Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 13 September 1879

Dinner at Hecht’s! M. and Mme Dubail, who did the honours, so to speak; she was born Martinez, a sort of Creole from Mme de Lesseps’ circle. Hecht made this marriage; Dubail is a mayor’s son and friend etc. etc. Then the Baron de Beyens, Arène, secretary to M. Lepère, otherwise known as Father Pipe, Minister of the Interior, Da Costa, Alexis. And us. It takes place in the rue du Château-d’Eau, on the first floor, a rather artistic little apartment with very beautiful paintings, Rousseaus, Corots, Troyons, Delacroix and even Raphael.
I played the reactionary with the ambassador and Hecht paid me compliments of a thoroughly aristocratic kind.
He entertains with ease and seems used to it. The day before, we had exchanged the following telegrams, which gave rise to some pleasantries between us.
Me to him:
Uncle will not come, to introduce springtime element will invite Serbian tyrant failing dawn nearer to democratic sun.
Marianne Him to me:
Serbian invitation luminous as constellation of Ville d’Avray, I bless you... Greetings and brotherhood.
Joseph.
This Jew signing himself Joseph! Joseph who has the finest figure in the world!
What a study one could make of him. Hecht had promised me Juliette Lamber but she is going to publish a review, she is all taken up with her little papers...
“And are you not in her good books?...”
To which he replied two hours later as I pointed out a painting to him:
“Manet?” I asked.
“Yes, Manet Thécel Phares.”
No, do not think him so stupid, for he only said it because I had told him another piece of foolishness about his piano: Erard... errare humanum est.
Besides, it is simple, elegant and in good taste. Is it not?

Notes

In Latin in the original: fecit (“made it”), the word artists add to their signatures. ↩
Marie turns Hecht’s «elle est dans tous ces petits papiers» (she is up to her ears in papers) into the idiom être dans les petits papiers de quelqu’un, to be in someone’s good books. ↩
Marie plays on the painter Manet’s name and the words written on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast (“Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin”, Daniel 5), which French renders as Mané, Thécel, Pharès; left in her French. ↩
A pun on the piano maker Érard and the Latin proverb errare humanum est (“to err is human”); left in Latin. ↩