Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 18 May 1877

I am a monster and a wretch! They provoke me and I show my most hideous face! Walitsky was rude at lunch and a reply of mine suggested I was thrashing everyone. Terrified that people would believe it and repeat it, I called him a "coward." But those not initiated into my daily terrors and exasperations will see in this outburst nothing but monstrous brutality in a girl of my age. Mme Kondareff has already told Maman, and no doubt I shall become a scarecrow held up to Lise, who will be pointed at me with the words "You see that one — well, you'll end up like her if you..." or else "Don't think I'll allow you this or that the way I do with Marie, etc. etc."

# Vendredi 18 mai 1877

I stayed a long time in the garden playing the mandoline; the night is so beautiful... I am so unhappy... I am irritable to the point of fury, and they provoke me! Just think — they have taken to speaking to me in the tone used to humour the mad. Instead of song, a few drops of blood came from my throat;14 I reported it with a kind of triumph and Maman came to tell me...

Je suis longtemps restée au jardin à jouer de la mandoline, la nuit est si belle... je suis si malheureuse... Je suis irritable jusqu'à la rage et on m'exaspère ! Pensez donc, on a pris le parti de me parler du ton dont on flatte les fous. Au lieu de chant il m'est sorti de la gorge quelques gouttes de sang, je l'ai raconté avec une sorte de triomphe et maman est venue me dire...

"You really made a mistake not to have married Audiffret."

— Décidément tu as mal fait de ne pas avoir épousé Audiffret.

But if you could imagine what was in the tone in which this was said — of natural history, of hygiene15... you would be mad with rage as I was!

Mais si vous pouviez vous imaginer ce qu'il y avait dans le ton dont ça a été dit, d'histoire naturelle, d'hygiène... vous seriez fou de rage comme moi !

Having nothing at the moment, I remake myself a present by leafing through this journal. It is a strange sensation to find there, under one's hand and eyes, an entire existence... it forces one to analyse, to take stock...

N'ayant rien pour le moment, je me refais un *présent* en feuilletant ce journal. C'est une sensation bizarre que de retrouver là sous la main, sous les yeux toute une existence... cela force à analyser, à se rendre compte...

All the same, the adventure with Larderei is very strange — that is to say, I was in love and consequently out of my mind. I did not leave two days after his arrival, as I might perhaps have done well to do, because there were the races — that excuse justified me. And then... then... it is all very well. You see, I am greatly tormented when I discover too late what I should have done...

C'est égal, l'aventure avec Larderei est bien étrange, c'est-à-dire que j'étais amoureuse et par conséquent hors de mon sens. Je ne suis pas partie deux jours après son arrivée comme j'aurais peut-être bien fait de faire, parce qu'il y avait les courses, ce prétexte me justifiait. Et ensuite... ensuite... c'est très bien. C'est que, voyez, je suis très tourmentée quand je trouve trop tard ce que j'aurais dû faire...

Notes

This is one of the earliest recorded symptoms of the tuberculosis that would take Marie's life in 1884, aged twenty-five. ↩
Maman's remark carried a clinical, biological implication — that marrying Audiffret would have been good for Marie's physical health and "natural" needs. Marie is furious at the reduction of love and marriage to physiology. ↩