Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 5 September 1882

Bojidar arrived from the country yesterday and... Dinner at ours, the priest too. It rains every day; the moment I begin something outdoors I am soaked, and the moment I return to painting in the studio the sun comes out, so that... And then... For in the end... Always the same thing.
On one side the house faces rue Ampère — the door is at no. 30, rue Ampère — and there are nothing but fine hôtels with studios for the most part; but on the other side we face rue Brémontier, which is full of little hôtels and kept women. That is the dreadful thing: the house is built on a corner lot where the rue Ampère, the rue Brémontier and the avenue Wagram intersect, and the angled cut of the house faces all this. So from the balcony one sees the little hôtels of the rue Brémontier; it had horrified me on arrival, and it was then that there was talk of subletting the house. For these women fill me with horror, as though I had already suffered on their account, or were going to suffer greatly... You remember the note in Le Figaro about the Nice races in 1876. Since then... And after that, in Naples, it became a real illness — I was forever convinced that people took me for a kept woman... And at the grand hotel with my aunt, since I had a marvellous voice and sang all manner of opera arias in my room, I was taken for a singer, and well-informed people added: from the Saint-Michel Theatre in Petersburg.
Now this neighbourhood... And besides, when I paint, often — very often — I do not think about how I am dressed; most of the time it is an old skirt and some camisole or other... The workmen, the architects' clerks, the paperhangers — they all came and went, come and go, it must seem strange to them... In short, I have been known to smoke and it is possible someone saw me... And then my hair is always dreadfully ill-arranged — in short, I am a deplorable sight... It is poor Émile Bastien who is making me say all this: [Crossed out: and that often] with my aunt, the two of them smoking, and I laughingly reproached him for smoking in my house, and he replied that I smoked myself. And how do you know that? "But yes — and you smoke extraordinarily fine tobacco."
"And who told you?"
"Well... Listen — and this is rather odd: I was in a restaurant and I heard three men, one of whom said he had been to the rue Ampère. What number? 30. So I listened and heard your first name mentioned..."
"Marie?"
"Yes — and he said... He spoke of a young girl... charming, who smokes very good tobacco, and then of your dress... But I did not hear well."
He could not have said... But I am dismayed... And it is my fault, and one day it will make me very unhappy — for such things strike me when they strike true...
It gives me a headache... And I was stupid with this poor architect — I questioned him about who those men were, and he believes they were clerks from Pevrier's, the architect of the house.
I imagined that this brother of Bastien's was no longer respectful as before and was looking at me differently, and it embarrassed me and I was foolish, laughing too much, and in the end he must have... Oh, I no longer know. It rains every day — it is desperate for me who want to work outdoors... I finished a little girl with an umbrella; it is bad, and the child had an odious face — one of those little imps of nine, pretty and disagreeable as can be. So I went to the home, and I dare not tackle two little boys at once; I shall be forced to finish badly — one must allow eight days for each face, given the rain and the vexations...
And if I were to do the men at the café... I no longer know — things strike me and then... An unbalanced nature, head the wrong way round, and with all that... In short, a madwoman who is aware of it...
Dumas père said that when one hesitates between two things it is because neither is right... And he adds that he has never hesitated more than five minutes in his life. He is either very fortunate or very untruthful.
I shall not go to Russia... That is to say — for in the end there is no reason, and — I am sure that whatever I choose I shall fall on the wrong. I beg your pardon for speaking English — it is the novel I have been reading; otherwise, the compatriots of the Duke of Hamilton inspire in me nothing but disgust, as the incarnation of calculation, egotism and other vices. This business of Egypt and the Suez Canal!
They talked of shipping off M. de Lesseps, who inconvenienced them in their iniquities... I, to whom it is quite indifferent, leapt at this insult to glory, to merit, to honour. And they would have done it had they had absolute need!... Such cold and cynical infamy leaves one without recourse... It seems to me that one could not defend oneself...

Notes

In English in the original. ↩