A quantity of articles about our party have appeared, and one in particular attributes the artistic organization of the evening to Bastien-Lepage. I seem to have passed off Emile for the real one, and to have boasted of it... It is so intolerable that I write at once to the architect and accuse him of having given false information to the newspapers. The article stated that M. Bashkirtseff is a former governor of the province of Poltava; I seize on this and write:

Well then, it was you who gave information to the Voltaire. My father has not been removed from his post, Bastien-Lepage decorated nothing, etc. In short, who but you would know that you hung three draperies with my cousin? If it wasn't you, I forgive you.

Here is his reply in deplorable French — poor architect.

And here is mine.

I am delighted to have provoked this explanation; one can only repair irreparable foolishness with frankness. That is what we are doing... This is not the first time we have been attacked with greater or lesser gravity — for I see it now, the malice is aimed at us. If you had no part in this morning's inept article — and on reflection I believe you — I would not for anything in the world wish there to be even the shadow of a suspicion that we had boasted of imaginary organization or decorations. You feel well enough how intolerable such a role would be, how ridiculous, and how repugnant to me it would be to appear foolishly to have put well-known names forward. The intention to place us in a false position with regard to one another is evident. And what is most sad is that they succeeded.

One may tell oneself that it is all explained — no matter, a cloud remains, and it is maddening when one thinks of the pleasure it gives to those who wanted it so.

As for you, to be well received, and also I think elsewhere, you have absolutely no need for people to take you for your brother.

I cannot tell you how much these miserable perfidies affect me. [In the margin: Mad or wicked — these stories crush me. And while telling him yesterday not to come back, I asked him why he speaks ill of me, that "if I did not wish to marry you, that is not sufficient reason to cover a young woman [blacked-out words: who did not want] to say yes to you with infamies."]

Let us never speak of it again, but know, both of you, that my family and I will always be happy to count you among our best friends.

So until Wednesday at eleven o'clock — it is agreed.

With friendly regards.

Marie Bashkirtseff

In any case all of this agitates me excessively. It prevented him from coming on Friday, and it cuts short our budding friendship with the real Bastien. Friendship... I suspect no malice — the articles, on the contrary, were meant to be agreeable... But it creates an absolutely detestable state of affairs! It is awkward, it is absurd, it is tiresome. Oh! — not to mention the notes which I was foolish enough to send to Etincelle, who asked me for them "to console herself in her absence." Do you think the Fitz-Jameses and the Charettes enjoy being put in the advertisements like that...

I am not having an easy time of it... And I would dearly like to undo all that, but Saint-Amand rightly says it is too late, that it is impossible, that now it is launched... Villevielle comes to see me and I complain to him about the journalists. And at six o'clock we go with Maman to the Duchess's, who receives us in bed, and I prepare her with complaints about tomorrow's Figaro article. She tells us that the ladies she was to bring — Mmes de Vaufreland, de Villeneuve-Bargemont, etc. — were told she had said no and that there was no evening reception. I am considerably put out.

[In the margin: Alexis and Dusautoy come running in the evening to recount that it was they who sent Soutzo to us to clear himself, but that they are convinced it was him, though he is not responsible because he is mad, and that his sisters have charged Alexis to send this filthy character away from Paris, and that he is very compromising even if a fool and even mad. And that he has abominably compromised me and that our door must absolutely be shut to him. As for that — it is done.]