Wednesday, 5 March 1879

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! How dark he is, how yellow — he has lost that swaggering air; he looks quite finished. You’d say he’d aged ten years. Ah — it’s not doing him any good, our Popaul. It must be his election giving him the jitters. And then he 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 so if it were not so silly to say, and if my lamentations did not forbid me, on pain of ridicule, these mad intuitions of a happy woman. No matter — well then, I am certain the Deceased is sorry to have lost me. Good heavens — 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 — it is not because I am the one saying it, but he has made a wretched marriage.

Rogue though he may be, he is still someone in his party. After all, he is a well-known man, a man of standing — 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 walked right into it with that immense air that is so comic when one sees through it — or thinks one does. And this evening, to 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 even 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 put me in a good frame of mind 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.

Well then, my angel — despair will bring nothing, and since there is nothing to be done, let us work: I can always grow discouraged afterwards. 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 afterwards: if instead of staying at the atelier 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. Botheration, 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: hence the anger¹ 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 theatres? 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!!!

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 will marry me off to a viscount or a marquis with 6,000 a year who will take me everywhere. Oh! — the moment I give up 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 one of those infernal about-turns so 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 insulting of all by 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 travelling 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 ways of being 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?²

One year is not enough... At the end of a year we shall see whether to continue...

But in Italy, if I no longer paint, I shall hear talk of young women artists — that will make me rage and regret — and then whenever in Naples or Petersburg someone’s talent is praised, how shall I bear to 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 theatre... I am lost.

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...