Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 20 August 1878

Tuesday, 20 August 1878

I forgot to mention that my Uncle Nicolas has been here for three weeks or more. He is very ugly, and he is a nihilist — a narrow-minded nihilist. I mocked him at first, then reasoned with him seriously and asked him to explain the thing to me, as clearly and briefly as possible, what it is they want.
He tangled himself in such a multitude of words that I was left dizzy and irritated. They are all like that. It seems that liberty does not yet exist anywhere, and that Switzerland is a monstrosity, or very nearly. I can listen to the most monstrous things, provided they are stated logically and clearly. Confusion, the lack of the concrete — one can only tolerate that in beautiful things.
I have a table clock with alarm and repeater; a basket for newspapers and papers; I write with a goose-quill pen, like M. Grévy — I lack only a small bell, which I shall have tomorrow.

Notes

Russian nihilism was a radical philosophical and political movement of the 1860s–1880s that rejected traditional moral and social authority. Inspired by writers like Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Dmitri Pisarev, nihilists advocated the destruction of existing institutions. By 1878 the movement had radicalized significantly, with Vera Zasulich's attempted assassination of the governor of St. Petersburg having occurred in January of that year. ↩
Jules Grévy (1807–1891) was then President of the Chamber of Deputies; he would become President of the French Republic in January 1879. His frugal, old-fashioned habits — including writing with a quill pen — were widely noted. ↩