Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 18 October 1882

We are in considerable agitation over Michka's obstinate absence, and one dare not go to fetch the Pomars, since they have promised their visit for one of these days and it would be ridiculous to show too much impatience. One must seem indifferent — but there is the hunt and their co-operation is needed; and since it is Sunday, Paul and Garnitsky go off to Dikanka, to the young princes' estate, for time is required to organise the battue, the nets, and a whole mass of complicated things — for it is in their forest that one hunts. You know these hunts are immense affairs: there may be a thousand peasants, and the nets will surround several kilometres of woodland; the police have been notified, and the official hunt has been postponed on Papa's account, since one hunts by law in the crown forests. I have no time to explain all this, for I am still under the impression of this morning's scene between Paul and his wife. This woman is stupid, dirty, ill-bred, and ugly — she has dreadful teeth, with one missing in front; her figure is slack, she has not the slightest charm... But all that would be nothing if she were gentle, kind, and simple. She is querulous and full of her own superiority.
She ended by saying that Paul was a bad father, that she could have no experience having only her second child and never having had one before, and that it was for him to supervise the wet nurses, the warmth or coolness of the bath (?) — in short... I hardly know what — things so diffuse and grievances so utterly lacking in substance that it gives me the impression of a cloud of smoke irritating the nerves horribly. She is playing the child; yet a woman of twenty-four or twenty-five, a mother, ought to know more than a boy of twenty-three.
And the house is untidy and dirty.
And yet the house is large enough, for they are lodging in the red house now. Poor fat Paul tried to carry it off with laughter and to smooth the rough edges in our presence — so that we could not say to him: what did we tell you? At every turn he declares that he adores his wife and is perfectly happy; he says it too often. And she exaggerates her love for the children, speaks endearments... In the end it made me uncomfortable — like something that rings false.
Paul is the best husband in the world. He received not a sou of dowry, and everything Maman gave him has been spent on his wife and children; he spends nothing on himself and thinks only of his family — at barely twenty-two or twenty-three. I myself am very tender toward Madame; to be otherwise would be awkward, and besides I want to meddle in nothing. I note it here only — and the Princess, who is as much a stranger to these things as I am, shares my view. But really, one should have heard her: she wrote Paul a letter to say she would go to her father's with the children. And all because the boy's wet nurse seems downcast, which Paul can do nothing about, and because she fears the milk may turn. Had you been there you would have thought both babies had been crippled or killed by Paul's negligence. And both were thriving perfectly. As for her...

Notes

Battue: a driven hunt, in which beaters drive game toward the waiting guns. ↩