Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 28 May 1876

After church we called on Mme de Ballote. Then I set to painting; at five o'clock my aunt arrived exclaiming about who she had seen.
"Audiffret!"
"Exactly."
She was urging me to go out as if I were supposed to go out for Audiffret.
The usual public is swelled by the Sunday crowd.
We were turning the corner of the Jardin public when Audiffret got into a hired cab, smiled at me, greeted me, and followed us — for we were going in the same direction — as far as the Place Masséna; then he went towards the Quai Saint-Jean-Baptiste while we went to the Avenue de la Gare.
I barely acknowledged him, and I am told I went pale. That may well be — I was trembling greatly and found it hard to hide the trembling.
He is handsome as ever, and composed in the cab in his Hamiltonian way as always. After all — why should he have changed?
The moment I laid eyes on that man I began to love Antonelli — as if out of spite.
Audiffret, though himself soulless, is the soul of Nice. I felt this so keenly that, for fear of being found out, I exaggerated my habitual complaints about boredom, about Saetone, about Nice.
Leaving for Rome and in the first days in the Eternal City, I thought of nothing but returning to Nice, with the firm resolution of giving Audiffret the cold shoulder and spitting on him. Antonelli made me forget him and made me hate Nice; I am here nonetheless, and am bored — or I was bored, for I am bored no longer. I await a letter from Rome with tolerable impatience, but I am quite amused by the arrival of the Surprising One.* Well now — there it goes again! But no — let me remember a little… yes, I remember; I laid out an entire plan of conduct for myself; it is written down; but it is unnecessary — I need only behave as I did with Saetone. Indifference verging on contempt. I think I have explained the gentleman's conduct sufficiently for anyone to understand that mine can only be what I have just described.
There is a new letter from Couthon, and as Mme Daniloff was present I mentioned it to her. This gentleman has called on her some ten times to tell her of his love and his suffering, assuring her that he is rich and noble and loved by me.
This is something that enrages me. I have asked Maman to put an end to it, and if the gentleman persists, to complain to the public prosecutor.
Back at home I went to the window… It is strange — nothing seems to have changed; it is as though it were last year. Until this evening I had not noticed the beautiful sky, nor the sea, nor the moon, nor the dark trees, nor the songs of the Niçois dancing round the May. I noticed all of it, all at once — and thanks to the presence of that vile, that beautiful Niçois. Never before have Nice's songs seemed so charming. I was astonished, on returning to Nice from Rome, to find none of the charms of the previous year about which I had made such grand ideas for this one — it is simple: there was no one here. Now it is another matter.
This evening I love Antonelli fiercely. Poor Antonelli — so this is how his love is repaid!
Wait — that makes me think. Does he love me no longer, then, or have such flattering things been written to them about us? Oh! These are thoughts that would shatter me if I were not in some measure numbed by last year's memories — the croaking of frogs, the murmur of the fountain, the distant songs and the roar of the waves, all of it degraded from time to time by the noise of a prosaic carriage.
I must go to church — to stop thinking of any kind of grandeur and to look upon Antonelli's mediocrity as an impossible happiness.
There I feel alone, wretched, despised or ignored — oh! no, despised!
Let us return to Audiffret: when I think that in the first days in Rome I admitted having no other aim in life than to triumph over Audiffret! How that has changed! Certainly I bear him a grudge — but no more than I do others. I am annoyed to think he counts me among his victims; I hope he does not. As for the effect he has on me, it is simply due to my great sensitivity to beauty. One certainly cannot judge men from an animal point of view — but beauty is beauty, and especially when it is chic. Besides, I do not understand vulgar, coarse, peasant beauty — I neither understand, nor notice, nor speak of it.
So it is perfectly clear that when I say such and such a man is handsome, I mean that he is… handsome, good Lord!
And when one is beautiful, I bow.
I am reading Horace and Tibullus — the latter speaks of nothing but love, which suits me very well. Besides, I have the Latin text with the French, which gives me practice.
Oh! Why is Antonelli not here?
I only hope that this whole marriage affair, which I have stirred up through carelessness, does not harm me. I am afraid it will. I should have promised Antonelli nothing; I should have said to him:
"I thank you for the honour you do me — but I cannot say yes before consulting myself, and above all not without my parents' agreement. Let yours refer the matter to mine and we shall see. As for me," I might have added to soften it, "I shall have nothing against you."
This, accompanied by one of my agreeable smiles and a hand to kiss, would have been sufficient — I would not have compromised myself; they would not have gossiped in Rome; and all would have been well. I have wit — but it always comes to me too late.
After all, no great harm has been done. They are making enquiries — perfectly natural; we might not have known about it. Yes… but people are talking… yes, but did they not talk about the Surprising One*?
It was Maman who put these worries into my head. They were talking about young ladies who do not marry.
"As for Mlle de Saint-Aignan," said my mother, "she does not marry because she has compromised herself with the Comte de Diesbach."
I blushed, and since that moment the idea that I have compromised myself with Antonelli has not left me. It is only an idea. How have I compromised myself! Is not a marriage always attributed to a young woman, provided she is pretty and surrounded by admirers?
That is true — but Pietro, in order to get what he wants, shouts at the top of his lungs that he loves me and that I love him; in his honest candour he will not hesitate to say so to his friends.
"Yes," he will say with a candid and sincere air, "it is true — we love each other and we are going to be married…"
He cannot conceal anything — and yet he is a man of intelligence. This great frankness is greatly to his disadvantage.
I would no doubt have done better to give a fine response like the one you have just read — but it would have saved me so much pleasure! And life is so short. And then (there is always and then) — and then I was almost certain I was speaking seriously, thanks to Visconti's words.
My letter left on Friday and arrived on Saturday. I give him twenty-four hours to write a reply. At the latest, I must have it by Tuesday. He will not write to me! Oh! Now that would be more than impertinent!
I was wrong not to have given my fine response. Yes — but I was truly very troubled, and when he said to me with such a beseeching, tender air: "Then make me understand!" — I could find nothing better to do than make him understand by letting my head fall on his shoulder. I neither calculated nor reflected; I followed the natural impulse. I may have been wrong; the reasonable will say yes; the sentimental will say no. It was new to me — with habit comes indifference — but this was a first time (I do not count the detestations), and I was moved, troubled, charmed, and I gave myself over to the pleasure of the moment.
I claim to have lived several times over, like Cagliostro, which is why I do not reproach myself — for I know what it is to be young, and as long as youth does not go beyond the bounds of prudence, I let it be. In the midst of stern reason there must be a little abandon, a little disorder — without it life would be too monotonous, too stiff.
All of that is very well — but people gossip all the same!
I said no; I was "icy"; I was coquettish; I teased as long as possible; I would have continued still longer had I stayed in Rome — but on the eve of departure it was not wise to leave behind a cold memory. That is why I relented, and, unable to be very much in love, I let him talk, kept silent myself, and the man was satisfied. I had tormented him for two or three months; I thought he deserved a reward; I gave it — and now I regret it. It seems to me that I listened too readily, and his past sufferings seem like nothing to me now — as they apparently do to him as well. On reaching happiness, sad memories fade quickly. And that is what I regret. I take an immense pleasure in making people unhappy — or at least tormented — and I cannot forgive myself for having received Antonelli kindly.
It seems to me that love does not survive uncertainty, fear, and torment. It survives perhaps — but it diminishes by the full measure of those three most terrible nouns; yet in losing them it does not diminish but is freed of them; as a diamond becomes smaller when polished, so too does love — but for that, neither loses its value except in the eyes of the vulgar, who prefer quantity to quality. Yet a little fear does no harm — that is true — but does one ever love greatly without fearing a little?
Oh! I am anxious, I am waiting for that letter, and… you see perfectly well that I am afraid! It may arrive tomorrow if he hurries — if he loves me. God, forgive me all my reflections; I say very wicked things, but you see perfectly well that I myself am not wicked. I do not love Antonelli, and I should be in despair if he did not love me.
Well! Here is the end of the notebook.
All night I dreamed of monks, kept women, and cooks. But the dreams of feast days count only until dinner.
Husband, wife, duke, love, Gioia*.
Gloriae cupiditate H[is] G[race] t[he] D[uke] o[f] H[amilton]
[End of Cahier 61]

Notes

Fiacre: a hired horse-drawn cab — a public conveyance, not a private carriage. ↩
"Posé hamiltonnement": Marie's coinage — an adverb derived from the Duke of Hamilton's name, meaning "composed in the manner of Hamilton" — her idealized model of aristocratic self-possession. The neologism is so distinctive it must be translated with a gloss rather than domesticated away. ↩
"Battre froid": literally "to beat cold" — the French idiom for giving someone the cold shoulder. ↩
"Le Surprenant*": the Surprising One — Marie's asterisked code name for Audiffret in this period of the diary. ↩
"Tournant le Mai": a local Niçois tradition of maypole-dancing and songs associated with May Day celebrations. ↩
Horace (65–8 BCE) and Tibullus (c.55–19 BCE): Roman lyric poets. Marie reads them in bilingual Latin–French editions to practise her Latin. ↩
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743–1795): famous adventurer and occultist who claimed to have lived multiple past lives and to possess supernatural powers. Marie uses him as a witty model for her own sense of accumulated worldly experience. ↩
Cocottes: fashionable kept women or courtesans of the Second Empire and early Third Republic. ↩
A cryptic word-list: Mari (husband), femme (wife), duc (duke — Hamilton), amour (love), Gioia (the Duke of Hamilton's mistress; Italian for "joy"). Possibly keyword prompts for future diary entries, or a memory aid. The asterisk follows the project convention for asterisked names. ↩
Gloriae cupiditate: Latin — "By desire for glory" or "Driven by ambition for fame." A classical phrase (cf. cupido gloriae in Cicero and Sallust). Marie uses it as a closing motto for the carnet. ↩
Written in English in the original: His Grace the Duke of Hamilton — Marie's obsessive reference to her idealized, unattainable aristocratic standard. ↩