Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 5 March 1879

By the way! Paul is running to the journalists to get something useful printed about Prince Eristoff. Today he encountered Cassagnac and they walked together; he told him his affair and the great man approved, took an interest, and in passing deigned to charge Paul with his greetings to everyone — and especially to Mademoiselle.
Mademoiselle returns from the Palais Royal, where she sat behind her aunt laughing at the play. Mademoiselle is stupefied — the proof being that she goes to theaters to see plays: she needs to distract herself. Mademoiselle has grown ugly; Mademoiselle has no confidence in herself, in the present, or in the future; Mademoiselle has reached the apex of her happiness — which consoles her, for things must change one way or another. And painting!!
Yes — as the week is already broken into, she shall do a still life.
Mademoiselle bids a good evening to Monsieur de Cassagnac, whom Paul found "stupefied, yellow, dirty, altogether finished — it even surprised me" — and wishes him as much pleasure in this world as she herself enjoys. There was at least a spark of life when she thought well of the aforesaid Cassagnac; but now she cares very little, and asks herself what she will do... Get drunk or hang herself?
To escape I read all day, which tired me. My aunt has bought Meissen china in my absence; the blue salon will be filled with it.
The priest came this evening.
Rosalie saw Cassagnac, still on the Boulevard: — I never found him handsome, but now! Is he dark, is he yellow — he has lost that swaggering air; he looks quite finished. You'd say he'd aged ten years. Ah — it doesn't agree with him, Cassagnac. It must be his election giving him the jitters. And then he [Words blacked out: is there walking alone] like a desperate man. Not a trace of style.
This makes me quite merry — and listen, an idea comes to me; I would even say a certainty. Has it never happened to you that, without rhyme or reason, a violent certainty comes to you — a certainty dropped from heaven that never deceives? I would say it out if it were not so silly to say, and if my lamentations did not forbid me, on pain of ridicule, these [Word blacked out: mad] intuitions of a happy woman. No matter — well then, I am certain the Deceased regrets me. My God — if for no other reason than that all men believe the unknown is better, and that perhaps he has had enough — and then a little of that "I think I should have done better to marry Célimène" which inevitably arises in everyone at some point.
He goes to Rouher's now, without his wife. No — honestly — not just because it is me, but he made a wretched marriage there.
Whatever of a rogue he may be, he is still someone in his party. In short, he is a known man, considerable — he could have found some merchant's daughter... But that. Cassagnac is a great fool; he let himself be taken in by the priests and plunged into it with that immense air that is so comic when one sees through it — or thinks one does. And this evening, to [Word blacked out: return] to my solitude — Acard's husband almost loves me.
From tomorrow I return to work. I give myself one more year — a year during which I shall work harder than before. What is the use of despair? Yes — that is a phrase one says when one has come somewhat through it; but when it has hold of you. I played music; that disposed me well to hear it said that the Deceased looked done for, and when the forthright Rosalie had expressed her impression I was able to think about painting and everything else.
[Word blacked out: Well then,] my angel — despair will bring nothing, and since there is nothing to be done, let us work: I can always grow discouraged afterward. Since this life must be dragged on — in the hope of a better fate, let us fill it.
I have found no way out of it — so whether I read or draw, is it not all the same? You know, these are strange reasonings to bring me to work. It is not even a last resort anymore! It is that I fear I shall tell myself afterward: if instead of staying at the studio you had thought about yourself, you might perhaps have found...
Whatever you like! There is perhaps a way, but I do not know what to do.
You see — it is atrocious, but I always return to the possibility of bringing Bashkirtseff here. Ah, really now! Do you know what he is doing?
He is renovating his house to receive us. Good God — I have been there and that is enough. My mothers are incapable of anything, and I am base enough to admit that I am incapable of pushing them — and besides it would lead nowhere. Search as I may, with Maman alone... no intrigue, no alliance; we have nothing — not even enough money to dazzle.
Ah — if only we were unknown! What vexes me is that there have been people who arrived with nothing, and I am ashamed to admit I have not their cleverness nor their genius — I cannot deny myself that genius: inde ira and useless and irritating searches. Nice has killed us. It is at the moment one ceases to search that one finds. In any case, painting can do me no harm... The fact is I am not supported at all!..
On the contrary. Go on, my angel — make excuses to hide your lack of intelligence.
Shall we take to doing the circuit of the lake, frequenting theaters? That will attract a few men and endless wounds to our self-esteem! For that one needs the return of the family from Nice. What troubles me are these stories one hears: "Then with her aunt, or her daughter, or her mother, she set about such-and-such and went on until they ended up received by... etc. etc." Novels! Nonsense. Oh, do you see!!!! I write, I think, I invent, I dream! And then I stop, and it is always the same silence, the same solitude, the same room. The immobility of the furniture seems to me like a provocation, a mockery!
Here I am struggling in this nightmare while others are living 11!
Glory? Blast glory. I shall marry any specimen whatsoever in order to live like everyone else... What is the use of delaying this denouement? What am I waiting for. In a fortnight Madame Gavini can marry me to a viscount or a marquis with 6,000 in income who will take me everywhere. Oh! — the moment I put aside painting, the field is vast. Then... one must go to Italy and marry there. Not Russia — a purchased Russian would be a dreadful thing.
Besides, in Russia I would marry easily, especially in the provinces — but I am not that foolish. In Petersburg? Well — if my father wished, he could perhaps arrange for us to spend a winter there; yes — for that he will invite us to the country promising everything, and then by that infernal reversal familiar to him he will say: I thought it was to live in peace, as a family, with your father. Or else he will propose suitable matches — but the most outrageous ones by virtue of their very mediocrity. In Italy, try one's luck — in the street? Why not in Spain? In short — having this apartment and the villa, take to traveling and ruin ourselves.
In a year, then, the lease will be up, and then we shall travel to find me a husband — a way out of it, I mean. Hmm... And glory and painting? This evening it is all Greek to me.
In Petersburg there are the Anitchkoffs and Madame Antonsky. That will give me means to be seen — at the Opera and even at some grand ball... and Italy and Art?
No nonsense. Oh! I am so dazed.
Next winter in Petersburg then... I do not believe I love my art. It was a means — I am abandoning it... Really? Oh! I do not know... Shall I give myself a year? The duration of the lease. To be or not to be?
One year is not enough... At the end of a year one will see whether to continue...
But in Italy, if I no longer paint, I shall hear talk of young woman artists — that will make me rage and regret — and then whenever in Naples or Petersburg someone's talent is praised, how shall I hear it? And then.
All that would be based on my beauty? And if I do not succeed? For it is not enough to please — one must do so with a specific man in view.
The moment Art is set aside and I admit the possibility of going into society — or even the possibility of pleasing someone in the street or at the theater... I lose myself in it.
I shall go to bed... Petersburg really appeals to me... I shall make my fortune there... Well — at twenty-one I shall not be too old. In Paris one must expect nothing in the way of rich husbands; as for the poor ones, Italy is more convenient. One returns, one has a salon, one has...

Notes

inde ira — Latin: "hence the anger." From Juvenal's Satires. ↩
"To be or not to be?" — in English in the original. ↩