Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 14 December 1882

In the morning we go to see the canvases the real Bastien has just brought back from the country. He is there, arranging the edges of the pictures and certain details in the backgrounds. We meet as friends — he is so kind, such a good fellow... Perhaps he is not all that, but he has so much talent; still, he is charming. And the poor architect quite eclipsed by the fraternal radiance. He has brought back several studies: a village evening — the moon already showing, the windows lighting up; a man returning from the fields turning to speak to a woman who is making her way towards the house where the window is lit; the dusk rendered marvellously; the calm that takes over everything; people returning home; everything falls silent; only a dog can be heard barking. Such colour, such poetry, such charm!
The genre of Jules Breton, who is called a poet the size of your fist, would be better. There is also a forge where an old fellow is working. It is very small, and no less beautiful than those marvellous small brown canvases one sees in the Louvre.
Alongside these, landscapes — water, Venice and London. And two large canvases: an English flower-seller and a young girl in a field. They are life-size and filled me with stupefaction, so inferior do they seem to him at his best.
First one is dazzled by the variety and the absolute power of a talent that disdains speciality and does everything superbly. His English street boy is a cut above those two girls; as for last year's boy entitled Pas de chance — [words blacked out: it is simply] a masterpiece. In the afternoon I pose at Tony's, and the portrait is finished!! What happiness.

Notes

The "real Bastien": Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884), distinguished from his brother Émile the architect by the superlative of his talent. Jules had just returned from a working trip to the country — probably to Damvillers in the Meuse, his native region. ↩
Jules Breton (1827–1906): celebrated painter of idealized peasant scenes in a lyrical, poetic style. Called "a poet the size of your fist" — Marie's characteristically double-edged phrase implying he is a genuine poet but a minor one. ↩
Pas de chance (also known as Pas méché): Bastien-Lepage's large painting of a London street boy (1882), exhibited at the Salon. The title is slang for "Hard luck" or "Nothing doing." Marie considers it a masterpiece. ↩