Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 28 April 1878

Yesterday I went to the horse show with maman and Goldsmid. M. de Morgan came to talk with us, and at four o'clock I returned home for a harp lesson.
I had the mad idea of having men invited to the midnight mass at our church. Goldsmid, de Morgan and d'Alt came. I was terribly vexed by our isolation.
To the right stood the ambassador, the Duke of Leuchtenberg and his wife Mme Akenlieff. The Duke is the son of the Grand Duchess Marie who died in Florence, and nephew of the Emperor. He lived for a very long time with a married woman whom he finally married, but the marriage was not recognised until the Grand Duchess's death. This count was in Rome when I was there, and Mme Akenlieff was not received at the embassy. Now she plays the grand duchess to perfection; besides, she is a woman still handsome and very majestic, though very thin. I have had frequent occasion to see them — well, the husband is always the most attentive of men to his wife: it is admirable and entirely charming.
The priest, who knows us, had an invitation sent to us from the embassy for the Easter supper — which takes place after mass, at two o'clock in the morning, in the priest's house, which being very close to the church was preferred for that evening. We thus had the good fortune of sitting at the same table as the Grand Duke, his wife, the ambassador, and all the best of the Russian community in Paris.
I was sad and at bottom not displeased — for it will throw me back into my studies with renewed ardour.
Why does Prince Orloff, who is a widower, not fall in love with me and marry me? I should be ambassadress in Paris — almost an empress. M. Anitchkoff, who was ambassador in Teheran, did indeed marry a poor little Persian woman out of love, at the age of more than fifty-five.
I did not produce the full desired effect — Laferrière was late, and I had to wear a dress that did not suit me; I had to improvise a chemisette, the dress was décolleté and that had to be altered. On the dress depended my mood, my bearing, the expression of my face — everything.
We had sent Goldsmid back to our place, expecting to return at once — but the supper had lasted rather long, and on entering we found Goldsmid asleep on the bench opposite our door. It was four in the morning. The poor wretch had thus gone without supper, having endured two hours
of church and one hour of waiting. He will remember our Easter.
And today at three o'clock Anna Nordgren came to fetch me to go to the Swedish church. Anna Nordgren is the strongest of us, very much the artist, not pretty, twenty-nine. There we meet other companions and go (I am in black) to the Hôtel Drouot. Mme Boje was not at church.
I am utterly tired.
I have never been to a ball.
Meditate on that and draw your conclusions, comparisons and consequences.
I shall say as Cassagnac did — that the decoration he received at twenty-five gave him enormous pleasure; now he would find it perfectly simple, and later he would almost have spat upon it.
My mother complains (I have just been listening to what she, Dina and Marie the aunt are saying in the dining room) that I have abandoned everything, that I wear things that do not suit me, that my face has aged. This is nonsense. Besides, everything she says amounts to this: "How could she go to a ball — she has reduced herself to not having a single clean pair of gloves."
This charming prejudice is quite sickening, above all when one has been pestered with it since birth.
Could I succeed in painting? I threw myself into it out of despair.
I feel like not seeing Cassagnac on Tuesday. He has countermanded so many times, and has taken so little advantage of opportunities to see me, that I feel like acting as he does — all the more since I am no longer in the least afraid of him. He tried to find out whether I had been to the Opera, and said he had been prevented from going each time. As for the anonymous letter that had made me blush, it appears it was aimed at me, and someone wanted to enlighten him at my expense.
I have an idea he will countermand on Tuesday — in that case I should write him a little note saying it is impossible for me to... Et cetera — this little note will appear to have been sent before receiving his. Let us wait a little.