Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 24 August 1876 (12 August) — Philosophical Conversation and River Crossing

Pacha is my true cousin, the son of my father's sister. This man intrigues me. This morning we talked; he held my embroidery frame while I worked. We spoke of fathers, and I said that sons always criticized their fathers' actions, and that once in their fathers' place they would do exactly the same, only to be criticized in turn by their own children.
— That is perfectly true, said the young man, but my sons will never criticize me, because I shall never marry.
And after a moment I said:
— There has yet to be a young man who has not said the very same thing.
— Yes, but with me it is different.
— And why?
— Because I am twenty-two and have never yet been in love, and no woman has ever caught my eye.
— That is perfectly natural — one ought not to be in love until that age.
— What about all those young men who have been in love since fourteen?
— They are freaks of nature; besides, none of those passions have anything to do with Love...
— Perhaps, but I am not like everyone else. I am awkward, I am proud — by which I mean my self-esteem — and then...
— But all these things you are citing me are qualities.
— Good ones?
— Why yes.
Then, I know not on what pretext, he told me that if his mother were to die he would go mad.
— For a year, yes... and then...
— Oh! No, I would go mad, I know it.
— For a year, for everything fades as one keeps seeing new faces.
— Then you deny eternal sentiments and virtue?
— Absolutely.
— It is strange, Mousse, he said to me — [word cancelled] — how quickly one grows close when one is not stiff.
The evening before last I said Maria Constantinovna, yesterday Mademoiselle Mousse, and today...
— Simply Mousse — and I commanded it.
— It seems to me that we have always been together, so simple and winning are your ways.
— Are they not?
I amused myself by talking to the peasants we met on the road and in the forest — and would you believe it, I speak Little Russian quite passably. The Vorsklo, the river that flows through my father's village, is so shallow in summer that one can cross it on foot, but in spring it is a proper river. I took a fancy to make my horse splash through the water, and lifting my riding habit quite clear, I rode in. It is a delicious sensation and a ravishing sight. The horse was in it up to his knees.
— It is true, said my cousin, you have a remarkable figure — I have never yet seen one like it.
And Paul, with all a brother's naivety, exclaimed that I was really quite plump... considering that I wore neither pleated petticoats nor a bustle.

Notes

The 19th-century term for Ukrainian. ↩
The tournure (bustle) was a padded undergarment creating the fashionable rear silhouette of the 1870s. ↩