Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 2 June 1878

It is four in the morning. I have just come from an evening given by Mme de Tunis. M. de Tunis is in some ministry or other, though a Bonapartist — he was something or other in Algeria, and has since remained under the Bey's protection.
The Bey's son dined with them and then honoured the evening with his presence. There was also music and Arab dances.
I was there with Mouzay.
What always happens to me in such cases happened again. I was well dressed and interesting, and with charming feet too. I have broken with Ferry and high heels, which are only becoming on mules that one can wear only when certain of walking very little. High heels deform the foot and deceive no one about its size — everyone knows the trick.
Not to say that the evening was like Mouzay's — but in short, it is not what I need...
Yesterday was the march celebration, and today at Chantilly... Goldsmid and Foster went alone. I stayed in my room.
I shall not go to bed at all — I am very bored.
De Daillens goes every day to walk her dog on the rue Saint-Florentin, where she encounters Cassagnac going to his father's. Always pearls before swine.
If only he were not getting married, I should calm myself with the idea of recapturing him later... but this marriage... vexes me as much as Walitsky's death.
In two hours it will be time to go to the studio... my salvation. Even if this work were to lead to nothing, it saves me for the present, and in that it is already a great deal.
Oh! The kind hearts. Dina has just come in, in her nightgown, on behalf of Maman, to see whether I have gone to bed. Maman had advised me to lie down for at least two hours.
Oh! The good care. The excellent heart! Instead of tending my precious health and sleeping (it was only half past two when I arrived home), I went to mess about with strawberries in the dining room and roast apples over violet spirits, while reading Victor Hugo's History of a Crime. I was introduced to men. My miraculous figure attracted the attention of the... men... I was dull. Mme de Daillens, who claims to have the face and wit of Louis XV, found herself very happy in these salons...
Rubbish, all of it! It is very proper but not my style.
Am I mad!.. "Instead of rose it is grey" — fine, but is grey amusing?!
Let them make my existence dreadful — that can be borne... but I do not wish to deprive myself of the pleasure of groaning about it at every moment.