Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 7 July 1876

Caroline is an angel of wit — I ordered a Capuchin monk's costume from her and she did not so much as raise an eyebrow.
I called on Mouzay.
"What a pity," she said, "that you come three days too late — I would have introduced you to my old friend the Comtesse Garcia, whose daughter is married to the Comte Antonelli. The other day she came to bid me farewell and I told her: You know, I have a young friend who may perhaps become a cousin of your daughter's — she is being courted by one of the young Antonellis; only, I added, I don't believe she finds him rich enough for her. To which the Comtesse Garcia replied: Are you joking, my dear! These Antonellis have an immense fortune — they inherited three million from their banker uncle, and the Cardinal who has twenty million — twenty million!"
"Well then, Madame," said I, "I am perfectly willing to marry the young one, provided the Cardinal becomes Pope."
That excellent woman believes me a prodigy, a genius worthy of a throne. She is so sincere, so kind!
After exhausting myself with ordering, trying on, and choosing, we go to the Champs-Élysées and meet the Durands. Further along, Rémy at a balcony — he recognised me first and began waving his hands, whereupon I recognised him too. I have the misfortune of being short-sighted, but fortunately it does not show — my eyes are wide open and pretty.
It is horribly hot.
After a reasonably good dinner, I went to the hotel salon — immense and splendid, as all the world knows — and there I made a pleasant encounter: Miss Rice, that American lady we have known for a long time. She is a stout, cheerful, and amiable person.
I think too much about Antonelli — by sustaining my imagination I create for myself a second life, which eclipses reality to the point that I have almost stopped speaking, and in the carriage, instead of watching the passers-by, I compose stories.
Not that I love him greatly — but he is the one who occupies me, who is the leading candidate at present; and my age, the heat, the boredom, some devil perhaps urging me on like La Fontaine's ass, I take pleasure in dreaming.
I heard with keen pleasure Mme de Mouzay say that she knew the Antonellis seven years ago at the Garcias'. Pietro was sixteen then, and I was ten.
I recall when Pietro would say to me in those moments of sadness and discouragement:
"It is my own fault that I am on such bad terms with my parents — they asked nothing better than to love me. When I was fifteen, sixteen, my mother introduced me into society; I was shown off in salons, flattered, made to perform; my parents looked on me as the future representative of the family. For my brothers, he added with a laugh, my brothers are so small, so small! When I needed money in Vicenza, I told the Jew who was going to lend it to me that I had nothing to repay him with — and he said: Don't worry, Excellence, your parents will pay; your brothers are ugly and small, your parents need you to improve the Antonelli stock."
Mme de Mouzay remembers the Comtesse Antonelli as a still-young woman, very elegant, very small, much talked about, who went out a great deal in society.
Camilla Folchi was married at fifteen; the Savage is twenty-eight — twenty-eight and fifteen, no sixteen, makes forty-four. Seven years ago she would have been only thirty-seven. Her husband is sixty-four!
All of this interests and occupies me.
Ah! When will this Bohemian life, this life of shops, finally end? When shall I live as everyone else does?
When we lodged at the Villa d'Acquaviva, we were so comfortable! My mothers went out in society! No doubt little was said of us because I was still a child — but everyone came to see us.
Ah! Mercy!
I cannot think of it without my heart breaking!
I am miserable!
Great God! Have pity on me!

Notes

Costume de capucin — a Capuchin friar's habit; an unusual fancy-dress commission for a dressmaker. ↩
A witty barb: if the Cardinal becomes Pope, he cannot have legitimate nephews inherit — his fortune would revert to the Church, making Pietro even poorer. Marie is deflecting with irony. ↩
Stout — in 1870s usage, heavyset; not necessarily pejorative, rather a neutral description of build. ↩
La Fontaine's ass — a reference to La Fontaine's fables involving an ass led astray; here Marie invokes the image of being pushed by some irresistible impulse. ↩
"Améliorer la race" — 1870s eugenic vocabulary: improve the family line through better marriage and breeding. ↩
Le Sauvage — "the Savage"; Marie's characteristic animal nickname for him. ↩
Mes mères — "my mothers"; Marie's habitual phrase for Maman and her aunt, who together raised her. ↩