. But that is still the least of it.
"Oh! if it were not for the fear of being disinherited!" cries the wretched Pietro* at every turn in his stories, "how I would go to the devil! You cannot conceive what this life is like, and all these persecutions!"
I leave on Wednesday. And how so! To leave again and leave things in the same state!! No, no — something must be done. That aunt of mine who came in just at the moment when I was about to… Oh, drat!
My God, arrange it, I beg you.

Notes

Domenico Mustafà (1829–1912), director of the Sistine Chapel choir from 1870 to 1902. ↩
Handel's Messiah was actually composed in 1741 (premiered 1742). Marie's date of 1714 is incorrect. ↩
"How pretty she is!" — in Italian in the original. ↩