Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 7 November 1877

Hall writes to me again.
It is grey and damp. I live only in the bad air of the studio. The city, the Bois — that is death.
I do not work enough.
I am young, yes, I know — but for what I wanted... I wanted to be famous at the age I am now, so as to have no need of any letter of recommendation. I have wanted it stupidly and badly, since I have done nothing but want it.
I shall arrive when the most charming of the three youths has passed — the one for which I wanted everything. For me there are three youths. From sixteen to twenty. From twenty to twenty-five. And from twenty-five to... to whenever one likes. All the other youths that people have invented are nothing but consolations and nonsense.
At thirty, maturity begins; after thirty one may be beautiful, young — younger even — but it is no longer the same thing, as Alexandre Lautrec says, the son of the one from Wiesbaden.
In the afternoon one can scarcely count on more than two hours, if one deducts the rests and the setting-up. The light drops so quickly. In the evening an hour and a half — that makes three and a half hours — and three hours in the morning: nearly seven hours a day in all. A little fame, even a modest fame, even a studio-made de chic one at eighteen, would be sufficient. But at twenty-five they demand the real thing — and then... and then.
I have lost five years! At fourteen I could work with as much intelligence as I have now.
Wretched. Shameful.

Notes

De chic: studio slang meaning work done from imagination or memory, without a live model; also implies a certain flashy ease. ↩