Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 17 August 1876 (5 August)

Thursday, 17 August 1876 (5 August)

[Crossed out: Knowest thou the land where the orange-tree blossoms?]
Dina has lovelier hair than our Dîna. I arranged it to amuse myself and was quite transported by her blonde hair — the hair of Eve.
But I am utterly astonished! I have offended Mme Tarnovsky — she who has seen Rome — and distressed her daughter! Me? Yes, me — it seems that Hamsley, who has for some time been carrying on a very pronounced flirtation with the young lady, gave her the cold shoulder yesterday and did nothing but watch me and follow me about.
I had known nothing of any of this and had noticed nothing whatsoever.
That is what it is to hold the people around one in contempt — one simply does not see them. I surprised my aunt Marie and Dina in conversation about the whole affair; they were gossiping like two country gossips, I asked for an explanation, I was utterly astonished, and they laughed at my supposed naivety.
There was some talk of Elisaveta Ivanovna, Mme Miloradovitch, née Skoropatsky. The Skoropatskys had been hetmans of Little Russia, in memory of which the beautiful Elisaveta Ivanovna conceived the idea of placing herself at the head of a small movement aimed at the emancipation of Little Russia. She dressed in the ancient costume and spoke Little Russian. She won over all the chief lords of the region by promising each of them the title of hetman — and her hand.
And a certain M. Tarnovsky is still mad about her to this day. He has a palace not far from here, and in that palace a room hung with red cloth. On a table likewise covered in red cloth, he keeps a glass case containing the hetman's sceptre, resting on a velvet cushion.
Unfortunately the police got wind of the beautiful Miloradovitch's patriotic movement — it was already being discussed even in the foreign press. She was invited to come to Petersburg, to the Third Section, into a room whose floor gives way at a certain point when a spring is pressed.
The person sinks in this way up to the armpits, and beneath there are men with rods who thrash the lower body without inflicting upon the upper half [words cancelled] the humiliation of such a spectacle.
Since then Mme Miloradovitch has been reported to the police and kept under surveillance. She is a remarkable woman — remarkable for both her beauty and her wit. She is fifty years old.
Is it possible that I was kissed on the lips!
When shall I ever forget that dreadful humiliation! Everything I held sacred trampled underfoot! My first kiss flung into the mud!
And it is that kiss which makes me remember the man. It is that degrading memory which makes me love him... to justify myself. Oh! but him!

Notes

Hetman: the title of the Cossack military and political leader who governed Little Russia (present-day Ukraine). The Skoropatsky family had held this distinction. The term "Little Russia" was the period Russian designation for Ukraine. ↩
The Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery: the Tsarist secret police, responsible for political surveillance and interrogation (1826–1880). ↩