Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 11 August 1877

Ah! you all bore me!
This morning we met Paul de Cassagnac, who greeted us with a full flourish.
Yesterday too the baroness spent an hour trying to guess why he has not called. As for me, having my telegrams on my conscience, I leave things as they are.
Take me away from Paris in the name of God!
Poor Hall is desperate at the thought of returning to America — she weeps for Florence, but those tears cost her nothing, she drinks so much. But I!!! It is midnight; I have spent three hours playing the most delicious of music — Beethoven. I have never played anything but him and Mendelssohn. Italian music must be sung; on the piano it becomes banal — that is to say, it has been made banal by overuse.
The baron, his wife, my aunt, and Hall listened. I rarely approach the piano, but I have enough talent to have been able to play seriously. In everything it is the same!
Another American from Florence has said that "Alexandre's face is very handsome but he is detestable, dissipated."
I am glad he is thought handsome — he was the one man I could have loved without shame.
And today a mad idea came to me. I thought, for an instant, that I could have sacrificed everything to him and voluntarily renounced everything, provided I were loved by him. And if he loved me I would come and kneel before him and kiss his hand.
I am ashamed to say it — I have not had enough conquests to allow myself the luxury of an unrequited love. Let us see... who? My first admirer was Rémy, seven years ago, and he is still in love. Then Merjeewsky, three years ago; the last time I saw him, this winter, he still loved me. Then Audiffret was a little in love with me — I exaggerated it... and made a fool of myself. I do not count Galula, nor those who would have loved me had they dared dream of such boldness. Bruschetti — a mad love — would have married me with both hands, like Merjeewsky; Plowden likewise! Antonelli loved me greatly; we committed a heap of follies... I consented to marry him (after tormenting him for two months) knowing in advance that I was lying — unless Antonelli became Pope. Then... Madame de Camprien bore the formal proposal; we were so terrified that Maman told her only in a year's time could she answer, and my aunt in her dressing gown with dishevelled hair declared she would never consent. After that there was the letter you know of — I did not reply; I sent my photograph. The idea of writing to a man! I was too proud; I am too proud!
Despite all this I sang in every key, and instead of accusing the young man of baseness I accused myself of love! Very well! Having sworn to be faithful, despite everything, to return to Rome — since he said through tears that he could not follow me without incurring new debts, breaking his conversion anew — having sworn, therefore, to return within three months, four at most, I sent after six weeks the telegram you know of. Did he receive it? If so, it meant he accepted the rupture; if not...? I do not count Troili's friend, the bourgeois admirer of Dina.
Nor is there anything to say about those whom Antonelli prevented from being presented to me.
Then there is the ugly little passion of Michka Eristoff and the beautiful, noble love of the Pasha. And then? Melissano, Zunica, and Porcinari were all three more or less in love; Santasiglia was so with his whole heart. [Words blacked out: And that is all.] Ah! I was about to forget Danis — you know Monsieur Danis; well, he was mad about me when I mistook him for the Comte de Constantin on account of his persistent gaze and his all-too-evident admiration. He almost never came to our house — would the people from Nice dare to go where Audiffret was?
[Written across: And Yssayevitch? What do I do with him? He has just been appointed Marshal of Nobility and Gentleman of the Chamber. And Michel Hamsley? — at Chpatowska.]
Now in all this I have lamented enormously — with reason but misguidedly — which gives me a humiliating position before my own people and perhaps before you!... Above all since Larderei I am thought the most neglected of women. I have written it enough for people to believe it; perhaps it is so.
In sum, then... have I been loved enough to allow myself an unhappy love? What is the use of saying so, since what passed through my head at four o'clock in the afternoon is long gone.
On returning Lady Cartier's visit I had sent the card of Madame Bashkirtseff and her daughter. So this lady and her two daughters came to us today. Just think — they were told that the two black dominoes of the Corso in Rome were we, that we were at the Hôtel Bristol, and everything!
Good heavens! Am I the Emperor of Brazil, by any chance?
If they had been told horrors about me they would not have come to see us! Lady Cartier is a proper woman — her daughters dance in all the salons... black ones, of Rome; her brother is a monsignor; therefore no horrors were told!!
Ah! If only one could get a letter for the embassy!!!
I posed at Waléry's — he is delighted with my poses and has asked my permission to compose a portrait he wishes to exhibit at the Exposition Universelle of 1878.
- I shall have the place of honour, he said; besides, you will be in good company.
When I was eight years old, the photographer Dassorkine in Kharkoff made a large portrait of me for the Exposition in Petersburg — and I was not a pretty child.

Notes

In English in the original. ↩
Waléry: studio name of Stanislaus Julian, Count Ostrorog (1830–1890), one of the foremost portrait photographers in Paris; photographed royalty and celebrities throughout Europe. ↩