Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 21 April 1880

But all that vexes me, and something else besides... hostilities, if not enemies, everywhere. Alexandre Dumas — at whose house they speak ill of us — is marrying his daughter to M. Lipermann, a Jewish friend of Hecht's, no doubt. Hecht very much at home with the de Lesseps family; the household [Crossed out: Martinez] we met dining at his house, whom he helped marry off, and the wife is almost a relation of Mme de Lesseps; then Mme Adam, who is exceedingly close to General Turr's wife, née Bonaparte-Wyse, who moves in good society even though Mme Adam has closed many doors to her. Well, what do I know... and then my wretched painting, La question du divorce. How charming! Ah, here I am! I wanted the stir, and there will be one — but not the kind I hoped for; there will be an unhealthy, humiliating stir.
The Jew... personal attacks, who knows — for if only the painting is torn apart, that will be too much honor; but there is something else. I try to foresee everything and imagine thirty-six scenarios so that none of what I have anticipated shall come to pass: for in this world things rarely happen as one fears or as one hopes.
And Arnaud de l'Ariège, with whom I demeaned myself...
You know when Géry came to the Opéra with us, long ago? Well, he did not even leave cards; and at the last dinner, Maman had invited him (!!!) — he accepted, but his poor daughter having had a miscarriage at three months forced him to go to Rambouillet, and so he did not dine with us.
He sent me forty francs for my sale, yet while going to Mme de Brimond's, he did not come in. It would have been easy enough to leave a card in passing by the concierge's lodge.
As for the chaste and pure Gabriel, he has been here a fortnight. Soutzo had told me, but I only believed it yesterday when Mme Gavini expressed surprise that we had not yet seen him.
I returned to old Mother Jacob's, but disguised as an Englishwoman and wearing spectacles so thick that the first thing she did was recommend a remedy for eye trouble and tell Daillens to have me show her my eyes — I pushed the spectacles aside and blinked. I played the part of understanding not a word of French; Daillens was to collect the account and translate it to me afterward. On the whole the broad strokes are the same, everything is the same — except the portrait of my future husband, which is in every way like that of Edmond: a well-proportioned chestnut-haired man, with a wide, rounded forehead, an honest and frank expression. An excellent character, charming, very wealthy, titled or famous or both.
And then there is what is difficult to disentangle — and all because of the facts themselves.
I must beware and never draw near to a dark-haired man who has already caused me grief or given me an affront — a matter of letters — avoid at all costs this man who has already affronted me or wounded my self-esteem as a woman; he will always be my undoing. This man is deeply vicious, wicked: 'Well, Madame, you who are married will understand this, you shall explain it to her as best you can — he is a dirty, disgusting man in love, perverse.' Yes — but that describes a certain Alexandre from Florence far better than the innocent-and-yet-guilty Joseph. In the end she declares there will be three, four, five — but one must take neither the blond nor the dark ones, especially the disgusting dark one, but the chestnut-haired.
Then she greatly regrets that I did not take a certain very blue-eyed blond who proposed to me by letter from a foreign country. As this applies exactly to poor Bruschetti, I have no regrets. 'What a pity — he would have adored her.'
This time, being English, I gave her no help at all — so I think I must place more faith in this session than in the other, where I talked and whose account was perhaps influenced by my desire to have identified Joseph in that dark-haired man, or perhaps I confused two men for the pleasure of proving to myself that it would indeed be Joseph. Well, I offer it for what it is worth, while doing this justice to the sorceress: except for this matter of the false Joseph, everything agrees and fits together very well. She also spoke of a certain gentleman who has an illegitimate little daughter, warning me to beware of him. I beware of everything... when I can. If it is he whom she counsels me not to return to, she may rest easy — return to that squalid Larderei, good heavens. But yes — must I consider the Joseph affair as...