Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 23 April 1877

On that reflection, I moved the lamp from the sitting room into my bedroom — five o'clock had just struck. I extinguished the lamp and opened the shutters. It was light. A morning that recalled that of Sorrento. I seemed to hear Larderei's voice crying through the door: "Melissano is very handsome in blue."
Dressed in a white hooded robe, I went out onto the balcony — I had not been there five minutes before I had to retreat in haste, for Larderei caught sight of me as he was getting out of a cab. He is coming back, the wretch! There is nothing that makes me look as well as going without sleep for a night.
The Chiaja deserted, a few workers barefoot, then soldiers; the hill to the right gilded with the first rays...
=="Guardate in alto e vidi le sue spalle
"Vestite già di' raggi del pianeta
"Che mena dritta altrui per ogni calle!" [Dante]==
How beautiful it is, my God!
I went to wake Rosalie, who went to deliver the celebrated letter that I had read ten times over with ever-growing admiration. He will read it on the road, that sublime vagabond...
The Chiaja fills with mounted carabinieri and goats with... little bells.
Rosalie returns.
— He has it.
— Good.
— Ah, Mademoiselle, ah! Mon empereur — what if he were not to leave!
— Let us consult the cards.
The cards say he will not leave right away.
Rosalie goes down at a sign from the concierge, and comes to tell me that at the very moment the trunks were to be carried out, the Count said, still reading: I am not leaving.
"Si ch'a bene sperar m'era cagione..."
The air intoxicates me; everything young, fresh, and good in nature unfolds and brightens like God's own beautiful day. By recounting to Rosalie, in a manner perfidiously innocent, the martyrdoms of Monsieur le Comte, I half believe it myself — and I am happy! It is the air, it is the morning, it is the spring.
The blagues I spin out with my maid seem to me delicious poetry. I am happy because... I am happy — one doesn't know why.
Ah, Naples, how I love you! The Villa Reale looks like a festive pavilion arranged for a king — that palm tree and those kiosks to the right are like stage scenery against the nebbioso backdrop of the hills.
I wish this morning could last forever!
Then will come the afternoon, the promenade, the world, the dark moods!
I expect nothing pleasant — that is why I do not want to move forward. I am so well as I am.
It is not yet half past seven.
Doenhoff and the doctor came several times during the day — Maman is not at all well — and while the others run about and tend to her, I make caricatures of Zunica, Porcinari, Caracciolo, and Santasiglia! The canvas is quite large and already contains twelve figures, made in two or three sittings...
I am sleepy.
I have already had a lesson — my seventeenth mandoline lesson — and I saw Melissano and his adorable smile.
I am quite calmed after the letter.
I was painting when he was announced. I have trembled like that only before the King of Italy — and barely even then! Maman received him in her room, from which he emerged and would have left with nothing but polite exchanges — had I not gone to the anteroom.
— Well, I said, you are reassured now — you no longer need fear being married by force!
— Ah! Yes — but please, let us not speak of that. I wished to reply to your letter full of impertinences, but my reply is too impertinent...
— Give it to me.
— No, no — but you know that you say insulting things to me! [One word cancelled]
— Never enough!
— That is all I ask — only give me the letter.
— I warn you it contains only four lines — but they are worth your six pages.
— Give it to me; I will not be angry.
— Truly?
— Give it to me, I beg you! And if it is impertinent, I shall reply.
I tried to snatch the letter from him, but this only resulted in my touching his hands, which I adore as I adore him entirely — just as he despises me.
I was so agitated, so moved, that I scarcely saw him — and did not come back to my senses until he was already gone.
But I believe I was proper and cold.
Five minutes later Rosalie comes to bring me his note — here it is.
And tell me whether I am fit for anything other than being killed!
It is so much my fault!! That Aquarium! But I was mad with jealousy — ah, yes, mad, mad, mad! Go on, repeat that word, shiver, sigh, choke in your delusion! It is done and it is so much my fault!!!!
Celestial wrath; punishment of hell, inexpressible tortures!!!! To die!! I am a buffoon, trivial, detestable! I hate myself; I love him! And he despises me!
I would sooner bear anything in the world than the contempt of... anyone! Before having understood the vile meaning of that note, I wrote and sent this one — I was happy, I laughed, I had not understood the word rendez-vous!
— "The grapes are so green that they rot before they ripen."
Your advice is not impertinent — it is an infamy that was no doubt composed for some hussy by an actor. But I note with pleasure that this charming note was written from memory and without outside assistance, since it is even more full of spelling mistakes than of villainy!"
And at that very moment, barely holding back my tears, I write this other letter:
— I wrote you a stupid reply before having understood the meaning of your note.
Believe me if you will — I swear that if I had understood what I was doing in going to the Aquarium, I would not have troubled you in any way. I prefer humiliation to contempt.
I was mad — raving mad — that day; I ask your pardon and beg you only to tell me that you do not believe what you have written.
It would be dreadful to me to be, for the first time in my life, despised and suspected of...
At this moment the Gatowsky entered, then the Hamontoff, Fabbricatore; finally Melissano and Porcinari.
My cheeks burn, my hands are ice-cold, and I am shivering...
Melissano is improper — I do not think of correcting him; he conducts himself like a monkey, but he is a man and people will gossip... He saw Alexandre out, who told him that Maman is ill, and then: If you see Mademoiselle Marie, tell her I hope to find her more reasonable when I return.
That sentence cancels the letter and replaces it with these simple words:
"One was too far from the vile meaning of your note to understand it at first. Pin-pricks aside — do you believe what you were wrong to write in reply to an explanation that was both necessary and compelled by yourself?"
Oh, what a crude reply his was! The one great consolation in this world is to tell oneself: patience — time will calm it.

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Notes

Froc: a monk's robe or dressing gown; Marie's informal morning attire. ↩
In Italian in the original. Dante, Inferno I:16-18: "I looked up and saw its shoulders already clothed in rays of that planet which leads others straight along every path." The three paragraphs form a single quotation split across entries. ↩
In Italian in the original. Dante, Inferno I:41: "so that it gave me reason to hope." Marie quotes this line the moment she learns Larderei cancelled his departure after reading her letter. ↩
Blagues: jokes, banter; but with a hint of the fabrications and fictions they both know they are spinning together. ↩
Nebbioso: Italian for misty, hazy — an Italian adjective inserted into the French text. ↩
A reworking of La Fontaine's fable "The Fox and the Grapes" (Le Renard et les Raisins): the fox, unable to reach the grapes, declares them too green. Marie twists the fable to insult Larderei — implying he dismissed her because she was beyond his reach. ↩