Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

# Thursday, 21 December 1876

Thursday, 21 December 1876

I used to tell myself that too acute a grief could not last, that sooner or later there always came either an improvement or some sort of end... I was wrong. [In the margin: Passages written in the middle of 21 December] I slide very quietly into a fury, and push the thing to the monstrous extreme... of breaking glasses and chairs with perfect composure. Then... I walk about my rooms, which I have lit up, and speak aloud to myself, lamenting and marvelling at my trivial behaviour. Why do Rome and all that follows from it make me shudder so? And it is my own fault that I cannot go! If I had not pushed Maman... Ah! No matter — there is always something, always some fault!

Friday, 22 December 1876

— It seems we are going to Rome, said my aunt suddenly.
— So it does, I answered.
— Doesn't it? said Maman.
— Take care, I replied, do not tempt me.
— Oh ho!
— But why should she not go? said Maman.
— To Rome? asked my aunt.
— Why yes, let her go with you for a day, just as you are.
— I think the idea is a good one. No sooner thought of than decided. I named the items to be forwarded to me at San Remo, from where I shall go on to Rome. At Menton the trains cross; in the one coming from Italy I recognized my father. We had to call out to him and make a commotion — besides, he had recognized me too, and came with us to San Remo. The princess came to fetch me at the hotel and brought me to the Villa Rocca, where the entire monkey family is currently assembled — the princess, her Italian lover, Hélène, her daughter, Lola and her husband the Italian Sperandio. To look at them one would proclaim: Darwin is great! Were it not a hard extremity I should never have sunk to consorting with these people. But they are genuinely very gay.
At last I spoke seriously, in precise and brief terms, with my wretched father. And he answered that he would give me a definitive reply only in a few days — one must wait for his decision as though it were a favour. He who never gave a rouble toward his children's education, and it is he who... Well!

Saturday, 23 December 1876

What if I were to take my father with us? He consents — but with Maman and for two days only. This arrangement has several advantages, among them that of travelling without expense. While waiting for Maman, to whom I have telegraphed to come, I spend a few hours at the Villa Rocca. My aunt, that heroic creature, stays behind alone to be bored. She naturally has no wish to mix with the people I frequent. But do you see the role this woman plays at my whim? I adore her. The San Remo Opera opens this evening; we take the Prince of Amedée's box and go, my aunt and I. There are some sorokas here — one in particular who made a great effort to attract my attention. They were giving Rigoletto — everyone in Italy can sing, consequently it was not too bad. My father and Sperandio, the husband of Pacha's sister, came to our box, and then... Ah yes, Maman arrived; we supped together. I paid the bill, to make my father more... generous.

Sunday, 24 December 1876

We set out yesterday from San Remo — my father, my mother, and I — like a respectable family that has always been together. What thoughts I had during the journey! But charming reveries, castles in the air, dominated all other feelings and composed for me, as usual, a life detached from human things. A most agreeable state, interrupted by the stopping of the train near the station at Albisola on account of a landslide on the line. We had to get out, seize our luggage, and walk for several minutes to meet a train that had come to fetch us — all by the trembling light of torches, which against a black horizon and the sound of the raging sea was most picturesque. This accident led us into conversation with our fellow travellers, one of whom was a soldier. They carried our bags and supported us through the difficult passage. The officer was a fairly educated and intelligent man, and so, to his astonishment, I led him into a serious conversation — even an extravagant one... political.

Notes

sorokas — Russian for "magpies"; Marie's code word for suitors attracted to shiny, fashionable things. ↩