Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 2 July 1876

Ah! What heat — ah, what tedium! I am wrong to say tedium: one cannot be bored having inner resources such as I have. I am not bored, for I read, I sing, I play, I paint. I dream. But I am anxious and sad. Is my poor young life then to pass between the dining room of the pavilion and my bedroom — grandfather's provocations and domestic squabbles! In four months I shall be eighteen! That is very young, I know — yes, for people of thirty-five.
A woman lives from sixteen to forty. I have already lost two years — two of the best years!
Why then have I studied — striven to know more than other women, priding myself on knowing all the sciences attributed to illustrious men in their biographies? I have a smattering of everything, but have gone deeply into only history and literature, physics, and a little chemistry. The other sciences seem to me so arid that I have touched on them only to have a clear conscience. I have occupied myself above all with the ancient Greeks and Romans — I have insisted on following the different peoples from their origins, and I began the study of history with the Bible, then Herodotus, Livy, Diodorus of Sicily, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pliny, etc., etc. Those entire centuries almost unknown, those endless wars of that India of millions of peoples, have always infuriated me to know neglected — I tormented Brunet for information; he told me what he knew, which was not much. I have read too quickly — but life is long... to read everything; everything interesting; it is true that once I set to it I find everything interesting, and it gives me a genuine fever...
Why then have I studied — thought? Why the singing, the wit, the beauty? To moulder — to die of sadness, isolation, abandonment! Ignorant and crude, I might perhaps be happy.
(For certain.)
Not a living soul to exchange a word with. With my family one must speak of dresses, of the cook, of the Sapogenikoffs, of Galula or Antonelli. And besides, family is not enough for a being of seventeen — above all a being like me.
I have sent the photograph to Antonelli. There is another one! Poor ignoramus. — "You will marry a man who knows nothing," he said on the day of the carnival, on the balcony — "you will teach him everything; he will be your creation." But at least he sees the world and he is a patriot — that saves him.
What mind can withstand this cramped, dark, harassing life! One is stupefied — one forgets everything one ever knew, since one can never speak of it. And the mind and the soul? Ah — those are two things that count for nothing here. Grandfather is certainly an enlightened man — but old, blind, capricious, maddening with his Triphon and his eternal complaints about dinner. Maman had a great deal of wit, little education, no social graces, no tact. And her wit has rusted and mouldered and rotted from never seeing anyone and speaking only of the servants, my health, and the dogs. My aunt is a little more polished — she even impresses those who know her slightly. Have I ever mentioned their ages? Maman is thirty-eight; but for her illness she would still be young and magnificent. My aunt is two or three years younger; she looks the elder and is not beautiful, but tall and well-made.
There we are, then — where am I? I no longer know what I am saying. No matter.
Alexandre claims to be ill so as not to accompany me to Russia — I am going nonetheless. Enough of thefts, enough of disgraceful breaches of trust. It is quite enough to appropriate half of Father's revenues — though to that he may claim some right... though to steal from one's father... At any rate. I only care that I myself am not robbed. With this lawsuit, dear Alexandre holds us all in his clutches. Thank God I am going to free myself from him.

Notes

This grim calculus of a woman's marriageable and socially active span (sixteen to forty) reflects the conventions of 19th-century aristocratic society, and Marie's terror of wasting her youth. ↩
Marie writes "Tive-Live" for Tite-Live, the French name for the Roman historian Livy (Titus Livius, 59 BC–AD 17). ↩
Triphon: a manservant in the household. Grandfather's particular attachment to this man was evidently a source of irritation. ↩