Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 22 January 1883

This artist grows greater through persecution. One must not touch him, o Stéphanie? But I love him then. Some dirty invention will be the result — in the meantime, it cheers me up.
For two months I have been seeing twice a week the doctor recommended by M. Duplay, who, as you may recall, did not have time to monitor me himself. The treatment that was to have certainly given good results has given none.
I am no better, but one hopes it will not worsen. "And if it doesn't worsen, you should count yourself fortunate."
It is hard. The doctor is a young man with a perceptive and intelligent air; we have talked at every visit, especially since the death of the ever-lamented Gambetta. I went to my treatments with eyes still red from tears. In any case, this evening, as it was the penultimate session, he told me that M. Duplay had inquired after me several times — I had apparently intrigued him.
As he clearly wished to tell me that I intrigued him as well, I draw him out by saying... That no, really — and why had M. Duplay been intrigued?
And since a certain easy familiarity has developed between this doctor and this unusual patient, I tell him frankly that it amuses me greatly to know the impression I make on people. Well, it seems that one sees three thousand patients of whom one rarely remembers anything, but that I had struck this terrible surgeon called Duplay. [Blacked-out words: I seem to him?] extraordinary, and he would have liked to talk with you.
— Oh! It is because you told him about all our conversations on politics and women's rights...
— Not at all, I assure you...
— But I didn't say ten words to him.
— In any case, I don't know.
— And you — do I intrigue you as well?
— Why yes.
— Well?
— Well, as I have told you, there is nothing ordinary about you — you have ideas of your own, it is quite unlike anything one sees every day... You told me yourself that you were brought up like a man, and you advocate education and equality for women.
— Certainly, and so what [blacked-out words: do I represent]
— Well, one places a large question mark.
— And then?
— I don't know, but what is certain is that you are extraordinary.
— Outlandish ideas, then?
— No, very sound, wide knowledge... In any case you are not like everyone else, and one places a large question mark.
— In short, do I seem respectable?
— Why certainly.
— Well, that is something... But what strikes me is that M. Duplay should have been struck? I did my best to have nothing... striking about me...
What must he think, this young doctor who so willingly talked about public affairs with this poor incurable patient?
So I am intelligent? What vanity! And to transcribe this conversation as though to give myself a certificate. No, but in any case it is true — with people like this doctor, like Emile Bastien, like Julian, I am at home; I produce interesting ideas that strike even me by their soundness... There is exchange, living conversation... I would be the same in that educated, modern, bustling world one meets at Mme Adam's, for example... But at our house, with whom? With the minor people of society... It is absurd — for ten minutes of waltz or an exchange of pleasantries, responses to compliments... and then what?
In any case! Heaven is not kind to me...