Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 31 July 1880

[In the margin: Treatment resumed this morning.] Yesterday I began my painting on a size 25 canvas. The arrangement is quite simple. The two children are seated under beautiful trees with moss-covered trunks; there is a clearing at the top of the canvas through which one sees the countryside in light green. The boy, who is about ten, is seated facing front, a schoolbook under his arm, his hands crossed above his left knee, his eyes in the distance. The little girl, who is six, pulls him by the shoulder with one hand and, with the other, holds a pear. Her head is in profile; she seems to be calling him. One sees the two children only to the knees, for it is life-size.
I read what they call a bad book, Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife by Belot. It was a change from The Origins of Contemporary France by Taine. I hated Belot after reading La Femme de glace; Mademoiselle Giraud is more pleasant to read --- 270 pages in two hours. Ah! I go fast, but can one read such authors seriously? I read them when I am unwell or when I absolutely want to stun myself, to forget myself without effort. And to excuse myself for reading this gibberish, I tell myself: but I am in despair, so stupefied! You know very well I have read Nana; besides, there are no bad books, and yet it seems there are intelligences that are affected by them.
Before leaving Paris, I read Indiana by George Sand. And I assure you it is not entertaining! Having read only La Petite Fadette, two or three other stories, and Indiana, perhaps I should not pronounce... But up to now I do not enjoy this talent at all.
And yet, for everyone to have proclaimed it so loudly... Well, I do not like it.
It is like Raphael's Madonnas; what I see at the Louvre displeases me. I saw Italy before I could judge, and so what I saw displeased me equally. It is neither divine nor earthly, it seems to me --- it is conventional and like cardboard!
It is grey outside; not having slept, I did not work. We went to La Bourboule, which is next to Mont-Dore. We met Wodzinski on a donkey. He is a little vexed that, having invited him to dinner on the Wednesday of the Fete, we left without warning him and he came and found no one; he will come here tomorrow.
I wanted to go riding... but I have no desire for anything, and when I pass a day without working I have dreadful remorse, and there are days when I can do nothing; then I tell myself that yes, if I wanted, I could, and then quarrels with myself, and it ends with: let it all go! It is not worth living...! during which I smoke and read novels.
I needed my calendar to know if July has thirty or thirty-one days (I never know these things).
My calendar stayed in Paris, so I dream of it; I see the calendar and the number thirty-one as if it were reality.
It seems this happens to many people, as well as seeing places one has dreamed of several times. Thus I dreamed of the Buttes-Chaumont two days before seeing them.
Mont-Dore will make me ideal. In the morning I have tea and milk, at eleven more milk, and at five or six a piece of chicken or a soup. But I am not hungry; I tell you I am not living, I am sleeping.
From time to time I think of Soutzo. We parted meaning to see each other the next day. But... even if that boy truly loved me, can I content myself with that thick nature, shot through with Greek falseness? Besides, I must hold to the prediction of Edmond and of Mother Jacob.
The man described by them, especially by Edmond --- I seem to see him, and I shall certainly recognize him.
But these are follies.