Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 5 February 1879

So. We went to Versailles. Gambetta's first day as President of the Chamber. His speech, which he read aloud, was received with enthusiasm — and had it been even worse it would have been the same. Gambetta read badly and with a detestable voice. He has no restraint as president, and having seen Grévy one wonders what this man is doing there. To preside over a chamber, talent alone is not enough — one needs a special temperament. Grévy presided with mechanical regularity and precision. [Words blacked out: The first word] of his sentence was the same as the last. Gambetta has his crescendos, his slowings, his expansions and contractions; movements of the head, ups and downs... when he remembers that he must contain himself... In short, either he made an incoherence, or he is very, very cunning.
We traveled with Rouher, most amiable; only, as there was no room, we rode in second class. With Rouher something is always happening.
Only here is the thing — I have come back and I really do not know what for...
[Written across the page: Gavini was with us and on the way I listened to anecdotes from the Assembly of 1849–51.]
Will no one rescue me from this desert then! Does God not hear! Is it possible that I should rot in this solitude, in this abandonment!
And my family stays calm. I can bear it no longer. You do not know what it is to feel the humiliating fear of watching oneself grow old in a desert! It is something hideous.
Oh! It is not vanity — I swear it, on Grévy's head if you like. But it is the others who ask themselves: well, what has become of Mademoiselle So-and-so? I was too visible at the theater, in the street, and at the races from thirteen to seventeen at Nice and then in Italy. Since I have been in retirement, people must take me for old.