Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 16 January 1879

Except for a few, the evening students are not the same as the day ones. I was warmly congratulated. It was a good moment all the same... come and collect your medal.
The other evening at Mouzay's I did Cassagnac, and in a grave and gentle tone, holding up the medal: "This represents a great deal of courage, Madame!" Indeed, it represents twelve months of work.
After the terror I felt following my Scaligeresque and royal encounter at Naples (for the readers of Le Pays: with the King of Italy), the most violent sensation of my life is that produced today by reading L'Homme-femme. The admiration I felt for Dumas led me for a moment to believe myself in love, in passion, in delirium, for this man of nearly [Word blacked out: fifty-five years] whom I have never seen. I understood Bettina and Goethe.