Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 3 September 1878

Tuesday, 3 September 1878

Yesterday some ruffian brought M. Georges round to us; the concierge would not let him come up, and we sent him to the devil — not without my mother, who is, God forgive me, an idiot, promising to pay. A little more and she would have received him. I say nothing further — but this blow nailed me to the sofa, where I lay swooned or asleep until midnight. My head still aches from it.
De Balorre, de Wykerslooth, de Souza, and Berthe have called or written. I am keeping you L'Estafette, with its account of the mass in honour of Thiers, and Le Pays, where Cassagnac has composed a true lyric song — one is almost tempted to think it a dithyramb, or perhaps a canticle of Moses... or a philippic — one cannot quite say which. The article is in prose, of course, but it has the air of being translated from a poem. There is something splendid, after all, in defending one's cause with such ferocity. I was almost rational for a moment at my washstand... but Multedo's words came back to me: "soaring over France" — and I fell from my eighth of serenity into the full squall in which I continue to struggle. There is nothing for it... it is dreadful.
I have a wild desire to write for a newspaper. I shall think about it; I shall look for an amenable paper that will accept topical pieces directed against the Bonapartists, of course — or else... something quite different; I do not yet know. Do not laugh — you are no less foolish than I.
I have a wild desire to write for a newspaper. I shall think about it; I shall look for an amenable paper that will accept topical pieces directed against the Bonapartists, of course — or else... something quite different; I do not yet know. Do not laugh — you are no less foolish than I.