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.

Cet artiste grandit par la persecution. Il ne faut pas y toucher, o Stephanie ?

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.

Depuis deux mois je vois deux fois par semaine le docteur indique par M. Duplay...

I am no better, but one hopes it will not worsen. "And if it doesn't worsen, you should count yourself fortunate."

Je ne suis pas mieux, mais on espere que cela n'augmentera pas.

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.

C'est dur. Le medecin est un jeune a l'air fin et intelligent...

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?

Comme il avait envie sans doute de me dire que je l'intriguai aussi...

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.

Et comme une certaine familiarite s'est etablie entre ce medecin et cette malade originale...

— Oh! It is because you told him about all our conversations on politics and women's rights...

— Oh ! c'est parce que vous lui avez parle de toutes nos conversations sur la politique et le droit des femmes...

— Not at all, I assure you...

— Non pas du tout, je vous assure...

— But I didn't say ten words to him.

— Mais je ne lui ai pas dit dix mots.

— In any case, I don't know.

— Enfin, je ne sais pas.

— And you — do I intrigue you as well?

— Et vous, est-ce que je vous intrigue aussi ?

— Why yes.

— Mais oui.

— Well?

— Eh bien ?

— 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.

— Eh bien je vous l'ai dit vous n'avez rien d'ordinaire...

— Certainly, and so what [blacked-out words: do I represent]

— Certainement, eh bien qu'est-ce [Mots noircis: que je represente]

— Well, one places a large question mark.

— Eh bien, on se pose un grand point d'interrogation.

— And then?

— Et puis

— I don't know, but what is certain is that you are extraordinary.

— Mais je ne sais pas, ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que vous etes extraordinaire.

— Outlandish ideas, then?

— Des idees biscornues alors ?

— No, very sound, wide knowledge... In any case you are not like everyone else, and one places a large question mark.

— Non, tres justes, des connaissances etendues...

— In short, do I seem respectable?

— Enfin, ai-je l'air respectable ?

— Why certainly.

— Mais certainement.

— 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...

— Eh bien c'est quelque chose... Mais ce qui me frappe, c'est que M. Duplay ait ete frappe ?

What must he think, this young doctor who so willingly talked about public affairs with this poor incurable patient?

Qu'est-ce qu'il doit penser ce petit medecin qui causait si volontiers des affaires publiques avec cette pauvre malade incurable ?

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?

Je suis donc intelligente ? Quelle coquetterie !

In any case! Heaven is not kind to me...

Enfin ! Le ciel n'est pas bon pour moi...