Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 19 February 1883

But I am in haste to proclaim a great, entirely new truth — I have just discovered it with the assistance of my fellow-beings... Fellow-beings — never in my life! I shall perhaps become their equal through their efforts, but for the present I am still worth more. Here it is: Justice does not exist! Oh, there I go saying something stupid. It is singular how the pen changes ideas and what precision and what truth one would wish to impart to it...
Well, no matter — this is to say that bad faith is the most atrocious and most revolting of vices! Ah, let us be just! Outside of justice there is nothing. Justice contains all the virtues, and if we were just we should be perfectly happy.
Apply it, extend it to everything — outside of Justice, all is false, dark, and horrible; without it there is no possible system, no happiness for the human race... Ah, why did God create us thus, my God. Why are we young, and why do we then change only to revolt other young people!
You will well understand that this cry from the heart has a personal cause... Julian is a dirty Jew — I had been told as much, and I had persisted in regarding him not only as an excellent man but also as a friend. But a friend — that, that matters not (?). He is not even just. There it is. He had promised to get my pastel admitted to some Circle or other, and another painting perhaps — the one he thought good enough to advise me to send to the Salon. As for the pastel, it is very good — that is established. I reminded him of this promise again a fortnight ago. Now the last exhibition before the Salon opens tomorrow.
I hasten to send him this little note:
"Dear Monsieur, I come to thank you a thousand and a thousand times — thanks to you my pastel and another painting are to be exhibited at the Circle of xxx.
You are truly kind when you choose to take an interest in someone.
Your very devoted and grateful, Marie Bashkirtseff."
Now. Now there it all is. Can it be because I no longer attend his studio? I cannot believe in feelings so base... And then, in the midst of these indignations, a strange satisfaction — a very sweet pleasure — because the surrounding darkness throws into relief (in my own eyes) a superiority. I am good, I am generous, and I am just. It is enough to make one weep!
It is simply unimaginable! Three years ago he got my first canvas admitted to the Salon — and it was very bad — and now that I am beginning to be something, he has not wished to have this pastel placed in a Circle, a pastel that is truly very good and which he himself — who is certainly not given to praise — was obliged to proclaim a work of the first order!
And that head, and the other painted one, would have done me credit there... Perhaps that is just it — at the Salon no one looks at pastels, and the painted head would have gone unnoticed too, even though quite good! But that is precisely what was needed for a small exhibition... You know, when I do something badly I blame only myself and so much the worse for me — but to have there two frames that would have done me some credit, and to say it is because — !!
Dreams never deceive after all — I was expecting some grief. There it is; so much the better, at least I know what it is.
No! This is too much! This man has the audacity to tell me that for two years I have done nothing and that what I did before was better — !! One does not mock the world in this fashion. But come now, you may think that I am blind to my own case. Well, here is something to prove to you that I am right! He dares — do you hear — he dares to say that Mlle Delsarte draws better than Breslau — !! It is enough to make one jump out the window. Delsarte is a young woman who for twelve years has drawn charcoal profiles, some of which have been very good — but there it all ends. And Breslau is an artist! My God, I would rather belittle her, but it is impossible. Breslau is already an artist.