Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 18 April 1883

Do you know what I am doing? I am entering the competition at Julian's.
A clothed female figure, with hands. It is very unglamorous — but since the men's studios will enter this competition too, there is the impossible hope of beating the men, and off I go… Just think — some of them have entered the Rome Prize! Judging will be in four weeks, as the four studios will each do the same figure in turn.
If I receive a mention this year, I shall have advanced faster than Breslau, who had studied seriously before going to Julian's. Well…
Nothing new. Last Monday there was no perspective lesson, little Mlle Canrobert having mumps — but the architect came all the same, along with Brisbane, and I was able to extol Saint-Marceaux. Saint-Marceaux is making Bastien's bust. The day I shall see that!
The architect says Breslau is very unhappy. It seems she has all manner of difficulties and no one takes an interest in her — this year she was barely accepted. [Words blacked out: I believed] quite the contrary.
She has been unkind to me — she still goes about repeating all manner of venomous little tales about me: every joke that may have slipped from my lips, and those feet painted by Schaeppi. She does me a great deal of harm, for trivial things gain enormous proportions in the retelling. And yet what Jules's brother told me caused me pain. Far from rejoicing at this girl's misfortunes, I am saddened by them. It wrings the heart — and I am moved at once, even for strangers, for enemies.
[In the margin: Perhaps I make myself out to be too good — and am I truly certain I am not pleased in some way in spite of myself, as if hiding from myself? No — if she is unhappy, my talent does not thereby increase. So why rejoice.]
Because every injustice revolts me deeply. She has great talent. The architect says my talent equals hers. I protested at once, full of modesty. This architect is truly very generous.
In short, Lefèvre and Bouguereau and Tony say I shall receive a mention at least. The maid overheard their conversation with Julian and repeated it to Rosalie.
If I could win the medal in the competition!… To beat two men's studios — two hundred students. But it is impossible… it would be as overwhelming as if I had received a mention two years ago. I shall beat them when it no longer astonishes me to try.
Yet it seems to me that heaven is in the process of granting me compensations for the misfortune that has struck me.
The weather is heavy…
Tomorrow I shall paint the head.
We have had evening engagements on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; this evening my family goes to the Opéra, and tomorrow to Odette's.
As for me — I am doing my competition piece.
I have just been playing the piano — it began with the two divine marches of Chopin and Beethoven, and then I played at random I know not what, things so ravishing that I am still listening to myself. Is it not strange! I shall not now be able to recover a single note of it, and if I tried to improvise I could not — it requires the hour, the minute, I know not what. And now divine melodies pass through my mind; if I had a voice I should sing ravishing things, unknown things, dramatic things… Why…
Life is too short. One has no time to do anything!
I should like to sculpt without ceasing to paint…
It is not sculpture as such that I want to do. But I see beautiful things, and I feel an imperious need to render what I see. I have learnt to paint — but I have not painted because I wished to make this or that picture. Whereas here I know how to work clay and give body to my visions.
Saint-Marceaux… The first sculptor was God, who made the first man from the clay of the earth and gave him a soul. There is all art explained.
To knead a figure from clay — every great talent can do that, with more or less success: Chapu, Dubois, Falguière, Barrias, Millet. But to give a soul to that clay — there is only Saint-Marceaux. The smallest of his busts live, do you understand! They are entire existences; in the eyes of his stone figures one sees their life. They live, at last.

Notes

In English in the original. ↩