Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 7 June 1876

I am suffering horribly, and the heat permits me to heave sighs and complaints without end. I am as I was the morning after the evening when Antonelli insulted me: every moment I forget, and every moment I remember, and then I feel breathless and without strength, my fists clench, and I rage. Towards two o'clock I was wound up enough to grow angry and to sigh only with... contempt.
"Let the heavens fall upon me, / Provided I am avenged! / If I shed tears, they are tears of rage..." I do not know where I read that. No — I am not thinking of revenge. But when I am in a position to avenge myself I shall do so. Well — no! What is the use? I was angry and I despised the day. Evening comes and I sink back into my state of wretchedness and sadness. These thoughts are unworthy — one should remember injuries only when one is in a position to avenge them. To dwell on them is to give too much importance to unworthy people; it is to debase oneself.
And so it is not the people I am thinking of — I am thinking of my wretched standing, of all it has made me suffer and all it may yet make me suffer. For all evils spring from that. If the Antonellis had raised the question of religion it would only amuse me — and I quite believe that if they begged me to take Pietro, I would not take him, and you know very well why. But it is the shame! The thought that they were told disgraceful things about us — that I am the victim of Georges's scandals and my mother's culpable carelessness!
For everyone was talking of this marriage, and certainly no one will say the refusal came from me. Besides they will be right — did I not consent?... To prolong it, to keep him in any case... I do not repent it. I did right, and if it turned out badly it is not my fault. Could I have foreseen that this curse hanging over me would pursue me even here? Oh! That is the horror of the situation!
— Who is she? — A Russian, Mlle Bashkirtseff. — One never sees them in society? — They are nowhere; I believe they are not received. — Who knows them? — No one. — What are they? — I do not know; they have lawsuits in Russia, they are under judgment, it is a whole story, etc., etc. And one does not fail to add all the things I cannot even imagine. We are unknown; people hear bits and pieces here and there, they talk, they exaggerate, they invent. Ah! Lord God! And to be powerless!
The General was here until eleven o'clock, and I went to sit with everyone in the garden for some air — but there is none. The weather is lovely enough to die of, but the air is too dry for my parched lungs. My swollen foot prevents me from walking; otherwise I would go out in the morning. It is bad for one's health never to go out — to sit growing sluggish and dull-witted as I do.
Maman was angry today because of the Sapogenikoffs — they have already written to Collignon twice. I am not angry; I simply find it squalid. Leaving aside moral obligations, we have rendered them practical ones: Walitsky went to great lengths to procure money for them; my aunt co-signed several times for Nina; my aunt devoted herself, spending like a dog all day and part of the night at Nina's during the Yourkoff affair. I never spoke of this — I found it all so natural — but I say it here to demonstrate how ungrateful these creatures are.
Ah! Whatever anyone says, the moujiks — merchants above all — will always remain thus. Nothing is more contemptible than that middling breed. One finds great hearts among the peasants, but never among these squalid creatures ennobled by money. I was forced to mix with this society — keeping apart would have been wiser — but it would have meant giving up the only chance of exchanging a few words with living beings. Let us be clear: I am not complaining about them; I am simply describing what is, nothing more. I have too profound a contempt for everyone to complain or to be angry with anyone. Ingratitude is such a common virtue! Truly, I am sorry I said so much — someone may do me the injustice of thinking that the baseness of these small people affects me.
My pen is tired; I am sleepy. It is absurd not to remedy my condition, especially when I know the remedy. To leave. To change air and faces. As I did last winter — at the end of three weeks I no longer thought of Nice's affronts. In fact, I do think of them. I made an affair of state out of Audiffret. That only proves I was in love — otherwise I should never have attached such importance to a discourtesy of that kind. Witness Saetone — I simply disdained to speak of him or look at him. But Audiffret pleased me; I cannot therefore blame myself for exaggerating the facts and my various feelings. [annotation] There I am, amusing myself by being in love with everyone
I have said everything I feel, but as I think of the same thing every day it always seems to me that I have not said everything — that I have not been properly understood — and I want to say it again. In novels things are said once and that suffices; here it seems to me every day that I have not explained properly. It is only a notion, no doubt. One must leave. I have tried to console myself with a thousand arguments and two thousand excuses — to forget, to find everything natural. I have not been able. The only remedy is to forget; but forgetting at Nice is impossible — to forget one must see new things. This insult weighs on me. This man's conduct is vile; his character is contemptible.
Did he do nothing but deceive me? Then one must believe he lied? No doubt. It is squalid. Oh! So when he kissed my hand it was mere gallantry? He was merely in love with me! And when, for the first time, I permitted him to take both my hands, to put his arms around me — when at last, trembling all over, I gave him the first kiss — not the first kiss of our love, but the first kiss of my life — believing I was giving him the most precious thing I had — then it was nothing! A kiss snatched between two doors, a commonplace piece of frivolity, nothing! If he did not understand me, that does not prove he was stupider than another man — only that he did not love me as I thought I was loved. I defiled myself without love! His love seemed to me worthy of reward; I defiled myself through exaltation — through... purity of soul. Oh!
A kiss made into an affair of state — and I say nothing of the scene on the secret staircase and in the dark room. It may seem strange to others, to those who do not understand me, who do not possess these supreme delicacies. But there are those who do understand, and they see from what a height I have fallen. Is there nothing, then, that one can believe in? Does love as I have imagined it not exist? Is it only a fantasy, an ideal that does not exist? Are supreme modesty and supreme purity merely words I invented?
And so when I went down to speak to him the evening before my departure, he saw in my action nothing but a simple gallant rendez-vous? When I leaned against his chest, did that chest beat only with desire? In my caresses — which I bestowed with the gravity and absorption of an ancient priestess — did he see nothing but the contact of two young, ardent bodies? In kisses into which I put my whole soul, did he find only a sensual pleasure that debased me? And when I remained for whole minutes leaning over his shoulder, my hair grazing his lips and my hands in his hands, without a word — while his breath passed through my hair to burn my head — in those silences did he understand nothing? Was his heart then beating only from the heat of his blood? Did he see nothing? Did he see nothing but a woman, feel nothing but the contact of flesh? Were his embraces lavished as on a courtesan — without love and without exaltation!
"For a start," as he said? He would ask nothing better than to finish — but God saved me. Those kisses were, then, stupid kisses — without delicacy and without heart — and I received them with mystic lips! Oh! But then did I love him? No — rather I loved him only for his love of me. But as I am incapable of frivolity in love, I loved and felt as if I loved myself. It was exaltation, fanaticism, mysticism, stupidity! Yes, stupidity. If I had had more sense I would have understood the man's character better. [annotation] If he had been more of a lobster, more of a Hamilton, I would have loved him — but what could I do when he did not please me at all.
He loved me as he was able. It was for me to discern — to understand that one does not cast pearls before swine. The punishment is hard. Illusions destroyed for a long time, and remorse — remorse towards myself. I was wrong to think as I did before; one must be like the others, cynical and vulgar. It is no doubt my great youth that led me into futilities. What are these otherworldly ideas? They are no longer understood — they were never understood — for the world has not changed.
And now I fall into the common error — I accuse the whole world of the vileness of one man. Because one person has been base and stupid, I deny nobility of soul and wit. I deny this man's love because he did nothing for that love. He was afraid of losing his pocket money, afraid of his father — he gave way. That is exceedingly prudent, and I assure you that in his place I would have done the same. He had enough will to become a soldier, after all — though it is true he did not do it openly: he braved no one; he simply slipped away in the night. I do not know what his father said or did; I only know that if the son had any will he could do as he wished. And if they threatened to disinherit him, to curse him? Could that have stopped him from writing to me? No. But since it was not going to lead anywhere, he preferred to break it off at once. No — he is a coward.
Besides, what can they have been told about me — about us? Before God I swear there is nothing shameful in my entire family... But enemies, bad reputation! That is the great word. A bad reputation created by a few envious, wretched people — and since one continued to live apart, to keep silent instead of making oneself known, one malicious word engendered ten, and once people begin to speak ill it is finished. One no longer asks, what exactly? One no longer investigates the evil — one takes it as established fact, without reasoning and without caring.
All this is very well, but it is no less true that everything I have said about Antonelli is correct. When one is in love one marries a peasant girl. And I loudly challenge all those who slander us to specify their slanders, and if they can answer I give anyone permission to come and spit in my face! Besides, it is degrading — truly — all these excuses. I am quite mad to write all this; I do it to clarify my thoughts, to create an excuse for this man, to explain the whole affair to myself. I said all this finally because one must have very serious motives to act as Antonelli has, or else one must not love at all. But then why speak to his parents? Oh — one must believe in a small love, but it evaporated at the first resistance, that is all. Oh! He could have written to me all the same — even if he had been forbidden to do so. So then he no longer loves me. "No longer" — that is rich.
It is very hot. Towards half past seven I go to the garden and we split into two groups — Papa, Dina, and Collignon near the gate; Maman, my aunt, and I seated on the ground at the foot of the left cypress terrace, which is arranged like a little hill covered in thick, velvet-green foliage. But, as always, instead of chatting we quarrelled; my mothers both rose in anger, and I, as I was seated in the middle of the path that leads up to the terrace — which is quite clean — lay down at full length, exhausted and in despair. It was already night when Madame Daniloff's arrival woke me from my painful stupor.
I sang, confirming once more that my voice spans a full three octaves less two notes. Madame Daniloff — who, as a beauty, has sat for Bruloff, for Horace Vernet, and others, and has rubbed shoulders with the artistic world as with all others, and consequently with the arts — pays me compliments on Collignon's portrait. She observes very justly that Collignon has an extremely difficult face to paint, and that I have acquitted myself very honourably and magnificently. Indeed, Collignon has a pale-rosy face, broad, with a large nose, great grey-green-white eyes, red eyelids, and sparse eyebrows. No marked features, and above all an even complexion, generally rosy, with an unattractive skin riddled with enormous pores. All these blemishes nevertheless compose a very agreeable face — though elusive too, for all its charm lies in the smile and the conversation. Moreover she has fabulous hair, long and thick as a forest. It is of every colour — there are dark locks and very fair ones. I have noticed that these extraordinary heads of hair always fall short in quality and colour.
I went up to my room quite calm, but stopping at Dina's, my aunt — who was there — provoked me into saying that I was going to die, that I did not care to live, that besides it would put everyone's mind at rest: there would be no need to find me a special cook, to pay for my dresses, to spend money on my whims such as the painted doors of my anteroom, the furniture of my dressing room, etc. That I was, moreover, weary of this wretched life — in despair, worn out, even for scenes. That I had cried and raged, they had taken me to Rome, it had been the same there. That I had had enough. My aunt then told me I did not know what I wanted. That is the standing, eternal phrase. I replied without anger that I wanted to go into society.
— It is not too early now; besides, I have been asking for it for two years — not yet for myself, but I was asking you to go out because, having a daughter, it is one's duty. Now it is my turn, and nothing happens. I see nothing, no change — where would it come from? You say: the end of the lawsuit? It has lasted five years; it may last five more. Must I wait? No — you see. — You owe all this to your dear Tutcheff relations; before they arrived we were honoured and respected. — I know that, it is true; I also know I owe a great deal to dear aunt. But why is it she who slanders you, and not you who slander her? Ah! No — you see there is nothing to be done; you must therefore leave me as I am and not force me to go out and rouse myself — I cannot. I only tell you that I am worn out — very worn out — and that if, in a few months, you do not make me another life, this one will not last. — Because you are blasé, spoilt, you do not know what you want! — No; if I were blasé I would want eccentricities — and I want only the simplest, most commonplace thing: I want to dance. — One does not dance in summer. — Yes, but there was a winter. — It is over. — There will be another. — You will dance next winter. — At Madame Daniloff's? No, no — there is nothing to be done; besides I say nothing — it is you who have brought up this conversation; I keep perfectly quiet at home...

Notes

An allusion to Matthew 7:6: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." ↩
Karl Bruloff (1799–1852), also known as Karl Bryullov, celebrated Russian Romantic painter known for his portraits of society beauties. ↩