Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 28 December 1882

Never mind all that! I am consumptive. He told me so today: "Take care of yourself — one must attempt to be cured; you will regret it." My doctor is a young man with an intelligent air; to my objections against blister plasters and other outrages he replies that I shall regret it, and that he has never in his life seen so extraordinary a patient. And also that from my appearance one would never, never guess my illness — I look flourishing indeed, and yet both lungs are affected, though the left considerably less. The first time I felt pain on the left was on coming out of the holy catacombs at Kiev, where we had all gone to beg God and the relics of His saints to cure me — at great expense in masses and roubles. A week ago hardly anything could be heard in the left lung yet. He asked whether I have consumptive relatives. Yes: my great-grandfather and his two sisters — the Comtesse de Toulouse-Lautrec and Mme Stralbo. One great-great-grandfather and two great-aunts.
"In any case, whatever one may say — you are consumptive." I was swaying slightly on my legs going down the staircase of this good man who takes such interest in so original a patient. It can be arrested if I do what is necessary. That is to say: blister plasters and the south of France. To disfigure my shoulders for a year and go into exile.
What is a year set against one's whole life? Not that my life is beautiful, by the way.
I am very calm, but a little astonished to be alone in the secret of my misfortunes. And the card-readers who predict so much happiness for me — though la Jacob did announce an illness. Here it is. For her prediction to be entirely realised, the following are still missing: great success, money, marriage, and then the love of a married man. In any case, I feel pain on the left — the less ill side. Potain always refused to say the lungs were affected; he used the usual formulas in such cases — the bronchi, bronchitis, etc. It is better to know exactly; it decides me to do everything, except leave this year.
Next winter I shall have the painting of the Holy Women as a reason to explain the journey south. This winter would mean starting all the irritations of last year over again. Everything — but not the south, and trust in God.
In any case the reason the doctor has said all this is that since he has been treating me things have been going worse. He is treating my ears, and I only mentioned my chest by chance, laughing about it — and then he listened, ordered granules (a month ago), and above all those things put on the skin, which I could not bring myself to accept, hoping the illness would not progress so fast.
So — I am consumptive? For only two or three years. And in sum it is not advanced enough for me to die of it; it is only very tiresome.
Oh, yes. But how to explain my healthy appearance — and that I can no longer get into bodices that were made well before I was ill and when nothing was in question. One must assume I shall grow thin suddenly; it may be because I am young, and because of my broad shoulders, rounded bosom, and Spanish hips. I cannot get over all these catastrophes.
In short — let them give me ten years more, and during those ten years, glory and love, and I shall die content at thirty. No — at thirty-five. If there were someone with whom to negotiate, I would make a bargain.
To die at thirty-five, having lived. He would still be young at that point — he is fourteen or fifteen years older than I.
Tony is forty-five and is young; the other would be forty-nine at the time of my death.
Carolus is older than that and one could still love him, especially if one had loved him in advance. Ah, wretchedness. But I should like to recover... That is to say — to arrest the disease; for it can never be cured, but one lives with it and for a long time — as long as any concierge. Consumptive! The word is there, and the thing. I shall put on as many blister plasters as one likes — but I want to paint.
I shall be able to conceal the mark with bodices of flowers and lace and tulle and a thousand ravishing things that one wears without needing to — it could even be pretty. Ah! I console myself. One does not wear blister plasters one's whole life; after a year, two years of care, I shall be like everyone else, I shall be young... I...
Ah! I told you I would have to die. God, unable to give me what would make life possible, gets out of it by killing me. After overwhelming me with miseries, He kills me to put an end to it. I told you I would have to die — it could not last, this thirst for everything, these colossal aspirations; it could not last. I told you, long ago, years ago, in Nice, when I still vaguely glimpsed all that I would need in order to live. But others have more and do not die! Come now!
I shall tell no one — except Julian, who dined here; and in the evening, finding ourselves alone for a moment, I gave him a meaningful nod while indicating my throat and chest with my hand.
He refuses to believe it — I appear so robust. He reassures me, citing friends about whom the doctors had been mistaken...
At this he asks what I think of Heaven — I had said that Heaven was mistreating me. What do I think of it? Not much good. He believes I believe [crossed out: that there is nothing and] that there is something all the same. Yes — it is possible. I read him Musset's "L'espoir en Dieu," and he replies with the invocation or the imprecations of Frank... "I want to live!!" So do I. But look — I find this position of one condemned, or nearly so, rather amusing. It is a pose, an emotion; I contain a mystery; death has touched me with its finger; there is a certain charm in that — it is new, to begin with.
And to be able for real to speak of my death — it is interesting, and I repeat: it amuses me. It is a pity one cannot without inconvenience have any other audience than my confessor Julian.

Notes

Consumptive (poitrinaire): the 19th-century term for tuberculosis of the lungs. The actual word tuberculose was not yet in common use; poitrine (chest) gave the noun poitrinaire. The diagnosis here — given on 28 December 1882 — is confirmed by two physicians. Marie would die of tuberculosis on 31 October 1884, twenty-two months later. ↩
The holy catacombs at Kiev: the famous Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), one of the most important Orthodox pilgrimage sites in Eastern Europe. The Bashkirtseff family clearly stopped there on their autumn journey and prayed for Marie's health — an act of piety that did not prevent the diagnosis. ↩
Comtesse de Toulouse-Lautrec: Marie's family had a collateral connection with the Toulouse-Lautrec family. The Comte Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec, father of the painter Henri, was Marie's distant relative. The family had a strong hereditary predisposition to tuberculosis. ↩
Potain: Dr. Pierre-Carl Potain (1825–1901), one of the most eminent Parisian physicians of the century, a specialist in cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases who taught at the Paris medical faculty. His use of vague formulae (bronchitis, etc.) was a common medical practice when telling patients the truth about tuberculosis was considered psychologically harmful. ↩
The Holy Women (les Saintes femmes): a large religious painting Marie had in mind — the scene at the tomb on Easter morning. She worked on preparatory studies for it but it was never completed. ↩
Frank: the hero of Musset's dramatic poem La Coupe et les Lèvres (1832). Frank's passionate invocation — "I want to live!" — is one of Musset's most celebrated lyric outbursts. Julian citing it in response to Marie's reading of "L'espoir en Dieu" turns their evening into an impromptu literary wake. ↩