Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 11 May 1878

He will only have the more charm for women, the more greatness for men, because of it. I know what they say... Dr Michel said it again this evening when I told him of the famous marriage — he said after much hesitation that he will never marry because he has a golden chain about his neck. This is a vile slander and entirely improbable. His newspaper has a print run of four thousand, four thousand five hundred, but with his deputy's salary he has in all twenty to twenty-four thousand francs a year. He appears no more prosperous than that. The house costs four thousand francs a year. As for servants, there is the valet, his daughter and his wife — a stout cook — who opens the door and, if the visitors are women, turns her head away and flees with a great discretion that paints the manners of the household. And there are foul serpents who hiss that he is kept by a woman, and that the Empress gives him money... The latter is very natural — but for the party, not for himself.
Where would he put such money, since he barely appears to have his twenty-four thousand francs!
Mouzay, who is dining here, tells us that his daughter says of me: every time I see Marie, she amuses me like an illustrated book.
Blanc, who is also dining, complains of his friend's Faubourg Saint-Germain tendencies — women may call themselves Bonapartists, he says, but they are all Faubourg Saint-Germain at heart, and since it is they who lead him...
That ignoble frigate captain tells us that his friend has been enquiring about us in general and about my intellectual faculties in particular. It is perhaps the first time he has spoken of it without our having begun the topic. I pretend to be angry, put on
a veil, and speak of marrying Gambetta, which always makes him genuinely angry. If you knew how grotesque that man seems to me when he tries to play the Cassagnac — prostrating himself, remaining on his knees, then kissing my hand. He thinks himself full of grace; he wishes to be amusing, and is only ridiculous.
— Is she rich, this Mlle Acard? asked Breslau.
— Not at all.
— Then... why on earth is he marrying her?!
— Because she pleased him.
— Because she pleased him?... But how very strange that you did not please him...
It was said with such conviction that, coming from this intelligent girl — morally crippled though she is — I am flattered by it.
Alas! It is not surprising. I, as that scoundrel Blanc puts it, am a phenomenon. I know everything, I can learn anything I wish, I am "astonishing, stupefying, strange, amusing" — but all that frightens people. I am "too strong, too clever" — men do not like to be inferior to a woman.
Animals, though, ought not to be afraid — when I speak to them I do as with people who don't speak French: instead of saying, will you drink? I say:
You wanting to drink water, you having thirst? I do it quite involuntarily, I assure you.
And the more good feelings I have, the more I suppress them inwardly, and the more fire and flame I throw outward.
— In matters regarding others you have judgement, said the eternal captain, but when you speak of yourself you don't know what you are saying.
— You are not very clever, Blanc, I replied, if you think I would ever debase myself so far as to speak sincerely about myself.
O Blanc! You let me understand that if I were not such a phenomenon, you would dare look at me as a woman.
O Blanc! O my captain.
You also said that men who weep beat their wives. O my captain.
Schaeppi, Aunt Marie, and I go to the Exhibition to see the paintings and to admire Don Carlos in person — who is the most magnificent and most regal man I have ever seen. In distinction he surpasses our grand dukes and our Emperor.
Dress him as one likes, place him wherever one will,
everyone will stop involuntarily and ask: who is that man?
One cannot deny breeding, and when people of breeding are ugly or fail to appear so, there is, believe me, some falsification in the lineage. One cannot be more sovereign, more exalted, more at ease than Don Carlos. If that man were intelligent as well — it would be too much! He is not quite stupid, but dormant — he is never quite present. Many have told me so, even Paul de Cassagnac.
Thanks to the Saturday circus performances we shall no doubt have no one, and our Saturday gatherings are drawing to a close.
I had half fallen asleep, and so deliciously, when M. de Morgan arrived — he was not received. Maman is ill. I had given advance orders that no fair-haired man of whatever shade be admitted. As for dark ones, I know only Cassagnac. What a bore! I had broken off my writing; I was sleeping so deliciously — and art woke me to make me think once more that it is despairing to be nobody, and that I should very much like to have a political salon.
And I was sleeping so pleasantly!
The important thing is not to go mad before October — the season when the weather is fine and when almost all pleasures take place outdoors; in this season it is extremely difficult to turn a deaf ear... It is only beginning, and I face it with a sorrow mixed with terror. It is only beginning, true — but it will end, also true, in six months. Six months during which I shall be tormented like a chained dog. Well — in six months it will be over.
It is better that I think of all this at the outset — that I exaggerate the heartbreaks to myself, that I master them in my mind, and that I make my peace with them immediately and bravely. I am extremely furious at being obliged to be so sensible. But between two things, I must choose one.
The wisdom that humiliates me because I am forced into it.
The rage that would perhaps not kill me outright, but would cripple my existence — and after all, one only lives once.
I have just got out of bed on purpose to voice my scruples — for after all, listen: if I were as extraordinary as all that, the world would notice.
I flatly deny the existence of unrecognised merit. If it is not known, then it does not exist.
Everyone says... what he says. But I do not esteem
a mind that produces nothing — and mine is such.
But the world does not know me. Many have seen me; almost no one knows me. Those who have known me knew me as a child. If in Audiffret's time I had had my judgement of today, I might perhaps have been a little queen at Nice... yes, but I might also have dulled my mind. So I regret nothing.
Well! I came to reproach myself, and instead I am defending myself!
I repeat it: Cassagnac, in himself, is the most amusing person in the world — but he is not one of those men who bring out the qualities of others; otherwise... well, one would have to conclude that I am the exact opposite of what everyone says. What woman has Cassagnac placed on a pedestal through his love or his friendship? Not one. M. Thiers, yes — he created Mme Troubetzkoy, who had... the necessary elements. But Cassagnac fancies himself d'Artagnan and goes consorting with noble lords, dropping here and there a few sensational phrases imitated from Dumas, in The Musketeers or in The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
That does not prevent him from being all that I said in the preceding books — but it proves to you that I need not grieve too deeply.
Yes, now I must expect to hear one of these days that this creature has done for someone what I declared him incapable or unwilling to do.
I once had a dream at Nice — the dream of the five stars falling from the sky. I had interpreted it wrongly. I believe now that the five stars signified five years of falls, upheavals, and troubles.
That was nearly four years ago — so I have only one year left.
One must do one thing... remain mad, since I cannot be otherwise — but not hide myself when I wish to say serious things.
Besides, look here... I believe I am capable of it.
And then again — since he is getting married, how the devil do you expect him to think of anything else, of another woman above all.
He will make a celebrity of his Mlle Acard and they will rot together, the two of them.
I return to it — I am capable of it, entirely, I am sure. Good. But where to meet people???
Leave me in peace then — you shall see. The fine achievement
of succeeding easily! I have only myself, and I shall succeed.