Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 12 October 1878 (Late)

Even supposing I am a genius — is it written on my white and pink face of a young girl who makes the circuit of the Lake in company with her noble family? If I had but 200,000 francs a year — you see I am not extravagant — I should ask no one for anything. But as things are! Ah! life is hard for certain people.
I should like to be limited — to understand nothing!
"My dear, your mind has been unsettled by bad reading!" you will say. Say it, say it as much as you like. All fools say I am mad... and are ambitions, misplaced talents, not a kind of madness?
I place myself high. Well, so much the worse; if I succeed they will grant me right; if I remain unknown I shall have been a vain little fool, extraordinary, whatever one wishes. I shall be the first to admit it.
"Be a good daughter, a good mother!" you tell me. "Limit your horizon there." Yes — that is it, cretinise yourself. I am one, and if I am not it is not my fault; I shall be the other come what may — but I am too much for that to suffice me. And then, I do not care for all your considerations; I am not everyone; I have the courage to say this phrase that is in almost every mouth.
Ah! Do you see it... the Trevi Fountain on the terrace of a hotel on the Champs-Élysées.
What is odious is this impotence! And this fury at deserving good advice until I shall have proved I am capable of something... Perhaps I am capable of nothing — but I suffer.