Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 21 November 1876

Yesterday's delicious melodies have gone to my head and taken a certain form there... I am thinking... Oh no, not of Antonelli the dirty creature, but of someone who took my first kisses and who by that act is infallibly linked to all my thoughts... until a new... someone...
You know what Walitsky told Maman. Antonelli made him his confidant — well... you know... he spent every night with prostitutes! Leaving my company!!!
While being fitted, Caroline spoke of the handsome Capoul who is not handsome. I went to Reboux's, where I continued to be entertained as at Caroline's... and at last returned feeling no more fatigue... and having exhausted despair and misery, I laughed about Capoul and lay down on Maman's bed to chatter and declare that I was furious at not being a society lady.
— For I want Capoul... Oh, in my drawing room only.
Rice came to see me.
[Words crossed out]
I took one of my father's visiting cards and, having written these few words across it, sent it to Cassagnac.
— "I am returned from Russia and should like the pleasure of presenting you to my mother."
Signed: Marie Bashkirtseff
But — away with all of that! I want, I want — do you hear me — I want to love someone. I want at last to know what this Love is that makes the whole human race do and not do so many things.
Do you want verses? Here then:
I have never loved — I burn with desire To be quickly informed Of what love means. I want to know at last What this great mystery is That makes the human race Do so much, or nothing.
Well, frankly — not because they are mine... I am always fair — but frankly, these are very... bad verses.
But truly, I am not laughing when I say I want to love... and it seems to me that I shall love soon...
To what purpose? No matter! It displeases me to hear love spoken and sung of always without understanding it any better than if they were speaking or singing Dutch! The other day I boasted to Pacha that I could speak on any subject — I even challenged him to find a topic on which I had no knowledge; he could not find one... and Love? I can produce the grossest sophisms, but I haven't the faintest idea.
And my girl — you are like Offenbach's La Belle Hélène, who sings: "Divine love, ardent flame!" With the refrain: "We must have love, / Though none were left in the world!"
But it is not that love — which the Ancients demanded of Venus (Offenbach's Venus) — that I am asking for.
I am asking for... the sacred fire... to light my cigarette? Fie! I no longer smoke.

Notes

Paul de Cassagnac (1842–1904) — Bonapartist journalist, deputy from Gers, editor of Le Pays. Famous duellist and political polemicist. Sending a card uninvited was highly unconventional for a young woman. ↩
From Offenbach's La Belle Hélène (1864). The aria "Amour divin, ardente flamme!" with its refrain affirming love's necessity regardless. ↩