Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 19 May 1876

Before, I used to weep over Mignon; now I weep over the music of La Traviata. Mignon seems to me a bourgeois affair. I explain this very naively: because no one dies.
What a misfortune it is to wake; I should like to sleep always — one is happier when asleep. I got up at one o'clock and find even that too early.
My aunt and Potechine have gone to the Vatican; as for me, since I cannot be with Antonelli, I prefer to stay alone.
He will come around five; I wish so much that my aunt might still be absent. I should like to find myself alone with him, apparently by chance — for I can no longer show that I seek him out. It is my aunt who invited him; my aunt who knows nothing — and he knows that.
I have just been singing and my chest aches.
Do you see me posed as a martyr? That is too foolish — no, it is not foolish. My hair is done in the style of the Capitoline Venus; I am in white like a Beatrice, with a rosary and a mother-of-pearl cross at my neck.
There is, whatever one may say, in human beings a certain need for idolatry, for material sensation. God in his simple grandeur is not enough. One must have images to look upon, crosses to kiss.
Oh! These posings. This aunt, this edifying journey! This manner of receiving young men!
Truly it was most unfortunate for me to be a child and to have no civilised parents.
Last evening I counted the beads of the rosary — there are sixty — and I prostrated myself sixty times, each time striking my forehead against the floor. I was out of breath, but it seemed to me I had done something pleasing to God. It is no doubt absurd, but the intention was there. Does God take account of intention?
Ah! But I have the New Testament here. Let me read. Not finding the holy book, I have read Dumas — it is not the same thing.
I thought I was sturdy but on the contrary — (I am not thin) — I am rather thin than stout. I am as a truly well-made woman of seventeen ought to be.
My aunt returned at four o'clock, and within twenty-five minutes I had adroitly worked her up to go and see the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is now half past four. I have done wrong — I should have sent her off at five, for I fear she may return too early.
When Count Antonelli was announced, I was still alone, for my aunt had had the happy idea of visiting the Pantheon as well as Santa Maria Maggiore. My heart was beating so hard that I feared it might be heard — as they say in novels. He sat beside me and began by taking my hand, which I withdrew at once. Then he told me he loved me; I repulsed him with a polite smile.
"My aunt will be back directly," I said. "Have patience."
"I have so many things to say to you," he said, still embarrassed by the night before last.
"Indeed."
"But your aunt will be back."
"Then be quick about it."
"They are serious matters."
"Let us hear."
"To begin with — you were wrong to write all those things about me."
"Let us not speak of that."
Nothing more idiotic than myself. I have become exactly like all the young girls in novels.
"I am a dog who has misbehaved."
"That is true…"
"You see!"
"And then?"
"And then?"
"Monsieur, I warn you that I am very nervous; you would do well therefore to speak plainly or to say nothing."
"I love you! I love you!"
"Oh — that."
"You don't believe me?!"
"No."
"Listen — I have spoken to my mother, and my mother has spoken to my father."
"Well — and then?"
"I have done well, have I not?"
Nothing more foolish than myself! Like the victims in novels. Ugh!
"That is no concern of mine — what you have done, you have done for yourself."
"You do not love me?"
"No."
"And I love you to madness!"
"So much the worse for you," I said, smiling, allowing him to take my hands.
"No, listen," he said, just like Torlonia. "Let us speak seriously — you are never serious; one cannot go on like this!"
"You are the one to say that?"
"Listen."
"I am listening."
"I love you… wait! I love you — I have spoken to my mother — I love you—" and then, putting his arms around my waist and resting his head on my shoulder like a child: "Be my wife!" he said.
At last! I cried inwardly — and said nothing aloud.
"Well?" he asked.
"Nothing," I answered, smiling.
"You know," he said, encouraged, "we must put someone in charge of this."
"How do you mean?"
"Yes — I cannot manage it myself; someone must take it on, a composed, respectable, serious man, who will speak to my father, who will arrange everything in a word. Who?"
"Visconti," I said, laughing.
"Yes," he said, very seriously. "I have thought of Visconti — he is the right man; he is so old he is good for nothing now but to play Mercurio."
"Only," he continued, "I am not rich — not at all rich. Ah! How I wish I were hunchbacked and hideous and possessed of millions."
"That would gain you nothing with me."
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"I believe that is a fresh insult," I said, rising.
"Not at all — I am not speaking of you; you are an exception!"
"Then do not speak to me of money, nor of anything else."
"But what have I done to you?"
"Nothing."
"Forgive me!"
"For what?"
"God, with you one can never understand what you want! Consent… Consent to be my wife—" he made to kiss — [This is not a man! This Antonelli is a loose woman!] — my hand, but I held out to him the cross of my rosary, which he kissed, then raised his head.
"How devout you are," he said, looking at me.
"And you believe in nothing."
"I love you — do you love me?"
"I cannot say," I said, turning away.
"Say it," he sighed.
"I do not say such things."
"Then for God's sake — at least make me understand it!"
After an instant's hesitation my head fell on his shoulder. What a masterpiece!
"You consent!"
"Gently," I said, rising. "You know there are my grandfather and my father, and they will put up strong resistance to a Catholic marriage."
"Ah! There is that as well."
"Yes — there is that as well."
He took my arm and placed me beside him before the mirror, bringing my face very close to his. We were very beautiful like that.
"We will put Visconti in charge of it," Antonelli resumed.
"Yes."
"He is the right man. But how young we are to be marrying. Do you think we shall be happy?"
"To begin with, you would need my consent."
"Of course — so let us suppose: if you consent — shall we be happy?"
His dark complexion and his soft cheeks are again passed over in silence. I hoped to have a beautiful memory and did not want to destroy the illusion.
"If I consent," I said, smiling, "I can swear on my head that there will not be in the world a happier man than you."
"Then we shall marry."
I smiled.
"Ah!" he cried, bounding about the room, "how funny it will be when we have children!"
"You are mad, Monsieur."
"Yes — with love."
At that moment, hearing voices on the stairs, I sat down quietly and waited for my aunt and Potechine, who entered at once.
A great weight was lifted from my heart; I became cheerful, and Antonelli was radiant. He remembered that I had once wished for a monk's green umbrella and went off to find one for me.
Throughout dinner my foot never left his. I was calm and happy, but I had much to say and to hear. Apart from our apartment, the entire first floor of the hotel is empty; we take a candle and wander through those vast rooms still fragrant with the ancient grandeur of Italian palaces — but my aunt is with us. I did not know how to manage things.
We stop for more than an hour in a large — [I disgust myself!!!] — yellow salon, and Pietro imitates the Cardinal, his father, his brothers, Walitsky, Bruschetti, etc.
As we were returning to our rooms around eleven, Potechine arrives. We supper, and my aunt amuses herself making Antonelli write nonsense in Russian.
"Copy this," I said, taking a book and writing on the first page.
"What?"
"Read it."
I indicated to him the following eight words: Leave at midnight; I will speak with you below.
"Understood?" I asked, erasing it.
"Yes."
From that moment I was relieved and strangely agitated. Antonelli kept turning toward the clock, and I feared someone might understand why. As if anyone could have guessed! Only guilty consciences have such fears…
At quarter past twelve he rose, let Potechine go first, and said goodnight to me, pressing my hand firmly.
"Good night, Monsieur," I said — our eyes met…
I could not describe how — it was a flash of lightning.
"Well, aunt," I said, "tomorrow we leave early — go to your room; I will lock you in, that way you won't keep me from writing, and I will go to bed quickly."
"You promise?"
"Certainly."
I locked in my aunt, glanced quickly in the mirror, and went down the secret staircase.
I pushed open the door; he slipped through the gap like a shadow, and I found myself in his arms… for a few seconds, not conscious of anything.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he guessed my thought.
"Is this not talking?" he said tenderly.
"Yes," I answered in the same tone.
"One says so much in silence when one loves… at least… I love you…"
I was amusing myself playing out a scene from a novel, and involuntarily thought of Dumas's.
"I am leaving tomorrow…"
"And we have to talk seriously — and I was forgetting… it is that one thinks of nothing when one is… like this…"
"Come," I said, closing the door so as to let in only a faint ray of light, and I sat down on the bottom step of the little staircase at the far end of the cabinet.
He knelt.
At every moment I thought I heard someone coming, and I stayed motionless, starting at each raindrop that fell on the window panes.
"But it is nothing," said my impatient lover.
"You speak very easily, Monsieur — if anyone came you would be flattered and I would be ruined."
My head thrown back, I looked at him through my lashes.
"With me," he said, misunderstanding my words, "you risk nothing. I respect and love you too much… you are safe."
I held out my hand to him upon hearing this "noble language."
"Have I not always been proper and respectful?"
"Oh!" I cried, drawing back — for the dreadful memory returned like an acute pain. "No, no — not always!"
"But—"
"Do not speak of that, I beg you… it is dreadful!" I was suffocating.
"Oh!" he murmured humbly. "I have begged you so to forgive me… to forget… Be kind… have pity on me… Forgive!…"
He was no doubt drunk the other evening.
"I have forgiven," I said very softly, "and… I have forgotten…" I added, nestling against his chest as if for protection against the past insult — and against himself.
We were as if in a dream, both of us… is this it, then, I thought — one of those moments when one is happy, when one loves… is it real? It still seemed to me that he would burst out laughing, so grave and tender was he. I lowered my gaze beneath the extraordinary brilliance of his.
"Your mouth," he cried in a passionate whisper. "Give me your mouth."
I did not even think to disobey, and stretched my neck to meet his lips…
They are right to say that a kiss on the mouth… My head thrown back, my eyes closed, my arms hanging, I could not tear myself away…
"Oh," I said at last. "You say it is nothing…"
"I say so no longer. But you see — again we have forgotten to talk. Let us be serious and discuss our affairs."
"Yes — let us talk."
"First — what are we to do, since you leave tomorrow? Do not go… I beg you, do not go…"
"It is impossible — my aunt…"
"She is so kind — oh, stay…" And he wound himself around me like a serpent.
"She is kind, but she will not consent. So… farewell for ever…"
"No, no — I will come to Nice."
"When?"
June 1884: Not only do I no longer remember at all the pleasure of that moment, but I believe there was none even then. I probably felt obliged to recount it in a romantic manner. Say what one will — if it had truly given me pleasure, I would have remembered that pleasure.
"Toward the end of the month, I think. If you would consent to let me slip away by running up a debt, I would leave tomorrow…"
"No — I do not want that! In that case I would not see you."
"But you cannot prevent me from going to make mischief in Nice!"
"Yes I can — and I forbid it."
"Then I must wait until my father gives me money. Listen — I hope he will be reasonable; besides, he has nothing against it… Nice, I think the matter is in hand, my mother has spoken… But — but what if he does not give me money! You know how dependent I am, how wretched!"
"He will give."
"And if not?"
"Demand it."
"Give me some advice."
"I do not know."
"You who reason like a book, you who speak of the soul, of God — give me some advice!"
"Pray to God," I said, holding out my cross — quite ready to laugh if he took it as a joke, or to keep my grave expression if he took it seriously. He wore an impassive face, pressed the cross to his forehead and bowed his head in prayer, while I tenderly kissed his hair.
"I have prayed," he said.
"Truly?"
"Truly. But let us continue… so — we put Visconti in charge of this…"
"Good."
He was perhaps thinking that I would give him money. I would have given it — and I would have hated him for it.
I said "good" and thought "provisionally." I was acting on the proverb: a good deed is never wasted.
"But it cannot be done at once."
"When, then?"
He laughed.
"I don't…"
"In two months?"
"You are joking?" I asked, as though it were the most impossible thing.
"In six?"
"No."
"In a year?"
He was still laughing.
"Yes — in a year… you will wait?"
"If need be — as long as I may see you every day…"
"I shall spend the winter in Rome."
"So it is a matter of the summer?…"
"Come to Nice — for in a month I am going to Russia."
"I will follow you."
"That is not possible."
"And why not?"
"My mother will not want it."
"No one can prevent me from travelling."
"Let us not say foolish things."
"But how I love you!"
I leaned toward him so as not to miss a single word.
"I will love you always…" he said.
We enter upon the commonplaces of love… commonplaces that become divine if one truly loves always.
"No, truly," he said, "it would be wonderful to spend life together… yes, to spend life with you always, together, at your feet, adoring you… We shall both be old… old and taking snuff — and we shall love each other still…"
As a precaution I held his hands and urged him to be well-behaved.
"Yes, yes, my… my dear," he said, finding no other word — and that word, so ordinary, became in his mouth an extreme caress… he looked at me with rapture, his hands clasped.
Then we spoke reason, and then he dragged himself to my feet, crying in a muffled voice that I could not love him as he loved me — that it was impossible!
"Ah! I am so unhappy — I suffer so!"
"And of what, Monsieur?"
"Of love!"
I hear all this for the first time, but I know it is an old song recited by heart.
One must not think I allowed myself to be kissed continually; when it happened, I wrote it down without omitting anything.
He wanted us to exchange our confidences.
"Oh! Yours, Monsieur, do not interest me."
"Then tell me — how many times have you loved?"
"Once."
"And whom?"
"A man I do not know, whom I have seen ten or twelve times in the street, who does not know I exist. I was thirteen at the time, and I love him still, and I have never spoken to him."
"That is a fairy tale!"
One would have to be truly a dimwit, at seventeen, to listen to that.
I am not counting the ones I detested.
"It is the truth."
"But it is a novel, a fantasy, it is impossible — it is a shadow."
"Yes — but the only one I am not ashamed to love, and who has become for me a kind of divinity. I compare him to no one, for no one is worthy of such comparison."
"Where is he?"
"I do not even know; he is married, very far away."
"What a madness!"
And my wretched Pietro* looked rather incredulous and disdainful.
"But it is true — and you see, I do love you, but it is another matter."
"I give you all my heart, and you give me only half of yours."
Strange thing — he appeared to be bored as he said it.
"Do not ask too much, and be content."
"But that is not all — there is something else?…"
"That is all."
"Forgive me and allow me not to believe you this time."
Do you see this depravity!
"One must believe the truth."
"I cannot."
"So much the worse!" I exclaimed, vexed.
"That surpasses my understanding," he said.
"It is because you are very depraved."
"Perhaps."
"You do not believe that I have never allowed anyone to kiss my hand, that I have never touched a man?!!"
"Forgive me, but I do not believe it."
"Oh!"
"I will believe you later."
"Sit down beside me," I said, "and let us talk — and tell me everything!"
He told me everything he had said and everything that had been said to him.
"You will not be angry," he said next, "if…"
"I shall not be angry if you conceal something from me."
"Well… you understand, our family is very well known here…"
"Yes."
"And you are foreigners in Rome…"
"Well?"
"So my mother has written to Paris… to several people."
"That is very natural… and what do they say of me?"
How mad one must have been to let such a remark pass!
And I had understood nothing!
"Nothing yet… but whatever may be said, I shall love you…"
"I have no need of indulgence…"
And, full of anxiety, I tried to forestall what might be said in Nice and to legitimise our position there by recounting how the consul had been made our enemy by Georges and his scandals.
I was so afraid! Oh! How all the pleasure I had just had was ruined… mutilated, vanished!
"Now," he said, "there is religion."
"Yes — religion…"
"Oh!" he said with the most coaxing air. "Convert to Catholicism…"
But I stopped him short with a very sharp word.
"So you want me to change my religion!" exclaimed Antonelli.
"No — for if you did that, I would despise you."
In truth I would only have been angry on account of the Cardinal.
"How I love you," he said once more. "How beautiful you are — how happy we shall be."
For all answer, I took his head in both my hands and kissed him on the forehead, the eyes, the hair, the mouth.
I did it more for him than for myself.
"Marie, Marie!" my aunt called from above.
"What is it?" I asked in a calm voice, putting my head through the hatch so that my voice might seem to come from my room.
"It is two o'clock — you must sleep."
"I am sleeping."
"Are you undressed?"
"Yes — let me write."
"Go to bed."
"Yes, yes."
I went back down and found the place empty; the wretch had hidden himself under the staircase.
"Now," he said, coming back to his place, "let us talk of the future."
"Let us."
"Where shall we live? Do you like Rome?"
"Yes."
"Then we shall live in Rome — but away from my family… just the two of us."
And all through my stay in Rome from the very beginning this man was compromising me! And I did not understand that he was keeping everyone away. He even went so far as to tell those who asked to be introduced that we did not wish it!!!! This I learned from a reliable source in Naples!
I will never forgive him for having driven the others away! The wretch! And I was already losing confidence in my social successes! I should think so!
"I should think so. Besides, Maman would never let me live within my husband's family."
"She would be quite right… and besides, my family has such… extraordinary principles — it would be a torment. We will buy a small house in the new quarter…"
"I would prefer a large one" — and I hid against his shoulder a meaningful grimace.
"Very well — a large one…"
And so we — he at least — began to make arrangements for the future. One could clearly see a man eager to change his situation one way or another.
"We will go into society together," he said. "We will cut a grand figure, will we not?"
"Oh! Yes — tell me… tell me everything. If you were… foolish, you would take my question for base calculation; but you have enough sense to understand that when one decides to spend a life together, one must try to do it as well as possible."
"I understand perfectly… You know everything about my family… but there is the Cardinal."
"One must get on good terms with him."
"I certainly shall — absolutely. And you know, the greater part of the fortune will go to whoever has a son first… so one must have a son straightaway."
"But it is in our interest, do understand!"
"I understand."
"Only… I am not rich…"
"What does it matter!" I said, slightly stung but composed enough to make a gesture of disdain — it might have been a trap…
"But…" he said.
"What?"
"My brothers will not let me be the first to marry…"
"And how is that?…"
"The Savage and the Lion would have to be married off first… otherwise they would make war on me…"
"It will be a race," I said, laughing.
Then, as if weary of these serious matters, he put his arms around my waist… and his eyes shone like two candles in the darkness.
"Occhi neri," I said, covering them with my hand, for those eyes frightened me.
He prostrated himself at my feet and said so many things that I doubled my vigilance and made him sit beside me… No — this is not true love… with true love there would be nothing petty or vulgarly sordid to say or do… Deep down I felt discontented…
"Be good."
"Yes," he said, clasping his hands. "Yes, I am good, I am respectful, I love you."
Did I truly love him, or was my head simply turned? Who could say exactly?… and yet, from the moment doubt exists… there is no longer any doubt… Whatever the case… the emotion, all his loving words… the darkness, and then perhaps something else I cannot name… I leaned back on his shoulder, making a girdle of his two arms, and closed my eyes.
"I love you, I love you!" I said, beside myself, pressing his two hands to my heart.
He said nothing and rested his head on a step of the staircase, beside mine. Perhaps he did not understand the importance I attached to my words… perhaps he found them perfectly natural…
My heart stopped beating; my arms fell to my sides… certainly it was a delicious moment… he was no doubt as enraptured as I, for he remained as motionless as I and uttered not a word — [ONE LINE cancelled] — I felt only his laboured breathing in the rising of the shoulder on which I leaned. But fear took hold of me; I felt that my head was going to lose itself…
These are the words that, in my view, decide the day. Everything preceding seems to me as nothing — it was he who spoke; but here is what decides the matter. I attached enormous importance to those three words: Je vous aime — and I regret them far more than the kisses, which could almost have been unconscious.
"We must part," I said, disengaging myself abruptly.
"Already!"
"It is time."
"Wait a moment longer — here, close to me — how well we are like this… if only one could spend the whole night like this…"
I was too far from the true meaning of those words to protest; so I kept silent when he drew back to his knees and clasped his hands again:
"You love me, don't you — and you will love me always… say, you will love me always?"
This use of tu chilled me… and seemed to me humiliating…
"Always," I murmured, displeased. "Always… and you — do you love me?"
"If… I… Oh!! How can you ask such things!! Ah! my darling… yes… if one could not leave this place, I would wish one could not leave this place…"
"We would have died of hunger," I said, humiliated by these caressing names he gave me and not knowing how to respond.
"But what a beautiful death — your mouth close to mine."
I did not resist this new kiss, but received it with a kind of… repugnance.
I straightened up, and he followed my example, holding himself up by my waist…
He leaned against the wall and drew me toward him.
"In a year," he said, devouring me with his eyes.
"In a year," I repeated, more for form's sake than anything else… I did not believe in the seriousness of… the adventure. Only, since I had already been drawn into it, I required that he believe it serious and receive my favours as gifts from heaven… In fact, what does my inward thought matter? I was acting as a woman in love — penetrated, intoxicated, inspired, grave and solemn.
At that moment I heard my aunt, who, seeing the light still on in my room, was growing impatient.
"You hear," I said, tearing myself from his arms. "Go — goodnight" — and seizing his head in both my hands I gave him one last kiss on the mouth and fled toward the staircase without turning back.
That is a scene-ending I have read somewhere… Ugh! I debase myself by mocking everything. Shall I always be my own critic — or is it because I do not yet love quite completely?
"It is four o'clock!" my aunt was crying.
"To begin with, aunt, it is only ten past two; and secondly — leave me in peace."
I undressed while thinking: Anyone who had seen me enter that cabinet at midnight and leave it at two — two hours spent in absolute tête-à-tête with one of the most… licentious Italians — that person would not believe the Good God himself, should He take it into his head to come down from heaven to affirm my… innocence. Even I, in that person's place, would not believe it… and yet… you see! One must be sufficiently suspicious of appearances… often thus one judges and draws… definitive conclusions — when there is only almost nothing.
"It is dreadful! You will die staying up so late!" my aunt was crying.
"Listen," I said, opening her door. "Do not scold, or I shall tell you nothing."
"To the devil, to the devil!"
"Ah, aunt — you will repent it."
"What is it?"
"Ah! Ah!"
"Oh! What a girl!"
"To begin with — I was not writing; I was with Antonelli."
"Where, you wretched girl?"
"Downstairs."
"What horror!"
"Ah! If you shout you will know nothing."
"There is nothing to know."
"There is."
"You were with Antonelli?"
"Yes."
"Well," she said in a voice that made me start, "I knew it well enough when I called you just now."
"How so."
"I dreamed that Maman had come and said to me: do not leave Marie alone with Antonelli."
A chill ran down my spine as I understood that I had been in real danger.
I expressed my fears that still worse things might be written about us.
"There is nothing bad to be said," my aunt replied. "If people dare to say slanders, they will not dare to write them."
Very poorly reassured, I sat on the edge of her bed, full of anxiety.
I was going to forget to say that Torlonia went and told Pietro* that he was quite wrong to court me and marry me, that it is the opinion of the whole city. It seems Antonelli told him to mind his own business. What have I done to Torlonia?
He also told me, Pietro* did, that there were people making war upon us — one woman especially, who was in love with him.
"Forgive me if I tell you all this — but it is you who require it of me."
"You are right to do so."
"But whatever may be said — we will spend our life together; you will love me always?"
"I will love you as long as you love me," I said, my lips almost on his neck.
"Oh! Then always."
I could go on repeating all these sweet nothings that make me happy and anxious at once. What will the answer be from Nice?
"We will write each other very proper letters," said Pietro, "and show them."
"Oh!"
"But that is how it is done — you will show mine to your mother, I will do the same at home. But I have said that I will not write. One never knows what may happen — and… scripta manent."

Notes

Mignon (1866): opera by Ambroise Thomas, based on Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Marie previously wept over the fate of the doomed title character. ↩
Mercurio (It.): Mercury, the messenger god of classical mythology, here used in the Italian sense of a go-between or intermediary in romantic negotiations. ↩
A reference to the "unknown man" Marie has mentioned in earlier carnets — a figure encountered in Nice whom she has elevated to an idealised, unreachable love. ↩
Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli (1806–1876), Secretary of State to Pope Pius IX and head of the Antonelli family. Marie understood that any conversion of Pietro to another faith would have been catastrophic in the Cardinal's eyes. ↩
Occhi neri (It.): "Black eyes" — an affectionate address. The phrase appears in an Italian folk song ("Occhi di fata") popular in the period. ↩
In French, tutoiement (the use of tu rather than vous) denoted intimacy — even improper familiarity between unmarried persons in polite society. Marie found this presumptuous rather than romantic. ↩
Latin: scripta manent — "the written word remains" (from the proverb verba volant, scripta manent: "spoken words fly away, written words remain"). ↩