Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 1 March 1879

Here is a day that has aged me. Paul went to the prosecutor and to the commissioner. The Tutcheffs have filed a complaint against the Babanine family and against Paul, alleging an intention to slap the lady. The Babanine family! It is absurd, but thanks to the past behavior of Georges it takes hold. Paul looks crushed. I made him write to Des Perrières and to Scotti yesterday. Not one reply. You can imagine what I suffer. Only in the evening do I learn that the hotel messenger, having not found Des Perrières, brought the letter back — and then that Paul saw Scotti and they discussed it, and these gentlemen both told him that one cannot challenge Eristoff since it is he who is the insulted party. Yesterday toward evening, to hearten Paul, I told him that since these slaps were an invention, it was he who was the insulted one — and he repeated this to those gentlemen, which confused the situation somewhat. And then, that Paul! I have no luck, I. No — one must truly give it up. Were I a man I would be remarkable; as a woman I am unhappy. It is hard to imagine people in a more false position with respect to one another than we are today. [Word blacked out: No one] dared say anything and each supposed on their own side. In the evening things were somewhat explained.
Paul assures me that these two friends are on excellent terms with him. Worries and torments ease a little... one must be patient. I did write a Cassagnac-style article that would have produced reply, lawsuit, duel. But it is impossible. Who will be there to follow up? Paul? He must leave — and besides it is truly not easy to drive that great body forward and electrify that good-natured fellow who is afraid of his father. An affair like this well managed could make a man's reputation. And then if it came to be known that I am the stage machinist, and if my brother were obliged to write anything on the spot without me — he does not know spelling, or anything else...
Enough! Let us heave a sigh that sums it all up and humble ourselves. Yet with money and a fortnight's time I could arrive at a better result. No — it is not for lack of cleverness, nor of money. It is the family history that spoils everything, my mother's weakness falling back upon us, and a nineteen-year-old boy like Paul cannot overcome so many prejudices — and Madame Tutcheff who is entrenched here, though her affair is talked about in the family. I tell you that for this one would need a man of legal age who could face the law without fearing to take on as many matters as would arise.
After the slappings by the Tolstoy woman and by Prodgers, and my mother's protection of the author of those scandals, it would need me — as a man. I would rehabilitate us or die in the attempt.
At any rate, we still have the option of paying newspapers to tell the story.
Paul saw Barnola and showed him the entire case file. Barnola approved it very strongly. But is there a single person who, knowing the truth, does not approve? This is consoling.
But this affair, while making me suffer, has done me good. Before leaving Paris I opened the Gospel and read a line at random to know what would befall me in Nice, where I was going to hear Patti and take a sun bath. Well — I read about people being brought before the consistory, and judges, and... all that is now happening to us. I laughed, thinking it absurd, and opening the Book several times I always found things of the same kind. Well — it gives me back my confidence; I believe in something. That much taken from the enemy.
Paul may reassure me all he likes — tomorrow I shall send this note to Des Perrières:
Dear Comte,
It is I who advised my brother to call upon your friendship, thinking thereby to show you our esteem. I regret it all the more in that I was subsequently obliged to tell a falsehood to spare him a... an embarrassment of which I was the cause.
Marie Bashkirtseff
Letters, always letters! Yes — and here is another. It is uncle Alexandre who will write it from Russia.
Monsieur le Procureur de la République
I learn that a defamatory complaint has been filed by Madame Tutcheff and Prince Eristoff against Monsieur Paul Bashkirtseff and against the Babanine family.
Monsieur Paul Bashkirtseff is in Nice and can defend himself. As for the Babanine family, not one member of that family has come to Nice for more than two years. This complaint seeks to confound the Bashkirtseff family with an individual of the same name given to alcohol and long since disowned by all his relations. But even that individual has not reappeared in Nice for several years. Thus, Monsieur le Procureur de la République, I come to protest in the name of all my brothers who, since the death of Monsieur Étienne Babanine the father, represent the Babanine family — against this attempt at defamation whose impartial justice the well-known fairness of the French authorities will render.
Yours faithfully, etc. etc.
The consul replies to Paul that this is not within the jurisdiction of the consulate. That matters nothing to us — he has received the letter, and that is what was needed.