Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 13 February 1882

Since Saturday I have begun a picture. For a fortnight now I have been searching — I had settled on two or three things but they went no further than the second sitting; it is always so when it is not the right one. One resigns oneself to a subject so as not to lose time in searching, then one thinks one has found it... Besides, what is sought rarely succeeds; it does not always succeed even when it is found — but at least one has had the pleasure of having been seized.
When shall I persuade myself that the subject is nothing in unskilled hands! And yet even for simple studies, what you are doing must please you.
Look — telling myself that the subject ought not to preoccupy me, I had undertaken a picture that made me very unhappy for four or five days; I dared not let it go and I had not the heart to work. Since I gave it up I feel delivered. I am making sketches, watercolours for the first time, every minute is taken; I have almost consoled myself for Breslau's successes, and I have found my picture — for apart from smaller things I must bring a substantial study back to Julian. It is three urchins beside a carriage gate. It seems to me extremely lifelike and amusing. The blow of Wolff's article did me good; I was crushed, annihilated, and the reaction made me understand things about art that had tormented me because I could not find them, though I suspected their existence. It forced me into a salutary effort; I am also beginning to understand what I used to read about the struggles and sufferings of artists — I used to laugh at it as an empty romanticism.
That famous will of Breslau's — I have called upon it, and I see that great efforts are needed to obtain those results that I... thought fell from the sky.
It is that I have had virtually no real effort to make until now. This extreme ease of working has spoiled me. Breslau obtains beautiful results, but very laboriously; I, when it does not come at once and by itself, am left helpless. That must be overcome. So with sketches, charcoal compositions — I tried to force myself to push them to the desired clarity, and I succeeded in producing things I believed myself incapable of, and which I thought others achieved by tricks and almost sorceries, so reluctantly does one credit others with the faculties one does not possess.
What else? La Linsingen came with a thousand graces — the matter is to get Étincelle to write about her son's uniform, and since Saint-Amand is our friend and it is he who furnishes Étincelle with intelligence... I said that I know little of Saint-Amand's relations with Étincelle, that I believe they are on bad terms, but that I shall telegraph Saint-Amand and urge her to do the same — which she does. As for me, I telegraph nothing; I confine myself to composing her dispatch and promising to telegraph. She departs enchanted by my "ministerial style," my obligingness, and so forth.
She is an old schemer who almost shone in the days of Gavini's prefecture and who is on intimate terms with everyone of high station on earth. If one had paid her the courtesies one paid to Gavini... But I intend to apply myself to it.
What else? Yes, Paul's wife... A good soul, but... I would like to say it with kindness... Provincial, middle-class, stupid, and vain — and with it all, a constant stream of clumsy little lies to boast of a heap of silly things that would be out of place anywhere. She tells you about dresses she has had that I know full well — like those peasants who invent princesses with eyes of pearl and hair of diamonds.
And I, instead of saying nothing, tease her a little... Gently, and [Blacked out: above all] to cure her of this failing — but naturally it vexes her to be caught out and to fail to impress me. But then I ought to let it pass... it is too childish to take the trouble to... Yet I have this rage to want to improve everything, arrange it, polish it, beautify it; to educate that little woman, for example... Not that I say so — I would set about it willingly — but truly she is a little stupid, and then one cannot foresee success. Poor Paul — that is to say, no, he is not much better. They adore me; I am very fond of them. But what an unappetising household... They are not even clean... but then, in the provinces and in Russia... What else?
Dithyrambic letters from Saint-Amand and Géry, the Gavinis, the princess, etc. Everyone — except Julian, who alone has not replied.
We have seen Barnola and General Bibi. Old Audiffret is here.
If I could continue to work as I have these days I should be very happy. It is not only a matter of working like a machine, but of being occupied every moment and thinking about what one does — that is happiness. No anxiety can withstand it. And I, who complain so often, come now to give thanks to God for these three days, while trembling that it may not last.
Everything changes its aspect then; the petty miseries scarcely trouble me any more — one is above all that, and there is something radiant in one's whole being.
A divine indulgence toward the vile multitude, who know nothing of the secret causes — shifting, undulating, and various — of your beatitude, more fragile than the most fragile of flowers.