Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 23 April 1882

I have just spent a few minutes before my Nice studies. The mere thought that perhaps something good will be found in them sends a shiver down my back. I say 'one' because Tony, Julian, Bastien seem so petty to me, so inconsequential beside the immense effect their words can produce in me. There is no real anxiety and no real happiness save in matters of glory...
How compare a man to it for even a moment? Everything levels out before Glory. What a great word —
My life is not taking shape. [Words crossed out: not to mention that at the studio] to get back to it. One would think I had been idle for months and that some misfortune had occurred.
I did not give all I could — especially with the old man; I was hurrying to get back to Paris. I have botched it again!!! These thoughts pass through my head like great clouds; anxieties envelop me that make me cold and then send tongues of fire across my body — ten times an hour...
The sky is grey, stormy, it rains and there is a burning wind — what passes outside mirrors what passes within me... A physical effect, then?
We went to the Gavinis'; the usual visitors: Odette, Valentine, Chaudordy... Then we went to the Bois with Adeline. Crowds of elegant people. We brought from Nice a black servant named Félix Saïd, who creates a sensation. Soutzo, with his sister, greets me gravely.
He was apparently a soldier somewhere. Bojidar dines here and does not quite explain how it is that he sees Soutzo, having said he was the lowest of pigs and that Soutzo had not dared appear at his sister's wedding because he was afraid of meeting Alexis or Bojidar. And now he says this Soutzo is more mad than wicked. In a word, these are intrigues not to be troubled about — let all these indifferent people sort themselves out among themselves. But I had something else to say; I can no longer remember what reflection on love it was, following something I read this morning.
Love — there is the eternal subject... to let oneself be loved by a man who has enough disadvantages to regard you as a goddess descended from heaven for his sake... that would have a certain charm... someone who acknowledged his own unworthiness... To know that with one glance one pours out billions of felicities... there is something there... charitable, that flatters whatever generosities one may possess.