Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 24 May 1879

This evening's Le Pays is weak — the article is poor; the man has diminished.
There is yet another false knight — false in delicacy, false in loyalty, false in courage.
Tony was not displeased with me, but it is not enough...
In short, I am very put out — you will see why.
Yesterday we had a meeting with Gavini at the Salon; the stupid Oelsnitz came to fetch me at the studio twenty minutes late, which angered me, and I no longer wanted to go until about five o'clock — it was too late, of course. Meanwhile Gavini was waiting for us with Arnaud, "who waited more than a quarter of an hour for you." That is most vexing; the acquaintance of the younger or elder Arnaud would be an excellent thing in every respect... well, it does not surprise me... And it is that little horror Oelsnitz who caused it all. Another time this will not happen... and at the Salon of all places. In short!
We went to Versailles in quite a charming fashion — fresh outfits, though black — with escorts: Gavini, Dugué, joined on the return by Messieurs de Maillé, Larrey, and one other.
My figure was adorable. Arriving at one forty, we waited twenty minutes for the President to arrive, and immediately the Cassagnac confrontation began. There was an enormous uproar until three o'clock, then a brief lull and then the departure, so that we were back in Paris at five.
And on the way back we talked of all this, and I think I was very pleasant; and speaking of future Parliaments in Russia, Gavini mentioned the marshal of the nobility, my father, etc...
Arnaud was there of course, in the President's entourage, only I no longer find his face so beautiful — he struck me as petty, with a low forehead and something mean about the nose. [Word blacked out: But] the more one sees him the more one admires his figure and his whole person. If one could have a model like him, one could produce something beautiful.
As for my Paul, he spoke certain phrases too rapidly and not as loudly as his custom — apart from that, to hear him is one of the great pleasures one can experience. The light falling from above in that chamber strikes the brows of the Honourable Members most brilliantly, and when one has Paul's beautiful heavy eyelids, those eyelids share in that light, giving something sleepy-looking that is not flattering. Cassagnac seen from behind loses a great deal — his nape, with his hair neither long nor short: that is to say, his hair is swept back, and the hair at the forehead is rather long, but as one descends the hair grows shorter and at the nape is almost like any other mortal's; in short, there is nothing elegant about it. He is getting fat, Julia's husband. Why does he hide her?
In any case, he has a magnificent voice. Robert Mitchell and another are chosen to go and demand satisfaction from the Under-Secretary Goblet, and if Goblet refuses, Cassagnac told Gavini that he will prevent him from coming to Versailles — "will step on his feet and spit in his face." Can you picture my Cassagnac? He is an angel...
At home we find a crowd of women — Mesdames Gavini, de Bailleul, de Souza, de Wykerslooth; Monsieur and Madame Goldsmid, Monsieur Turquan, and the Russian singer.
In short, my head is all in a whirl... let us do some painting — and then perhaps...