Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 7 May 1880

Old lady Gavini came again today to tell Maman I am overworking myself. It is true, but it is not the painting — not to be tired, I would only need to go to bed at ten or eleven o'clock, and I stay up until one and wake at seven. Yesterday it was that idiot Soutzo who was the cause. I was writing; he came to explain himself, then went to play cards with my aunt — and then it was I who wanted to wait for him, to hear some foolish word bordering on love. He came back to say goodnight at half past eleven, and I continued to tease him, saying, "I am ugly, am I not? — but you, you are a vile creature." There I was tired and softened. He said goodnight twenty times and twenty times I told him to go away, and twenty times he took my hand again. I did not want it, and he wanted to kiss it, and I laughed, and finally — "Well then, do it, I don't care," I said.
He kissed my hand twice, and look — here he comes, but he is here now, talking with Dina on the divan. So he kissed my hand, and I have the pain of admitting it pleased me — not because of the object, but he had put into it... a heap of things, and one is a woman after all. This morning I still felt that kiss on my hand, for it was not the common kiss of politeness. Oh, young girls! And then this idea! This morning, going to the atelier, I read in the newspaper that there was a ball yesterday at Mme Turr's. The Audiffrets go there. And then, stupidly, a foolish movement of jealousy that saddened me for an hour, from eight to nine. Would you believe me? Do you think I am in love with this fellow with the wide nostrils? No, you would not — and well, the Antonelli affair was nothing else. I forced myself to fall in love, and with the cardinals and the Pope helping... I worked myself up — but in love? Ah! Fie.
Well, since I am not seventeen and am less foolish now, I invent nothing, and the matter remains normal — that is to say, there is a young man in love with me, and this pleases me. That is all. When I think that in Rome I stayed up until three in the morning asking myself: do I love him or do I not love him?
I was cold from staying so still, and then came boredom, and my bare feet in cold mules gave me a certain feeling of sadness. I even said then that when I am cold, it seems to me that I love him. Was that not childish enough! There was a crush on Larderei, and there has been a feeling — there is perhaps still a feeling — for a certain Bonapartist deputy...
The kiss on the hand displeased me above all because it pleased me — one must not be... a woman to that degree — so I allow myself to give him the cold shoulder. But he is such a good fellow, so simple, that I would be foolish to play any sort of comedy. It is not worth the trouble; it is better to treat him as I treat Alexis or Bojidar. This is what I do. Dina, he, and I stayed up until eleven. Dina listening, and Soutzo and I reading verse and doing Latin translations. I am quite surprised to see that this fellow is very capable — at least considerably more so than I. I have forgotten much, and he remembers his baccalaureat es sciences and es lettres very well. I never thought he was so learned. Would you believe it! I should like to make a friend of him... no, he does not please me enough for that, but a familiar indifferent... He has accustomed me to his presence, and yesterday I was surprised to feel, toward evening, the need to see him.